What is Fusion Marketing?

In this age of digital disruption, companies large and small are struggling to develop profitable and effective online marketing strategies.

Business owners are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of digital marketing tactics to pursue. From blogs, to newsletters, Google advertising, social media and so much more, there are an endless array of marketing techniques available.

Where do you start?

In this article, we aim to give you the blueprint to end your struggles for good.

The solution to digital disruption fuses the best of both worlds, taking the traditional marketing techniques of branding, storytelling and copywriting, and combining them with advanced multimedia design, social media platforms and big data.

We call this approach Fusion Marketing, Lexicon’s unique, fully-integrated digital marketing agency solution. You can read about the philosophy behind Fusion Marketing elsewhere on this site, but this article will focus on applying the theory to a case study from two weeks in July 2017.

After reading this article, you will have a clear picture of how to design, implement and monitor an effective digital marketing strategy. If you have the requisite skills, you can replicate all of the techniques below, but we’d obviously be delighted if you’d like to contact us to get some help with all/any aspects of your digital marketing strategy, including content writing and multimedia design.StrategyThe first two steps of Fusion Marketing represent strategy. Unlike the steps which follow, these only need to be done once and revised sporadically when new information arises.

1) Build a Distinctive Brand

If you’re anything like me—anxious to gain new customers and ready to shout from the treetops to tell the world about your business—then you likely want to dive straight into the marketing. Patience, however, can be hugely beneficial.

While of course you may land a client or two by marketing right off the get go, you will multiply your results exponentially if you focus on brand before performing any marketing. When you develop a clear corporate identity first, you ensure a consistent look and feel across all platforms. This consistency is an essential factor in building your brand awareness, trust and loyalty.

At this preliminary stage it’s essential to decide on which topics you and your company want to focus. But how do you choose them? Think about what topics position you as an expert in your industry and also identify which keywords you want to rank for in Google. Then, base your content around those topics and keywords.

At Lexicon, we want to be recognized as Bangkok’s foremost authority on all things related to online marketing, social media marketing, content writing and multimedia design. Thus, we build all of our marketing content around these themes.

Lexicon gets almost all of its new business from inbound leads as a result of our Fusion Marketing efforts. Nonetheless, for the first half of 2017, we chose to create almost no new content and did almost no marketing. During this time our designers were working on refreshing our brand and designing this website.

Lexicon employs no sales staff, so actively choosing to limit our inbound leads was a tough choice, but we decided it was an essential long-term move to position ourselves appropriately and, most importantly, to practice what we preach to our clients.2) Know Your Audience

The Lexicon audience is B2B decision makers based in Bangkok, and Thailand/S.E Asia more broadly. We’ve conducted extensive audience research in order to understand the types of content our potential clients want to read. They don’t want heavy technical content, but rather something pitched at a level that’s easily consumable and adds professional value.

Below is an extract from our Brand Book. Does the description sound anything like you? If so, keep reading because this article is just what you’ve been looking for:

Our clients are well-educated professionals in management positions, aware of the world’s shift to online life but somewhat behind in exploiting that shift. They may be aware of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, but they are most likely not experts in how to use those platforms to their best advantage.

They will need help in determining a strategy to build their brand for public consumption in the digital age. They are familiar with the widely-used terms in the marketing industry, but may not know the specifics of how to use visuals, tone, style and social media platforms in combination to tailor a powerful and distinctive company identity that potential customers can readily identify and relate to.

Our clients grew up in a world dominated by TV and print, and were busy building their business careers while society changed around them. They have only partially adapted to a world that has changed just a bit faster than they were ready for, and are now out of step with online culture and advanced digital marketing.

They are good at what they do, but that fact alone no longer guarantees engagement with their desired audience. Their websites are rather dated and new content is scarce. They are far from #1 on Google searches within their industry. Their social media platforms are halfhearted affairs, receiving little interaction from the wider community when posts are eventually made.

Our clients know their industry inside and out, but most people (including many in their own field) aren’t aware of their expertise. They have tried their hand at digital marketing in the past – either on their own, or with outside help that turned out to be underqualified – and received little return on their investment.

They are open to the idea of trying again, but their instincts tell them to be cautious. They want to dip their toes in the water first, before they dive in. They want to see plenty of numbers, statistics, and measurable benefits before they invest a lot of money in the digital world again. They see digital marketing as a concrete cost that brings abstract benefits, and only the evidence of experience is likely to change their feelings on the matter.

In more personal terms, work takes up an enormous share of their lives, but with the remainder they like to follow current events around the world and enjoy the latest movies, books, TV shows and music that other people are talking about. They’re fairly good at keeping up with the topics that people talk about at dinner parties, whether these include the issues of the day or the latest big movie.

They may spend more time on business than anything else, but their careers have not killed their curiosity for good stories or their appreciation of novelty and substance. If given the choice, they would rather read articles that are informative but also entertaining and relevant to the outside world, as opposed to specialist literature that delivers similar information in a more technical way. Many articles and authors compete for their attention, and our clients are drawn to the ones that use down-to-earth language and aren’t afraid to be a bit lighthearted in the delivery of their message.ContentThe hardest part of any marketing campaign is getting the strategy right, and Fusion Marketing is no different. However, once you’ve taken the time to map out which topics you want to focus on, the tone you want to use and the type of content your audience actually wants to see, creating content is easy by comparison.

3) Win With Thought Leadership

Thought Leadership is the fancy name given to the process of writing industry-specific content, which is usually hosted on a company’s website. The digital age is meritocratic, and there’s always going to be an audience for well-written, insightful content. And if writing isn’t your forte, you can always bring in a ghostwriter to lend a hand.

After a long absence from what should be our weekly practice of producing thought leadership content, we returned to the world of digital marketing with a triumvirate of articles focusing on social media trends in Thailand. Specifically highlighting the fact that there are now 46 million registered Facebook users in Thailand, and that 30 million of them are in Bangkok.4) Create Attractive Visuals

The theme of social media use in Thailand ran through all Lexicon content during July. With a clear art direction, our designers were able to extract lots of interesting data to make on-brand, social media-friendly multimedia content.

I truly believe that most people don’t understand the power of a well-run, corporate Facebook page. For the first time in history, we, the public, own the means of media production. We can, without leaving the office, completely shape public perception of our brand and generate all the inbound leads we’ll ever need. Facebook is a TV station and newspaper rolled into one. It’s a very powerful tool when in the proper hands.

If you were spending money to advertise in a newspaper, you’d make sure every word was carefully chosen and every image was as impactful as possible. You’d know people were going to judge your brand based on what they see, and you’d want to make the best possible impression in order to increase the likelihood of making sales. But with Facebook there’s no barrier of entry.

Instead, you can easily post whatever you feel without putting much thought into it. With that said, we recommend thinking of Facebook as a newspaper. While content viewed in the Newsfeed may not have the same immediate credibility as a legitimate newspaper, it can still position your business as an authority if you provide valuable, insightful content. The fact that Lexicon has landed dozens of clients from our Facebook content is a testament to this philosophy.

Once we’d prepared a variety of written and multimedia content for Lexicon’s Fusion strategy, we built a varied content calendar and posted different types of content each day for two weeks. This content was designed to appeal to different segments of our audience, and included articles, photo sets, infographics, GIFs, videos and quotes.6) Target the Perfect Audience

This is where ignition happens. Now that your social media pages are active and filled with content designed to captivate your ideal audience, it’s time to reach out and connect with that audience.

With a clearly defined target audience, you can build advertising personas based on shared demographics and interests, such as attendance at Rotary Club events, C-Suite job tiles, and Chamber of Commerce membership.

It’s also possible to plug in an email list. Lexicon has a solid target list of 20,000 Bangkok-based business people, and if you’re seeing this, you may well be on it. We combined our email list with the demographic personas of our target audience, and paid Facebook to show our content directly to them in their Newsfeed. For a couple of weeks, if you were on one of those lists, Lexicon was omnipresent and we appeared as if we were operating with a large budget. In reality, we spent less than 10,000b.

The result was a massive increase in reach and engagement. Given that we were targeting a very specific group of people, we can be certain that a large percentage of these people fall within our target audience of Bangkok-based B2B decision makers.PR & Outreach7) Outreach to influencers

While the previous 6 stages are essential best practice for social media success, stage seven aims to build connections.

When conducting audience research at stage 2, we identified the demographics of our target audience, including where they get their news from.

Given that the Lexicon target audience is comprised of Bangkok-based decision makers, we can be fairly sure people who follow Chambers of Commerce online fall within our target group.

We reached out and our article was picked up for the Australian Chamber of Commerce’s E-Advance magazine, which emailed to all Austcham members and was shared on Facebook and LinkedIn. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce also shared our original article on their Facebook page.8) Re-purpose Content

If stage 7 is encouraging people to share, stage 8 is extending the shelf life of content by using it in alternative forms.

We merged the three articles on social media use in Thailand into one summary article, which was published in the Bangkok Post. This article reached almost 400,000 people and was shared hundreds of times, providing exceptional brand exposure.As the theme of social media use in Thailand was proving popular and helping frame Lexicon as Facebook and social media experts, we also decided to produce a short video discussing social media use in Thailand.

We’ve already shown at stage 6 the incredible increases in Facebook engagement which we experienced in July, and similar reverberations were felt throughout the company’s digital presence.

First of all, we saw large increases in both new visitors and total visitors to our website in July.

As mentioned right back at stage one, it’s best practice to identify which Google terms your company is looking to rank for and to ensure that every piece of content written is optimized to rank on Google. As you can see below, Lexicon experienced incredible growth on Google during July as multiple terms skyrocketed to high positions.

The first number indicates ranking as of 31st July. The second number indicates the change in ranking since 1st July: +60 means that the term has risen from #62 to #2. Entered means the terms was not previously in the top 1000.10) Return to #3

While the above 9 steps serve as an example of a Fusion Marketing campaign orchestrated over a couple weeks, this approach should be best practice all year round. Spend time getting your strategy right and then it’s a case of ensuring that people within your company are assigned to the task of regular content production.

With strong branding and a clearly identified audience, you can continue to create captivating and engaging content. The best part? With Fusion Marketing, you don’t need a sales team. Instead, a continuous stream of customers come directly to you.Conclusions

Digital marketing allows for you to measure results very precisely. By carefully targeting the right audience, you can be sure the web traffic and Facebook engagement you are attracting is relevant, while ranking #1 on Google ensures relevant inbound leads for the foreseeable future.

We received many inquires directly as a result of these campaigns and signed up a number of new clients, making the return on investment for this campaign pay for itself many, many times over.

However, the intangible benefits are perhaps even greater. Since publishing these articles, I’ve attended a number of networking events where people have either recognized my name, the company’s logo on my business card, or brought up this series of articles. I’ve effectively branded myself as a thought leader with a single campaign. This is brand awareness in effect.

You now have the information you need to try Fusion Marketing for yourself. However, if you’d prefer to outsource any part/all of the process to us, we’d be delighted to help. The cost of Lexicon’s complete Bangkok online marketing agency solution starts from just 80,000 THB per month. This package gives you full access to our team of branding, marketing and content production specialists, who are eager to ensure your company makes the right impression with its target audience.

At a total cost of less than a million Bhat per year, the price is less than what you’d expect to pay for a single full-time digital marketer, without adding on social security, health insurance and the multitude of additional ancillary charges and headaches that come with employing people.

Thanks for sticking around to the end, I hope this article helps you to enjoy success online. If you like what you’ve just read, get in touch to find out what we can do for you.

Lexicon is a full-service digital marketing agency in Bangkok, offering copywriting, social media marketing services starting from just 10,000 THB per month, and graphic design services.

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