Complementary Strategies, Part Two
The key to knowing whether a complementary strategy will be productive or distracting is to first answer this question:
Will the goals of Strategy A, the original, be reinforced by new Strategy B?
Many times over, the answer will be yes. Or at least it will appear to be a yes.
If a Pinterest marketing strategy is succeeding in getting traffic to a blog, then one could argue that repurposing all of that content onto a platform like TikTok or Instagram is “reinforcing” the Pinterest strategy.
The business will try to find more of a precious, finite resource (time) with which to implement yet another social media strategy. And after several weeks of growing follower counts and likes, they will probably realize that users on other platforms are not as interested in clicking through to their website.
See, here’s the tricky thing:
In a resource constrained environment, it’s only worth the extra work if Strategy B is also reinforced by Strategy A.
Wait, what?
Complementary strategies are about creating 1+1=3 returns. It’s about amplifying results beyond the sum of two separate strategies.
Take the example of a blog that employs an SEO strategy for the bulk of its discoverability:
SEO is going well, visitors are coming to the site, all is good.
Launching an email marketing strategy allows them to capitalize on all that blog traffic by collecting the emails of the super engaged visitors. Strategy B (email marketing) is fueled by what’s already working in Strategy A (website traffic from SEO). There’s a benefit in one direction.
But as time goes on, email marketing will remind those super engaged visitors about new posts and offers on the blog, and will refer them back to the site.
Now the goals of the old strategy are being reinforced by the new one. There’s a benefit in both directions.
And a problem (get visitors on the blog) that used to be supported by doing one thing (SEO), is now being supported by multiple things (SEO, email subscribers). Scaling 101, really.