Even from the outset, the term ‘passive marketing’ seems like an oxymoron. Especially in the saturated world of online business, where standing out from the crowd requires drive, boldness, aggression – and against such a backdrop, could passive marketing seem any more mutually exclusive? You can’t be passive in business. You need to be constantly out there, generating buzz about your product! Right? Right?
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Build It, And They Will Come: Or, What’s So Passive About This Marketing, Anyway?
Truth be told, passive marketing actually encompasses a lot of what might be thought of as standard marketing practices. In fact, the word passive can seem pretty erroneous when you consider the fact that passive marketing strategies include building a website (perhaps with a onsite blog), social networking (maintaining up-to-date Facebook and Twitter pages; social bookmarking on sites like Digg, Reddit and Pinterest), video marketing, link building, and other forms of SEO. Offline passive marketing covers print advertising (like in newspapers and magazines) and even putting up posters.
If none of that sounds particularly passive, that’s because it’s not – not really. Building up your online presence and ensuring that relevant information about your business is readily accessible requires a consistent effort. But it all falls under the umbrella of passive marketing because of the anticipatory nature of all those practices. Passive marketing is essentially target-devoid, aiming to circulate information for prospective clients and not actively pursuing said clients. Thus, passive marketing methods are always supplemented by more active marketing methods.
Be Aggressive: Standard Active Marketing Strategies (And How They’re Active)
Active marketing strategies are geared towards in-person networking, building contacts, increasing your referral pool, and of course, reaching out to specific client demographics. Like its passive counterpart, active marketing is defined by its purpose, not its techniques. Consequently, active marketing promotions (like banner ads or paid link exchanges) are typically short-term campaigns designed to result in immediate attention and bursts of increased site traffic. Strategically employed, of course, these procedures are most helpful in getting your business off the ground, or drawing attention to a new product or service. But as with any short-term strategy, the obvious question arises: is this sustainable? Furthermore, are active marketing strategies actually superior to passive ones?
There’s certainly a lot of emphasis placed on active marketing, whether online or offline. But realistically, active marketing campaigns for websites only drive up traffic for a short period of time due to their one-off nature – for example, even the most eye-catching advert isn’t going to provide a consistent traffic increase once it’s stopped being featured. Investing in a lot of active marketing campaigns without reasonable goals can be inefficient for sustained traffic increases in the long run.
The Tortoise & The Hare: The Effectiveness of Passive and Active Marketing
The important thing to remember is that just because passive marketing isn’t directed at anyone in particular doesn’t mean it’s worthless, or even less important than active marketing. Passive marketing is designed to find out that information about a business is there for anyone who wants to find it, and over time increases the growth and visibility of said information through the benefits of SEO and PPC. Passive marketing may yield slower results, but those results are far more likely to rise steadily.
Simply put, reliance on active marketing alone is a crippling long-term strategy. It is far more fruitful to supplement any active marketing endeavours with a steady backbone of passive marketing. A more well-rounded approach, with key focus on passive schemes, is therefore ideal for a positive outcome – especially in the long-term.