If your marketing program is comprised of only one element…that is not ideal. It doesn’t matter if that one thing is email, direct mail, radio, TV or social media. A single dimension marketing plan isn’t going to be effective for your entire base of customers and prospects.

There might be one or two people reading this blog post that are raking in big bucks with a single marketing activity. Congratulations, but that still doesn’t mean you have an effective marketing program. While that program might be great for getting customers in the door, it probably is doing nothing in your efforts to retain them as customers for life! So unless you add other elements to your marketing program you are going to be stuck expending funds to attract new customers.

Why can’t you just do one thing? The simple answer is there is no perfect simple answer.

Sales people selling advertising or marketing services often will try and tell you that all you need is “insert their product name here”. That is your cue to lock your check book in the drawer and politely end the meeting. Think about it. If marketing were so easy that all you had to do was (fill in the blank)…then every company would be hugely successful marketing themselves.

For many businesses, you have challenges of having a varied age demographic which in itself requires different marketing tools be used. While social media might be effective for Millenials and Gen X and Gen Y…it isn’t going to be very effective for Boomers.

When you consider what mix of marketing items you need, think about when and where someone is going to see your marketing efforts. Will that be effective for you? E.g. If sending email, will they see that at home or at their office, during the work day or on their off hours. You should ask this question about all the types of marketing items you send- direct mail, email, promotional products….