As marketing has evolved over the last twenty-seven years, one of the most successful marketing concepts is integrated marketing strategy. Compared to traditional marketers, holistic marketers view businesses as an interdependent entity that allows them to bring an intracompany approach in strategic planning.

What is Holistic Marketing?

Holistic marketing is a business marketing philosophy which considers all aspects and business as separate entities giving all people the same role.. Businesses are as human as the human body. They contain different parts but they work together to accomplish the same goal. Holistic marketing philosophy promotes the interdependence and believes in the importance of obtaining broad and integrated perspectives for the optimal results.

3 Features of Holistic Marketing Philosophy

A holistic marketing philosophy includes three basic characteristics: the shared goals, the alignment and the integration of the activities.

The first characteristic of holistic marketing is shared goals. This means that all sections of the organization must align their individual strategies to a common set of goals in order to maximize customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The second characteristic is alignment, which involves creating an integrated system for communication between different departments and ensuring everyone is on the same page with regards to understanding customer needs and expectations.

Finally, integration requires coordination across all departments so that activities are in harmony and designed to achieve a unified purpose. This means breaking down silos within the organization and having a unified vision for success.

Holistic marketing versus market segmentation

Unlike other powerful trends in the industry—market segmentation—a procedure that aims to split target markets into defined customer sub-groups depending on differences—holistic marketing focuses on unifying a market through identifying shared goals. Its overall idea is that regardless of whether people in different markets are diverse, they'll often have the ability to share ideas with one another for large-scale global growth.

Of course it’s important to still identify your target market, however it should be done with the holistic approach discussed above, with a broader concern for the target customers goals.

The 4 dimensions of holistic marketing

Kotler argues that the holistic marketing approach covers every part of the business strategy: from internal alignment of brand purpose to establishing business relationships with all stakeholders. The marketing team said it understands that everyone in the company — especially senior managers — represents the brand. Therefore, consistency between internal and external alignment of brand vision and brand principles is a crucial component of branding perception.

The four dimensions of holistic marketing are

1. The customer-oriented approach

2. The integrated approach

3. The internal marketing concept

4. The performance-oriented approach.

Customer-oriented marketing involves focusing on customer needs rather than just product features. The integrated approach requires coordination across all departments in a company or organization. Internal Marketing works to match employee skills to customer needs and clearly define job roles internally. Performance-Oriented Marketing focuses on measuring results in terms of customer satisfaction and ROI.

Marketing Activities and Marketing Strategies that Make Up Holistic Marketing

The marketing channels that lend themselves best to a holistic marketing concept are social media channels and communication, as they help you reach existing customers and external customers, and are a key component of holistic marketing.

Social Media

The most powerful strategy when it comes to social media and holistic marketing is taking an omnipresent strategy. An omnipresent strategy is one in which you take 1 piece of social media content (a video for example) and turn it in to multiple pieces of content across different platforms. For example, a 1 minute video can be made in to 10 10 seconds videos, the text can be used for blog posts or quote cards, the audio can be turned in to a podcast, each sentence can become a tweet, paragraphs can become LinkedIn Posts, the text can become YouTube SEO Descriptions, and so much more.

This approach allows you to reach the most people possible, both internal customers, external customers, and existing customers, and ultimately get to know their needs and respond in turn, with the aim of providing a great customer experience.

Social media plays a vital role in this holistic marketing concept. In fact, every member of your organization should be involved in this social media process because it allows each person to feel a responsibility and connection to the company and customers, which ultimately is the integrated perspective we are discussing, and ensures that each employee has a focused brand image that they are presenting.

This also means that even an employee’s personal social media should reflect the business ethics of the company. Building this type of all encompassing employee culture is a type of internal marketing. Internal marketing treats employees as important stakeholders in the voice of the company, which is also part of this holistic marketing concept.

Communication

Another key component of holistic marketing is communication. By responding quickly to customers, and helping customers see that their needs and concerns are important, it will not only help sales revenue but also is one of many long term value drivers. When customers see that the business activities operate as a cohesive unit, and that they are communicating with a “living breathing being,” their relationship with your company becomes unbreakable.

Holistic Marketing Defines What Marketing Strategy Should Be

Marketing as you can see is so much more than just a single goal activity (rather it’s focusing on a common goal. Marketing is so much more than just presenting a brand. Marketing is more than advertising (even though advertising is a big part of it). Marketing is so much more than following certain processes. Marketing is so much more than talking about your services. Marketing is so much more than just discussing product quality.

The holistic marketing concept encompasses relationship marketing, socially responsible marketing, societal marketing, integrated marketing, performance marketing, holistic performance marketing, direct marketing, public relations, brand building, creating a seamless experience, and effectively reinforces to the community that customers and employees are the top priority and maintain the focus of the company.

When companies execute a perfect holistic marketing strategy, that’s where the real magic begins. It then becomes not so much about marketing process, but rather about integrated activities and aligned activities. The customer loss rate becomes practically non existent. Employees are happy and see the big picture.

Over the next few weeks we will dig deeper in to the above topics, defining specific terms such as relationship marketing, socially responsible marketing, societal marketing, integrated marketing, performance marketing, holistic performance marketing, and direct marketing, and help you build this powerful strategy in to your business, making you in to one single entity, with a common goal for customers and employees alike.

We want to help you make a positive impact, grow your market share, and help you accomplish your long term goals.

Download our free marketing strategy eBook to dive in and get a head start: www.cimagrowth.com/social.