Assembling a jigsaw puzzle without knowing the full picture is hard. While each piece offers a glimpse of the colors and textures, only zooming out can reveal how those pieces will connect to form a cohesive image.
Holistic marketing is like completing a puzzle—it involves understanding how all parts of your marketing efforts work together to form a full picture. For example, Kylie Cosmetics uses Instagram and TikTok to engage with customers through launch countdowns, makeup challenges, and live product demos. On the surface, the cosmetics company may seem like a social-media-first brand. However, it weaves together multiple touchpoints— from paid ads and email marketing to pop-up shops and retail collaborations—to create brand consistency across multiple channels.
Here are the benefits of holistic marketing and how to create a holistic marketing strategy that leaves no puzzle piece behind.
What is holistic marketing?
The term “holistic” refers to the philosophy that things must be understood as a whole—not just as collections of parts—since all the components are interconnected. Holistic marketing achieves this by integrating all marketing efforts—from search engine optimization (SEO) to email and social media—to create a seamless customer experience across all channels.
In holistic marketing, every tactic supports and amplifies others. By contrast, traditional or tactic-driven marketing often employs a more siloed approach, where each channel is understood to operate independently of the others.
Why take a holistic marketing approach?
Holistic marketing helps create a seamless customer journey, because all touchpoints are interconnected. This cohesion allows for a consistent brand message throughout the entire customer journey. That said, successful holistic marketing strategies don’t just consider cross-channel efforts; they incorporate your marketing goals as well.
From long-term strategic goals to tactical executions, a holistic approach supports multiple sub-types of marketing, including:
- Relationship marketing. Relationship marketing is designed to build long-lasting customer relationships—the kind that fosters brand loyalty and advocacy. These types of relationships rely on a holistic approach.
- Socially responsible marketing. Socially responsible marketing upholds ethical standards and creates a positive impact. It only works when all of your marketing channels amplify a socially responsible message.
- Integrated marketing. Without a top-level, holistic point of view, it’s nearly impossible to execute an integrated marketing plan that delivers a consistent customer experience across all touchpoints.
Put simply, if you rely on several marketing channels to reach a diverse customer base and want your brand messaging to be consistent, you’ll want to take a holistic approach.
How to create a holistic marketing strategy
- Define your goals
- Review your marketing channels
- Map cross-channel effects
- Review channel dependencies
- Reconsider channel delivery
- Measure results
A holistic marketing philosophy can make the difference between a successful, unified customer experience and ineffective, fragmented initiatives. Here’s how to create a winning strategy:
1. Define your goals
Define your goals and objectives so you and your team can work toward a common vision. Some common goals include:
- Improve the brand experience. If your customers express confusion about what your brand stands for or offers, set an objective like enhancing messaging consistency across all your marketing channels or improving user flows to minimize frustration.
- Increase customer retention. If your goal is to improve customer retention, a strategy might be to implement a loyalty program so first-time customers become returning ones.
- Increase revenue. To increase revenue, you might try boosting organic traffic to high-converting product pages—a task that requires multiple teams working together.
For the sake of clarity and productivity, set a goal you can measure. For instance, you can measure revenue increases through financial statements and improvements in the customer experience through sentiment analysis and rates of cart abandonment. Generating goodwill in your community—that’s a bit harder to quantify.
2. Review your marketing channels
Review all your marketing channels and tactics. Where are you currently interacting with or reaching potential customers? This could include:
Listing your channels this way provides a comprehensive view of your marketing landscape, allowing you to spot gaps or areas that need more attention.
3. Map cross-channel effects
Examine your entire marketing mix to map how channels interact and reinforce one another. For example, organic traffic might drive lead generation, while fresh blog content supports your email marketing efforts. Assess how customers move between these channels throughout their journey. For example, they might click an ad, visit a product page, make a purchase, and then receive a series of personalized onboarding emails.
To make this dot-connecting process easier, consider using a customer data platform (CDP) like Segment or implementing UTM parameters to track interactions on Google Analytics.
4. Review channel dependencies
Do any tactics rely on others for success? Email marketing requires new visitors and high-quality content to generate subscribers. Organic social media builds engaged audiences to support your paid social media efforts.
Involve members from your various teams—like product, customer success, and marketing—to gather diverse perspectives and better understand dependencies. An online whiteboard like Miro can be effective for visually mapping out all cross-channel interactions. You can use this information to automate workflows and create more cross-functionality.
5. Reconsider channel delivery
With a solid grasp of your marketing mix and how your channels interact, reassess your overall plan for executing each tactic. This means thinking strategically about how each channel can reinforce one another. Who isn’t getting what they need? How can the different channels support each other better?
For example, you could create a customer referral strategy not just to acquire customers but improve engagement across email and social media. You might provide incentives for sharing referral links and user-generated content or subscribing to your email list. You could then send an email welcome series to nurture new subscribers with personalized product recommendations.
With this approach, all channels support each other, taking your referral program from an isolated tactic to a holistic strategy.
6. Measure results
Measure success tactically (evaluating each specific channel) and holistically (considering the impact of your marketing strategy on overall business goals) for a complete picture. Evaluating each channel individually helps you understand how each cog performs and how well it contributes to the machine. Tactical metrics include:
- Social media. Engagement rate (likes, comments, shares), follower growth.
Measuring results holistically forces you to zoom out to understand the cumulative effect of all your marketing initiatives on your business goals. Key metrics include:
- Revenue growth. Total income generated by your marketing efforts across all channels.
- Marketing efficiency ratio (MER). Total revenue divided by total marketing spend.
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC) relative to all marketing investments. Total marketing spend divided by the number of new customers acquired across all channels.
Put together, these metrics will help you better understand which changes lead to improvement and which could use more work.
Holistic marketing FAQ
What is a holistic strategy?
A holistic digital marketing strategy integrates all aspects of your marketing efforts. It creates a unified experience across all channels and touchpoints. This stands in contrast to a tactic-specific strategy, which only considers one channel.
What is the difference between holistic marketing and traditional marketing?
Holistic marketing integrates all marketing efforts to create a seamless brand experience across all channels. In holistic marketing, every tactic supports and amplifies others. Traditional or tactic-driven marketing, by contrast, employs a siloed approach where each channel is understood to operate independently of the others.
What is an example of holistic marketing?
Gymshark exemplifies holistic marketing that goes beyond selling fitness apparel. Its social media features brand ambassadors to boost awareness and product lines incorporate trainer collaborations to enhance credibility. Its flagship store features a Sweat Room with interactive workout experiences. All these elements reinforce Gymshark’s image as a fitness-lifestyle brand.
