Here’s another question for you to consider as 2015 comes to a close:

What types of platforms are you using for your marketing campaigns?

Whether you’ve found that it’s time to expand the reach of your marketing campaign, or whether you’re just now reaching the point of your entrepreneurship where you’ve realized that it’s time to expand, you’ll eventually need to explore new marketing platforms.

Let’s review a few of the most popular marketing platforms in 2015:

• Blogs
• Video content
• Webinars
• Email newsletters

Of course, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are still be used with varying levels of success. And, many have used LinkedIn in order to attract the type of attention they’d like to receive from future clients and business associates.

The problem is, you might have felt tempted to use one or two of these platforms and stick with them. It’s great to place a tight focus on your marketing strategies, but there’s reasons why it’s also wise to expand your reach.

Strategies For Marketing Expansion

Expanding your marketing campaigns comes down to more than simply creating content on diffent platforms. Effective marketing expansion also comes down to brainstorming ways to create highly-targeted content.

For example, it’s easy to create content that basically says, “Hey, come check out my latest blog post about this or that!” But if you take this approach, it’s very much like casting a very wide net, hoping to catch as many site visitors as possible.

Why not focus on capturing the right type of site visitors on as many different platforms?

For example, if you’d like to position yourself as a service provider who wants to solve a very specific problem, then discuss the problem in the body of your marketing content. Even a tweet can contain a sentence and a hashtag that attracts the type of site visitors you’re looking for.

Just be sure to market natively for each platform you’re using. This is one of the greatest mistakes that marketers and entrepreneurs make.

Content Re-purposing Is Highly Effective

I’ve discussed content re-purposing a few times, but the strategy bears repeating. Content re-purposing involves taking the content you’ve used on one marketing platform and using it within another.

Of course, you’ll need to accomplish this in a way that makes sense, and again, you’ll need to figure out how to do this natively.

For example, let’s say that you’ve sent out a tweet. You would look foolish to publish a blog post simply comprised of 140 characters. But, you can use the tweet as a theme for an expanded blog post on a topic. Or, you could use the tweet and create a webinar or a YouTube video around the topic.

Conversely, let’s say that you’ve created an ebook, a white paper, or another long-form guide. You can then “chop” the book into topical sections, creating blog posts. Or, you could copy a sentence and send it out as a tweet. There’s also nothing wrong with transcribing a webinar (or a podcast) and publishing it as a blog post, or a free download for new email subscribers.

You get the point. Get creative. Think of all the ways that you can disperse the same marketing message on a variety of platforms. Be sure to use each platform natively. And, think of ways to create as much targeted, informative, problem-solving content as possible.

Are You Ready To Synchronize?

I refer to this type of approach as unifying your marketing message, but Hubspot takes things a step further by using a more powerful word: Synchronizing.

According to Hubspot:

Synchronized marketing’s core is based on the brand’s voice and message. Integrating your marketing is great; however, synchronized marketing is more than one campaign. It’s the overall marketing and branding strategy. It’s taking all of your marketing platforms and having them working together simultaneously, with your consumer in mind.

It’s no longer just about integrating your marketing efforts; it’s about keeping them “in sync” with each other, and more importantly, “in sync” with your overall brand message. Synchronized marketing takes the ideas of integrated marketing communications and expands upon them in a persona-focused approach.

As you can see, not only is it important to think of creative ways to expand your marketing reach, but it’s also important (crucial, even) to make sure that your brand message remains intact as you’re expanding your reach.

You might feel that this is challenging as you begin to address individual problems that your prospects might be facing, but it’s really quite simple. The key is to understand your brand and your unique value proposition. Then, you’ll always have a frame of reference to fall back on, and a roadmap to guide your marketing message on all of your platforms.

The Relevance For 2016

So, you’re ready to do more to spread your marketing message. You’re ready to market by using more focus. And, you have a branding roadmap to use that will help to guide your marketing voice. Now what? And, how does all of this matter in 2016?

Ask yourself the following questions. The answers should shed light on why all of these aspects are important.

1. Do I still want to operate a business in 2016?

This might seem like a deceptively simple question, but it’s one you need to ask yourself, immediately. You might have tried to make it as an entrepreneur, but you haven’t been able to make any breakthroughs. Maybe you’re ready to throw in the towel, or maybe you’ve found that you need to put your dreams on hold for a while.

There could be a host of scenarios at work, and there’s nothing wrong with any of these. But, it’s important for you to know exactly where you stand so that you can make decisions. You’ll need to decide to make changes in your marketing strategies, leave certain types of marketing strategies alone, or leave everything alone.

2. Am I ready to position myself on a broader scale?

There comes a point where you’ve got to decide to stop functioning as the “Little entrepreneur or agency that could.” You’ve got to evolve a boutique brand that others take seriously.

This means that you’ve got to decide to take on the teaching/consultant role. You’ll do this when you decide what needs to be taught, what industry issues need to be addressed, and how you’re going to tackle the issues on your marketing platforms.

3. Am I still struggling with my value proposition?

Figuring out what your value proposition can often feel like hitting a moving target. That’s because your value will evolve and expand as you begin to evolve. Also, you’ll find that industry problems that needed to be solved in the past have now become obsolete.

Now, you’re stuck trying to figure out the new problems and how you’re best suited to solve those problems for your client. Or, maybe you’ve never been able to put a finger on what your value proposition is.

If any of these are the case, then now is the time to set aside time to brainstorm, and get to know yourself professionally all over again.

The entire point of marketing is to attract leads (or new clients) into your marketing funnel. The more opportunities you give yourself, and the more unified your marketing message is, the greater chance you’ll have for realizing conversions.

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