The Vitality of Systems Thinking in Digital Marketing

Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash

Though the riches may be in the niches, it is still important for digital marketing processes to look at the bigger picture. It is easy to confuse narrowing down for the sake of staying within your niche and focusing too much on one aspect of digital marketing. The key is to find breadth of strategies within your niche using a systems thinking mindset.

Systems thinking is a way of looking at the world and its constructs as a whole rather than focusing on one stand alone part. With digital marketing, systems thinking can help your company reach its audience more effectively by looking at all routes and barriers of exposure and the factors that affect them. Here are four things to think about using a systems approach.

1. Data doesn’t lie!

Looking at data is a wonderful starting place to assess points of possible improvement. Where numbers are weaker reveals where problems come to fruition. From there it is a matter of backtracking to find what actions affect the problem area. Systems thinking helps to not just treat the symptoms but find and address the root of the problem. Sometimes issues are not with the area with weaker numbers, rather things farther up in the line of influence. 

2. Think as if you are the target audience

Perhaps a social media post is not getting the attention that you thought it might. Think about the day to day life of your target audience. Do they use the platform on which the content is being posted? Was the post made during a time of day that my target audience would have been online? Thinking about your target audience holistically helps in understanding them to the fullest. Ultimately, this leads to the ability to create tailor-made content. 

3. Anticipate the effects of change

By considering all the aspects affecting your marketing strategy, it is much easier to determine what changes may affect its success. Systems thinking allows you to be more proactive. Taking the time to experiment and understand which factors are related can help to prepare for changes in the market or other aspects of business. Think, what elements are related and how is a disruption in one going to affect another?

4. It’s a team effort

Success in marketing is as much marketing strategy as it is team engagement. A large part of looking for improvements in a system as a whole includes looking at how effective your marketing team is working together. Is everyone fully aware of the plan and their part in it? Are there open lines of communication? There is no marketing without a marketing team.

Systems thinking is a way of seeing your company and your marketing strategies as a series of intertwined constituents. It is easy to become focused on just content creation or just SEO, but all elements of marketing must work together. Taking a constant systems thinking approach will lead to more informed and specific marketing strategies.