In a corporate with many different products and brands/sub-brands, the usual marketing that is given from the chief marketing officer (CMO) to her many marketing executives consists of:
- Directing people to the corporate main brand and specific sub-brand
- Directing specific people to specific experiences
- Directing people who have shown (in data-wise) their interests in specific areas to those products that cater for the areas
The CMO and her content creation/marketing team will have to plan their content with these items in mind: Traffic, engagement, conversions, etc. A typical common situation is that your entire marketing team (including content marketers) has found themselves in a position that is not too uncommon for brands with a long standing content strategy. The marketing team builds a content plan around a condensed brand, and works hard for several years to get machine up and running smoothly. At the same time during this long and complicated process, another few new sub-brands got pulled in, and the marketers must now also develop an entire new plan for the new sub-brands, which may integrate well or integrate disastrously with the old/existing brands. To make things more complicated, the marketing plan has not even yet included the local digital marketing part.
To better fulfill the above mentioned situation, let’s consider portfolio marketing. Portfolio marketing is an entire set of marketing plan or scheme, and it is a concept behind the marketing efforts that have a bigger picture. Portfolio marketing is a very powerful method. Marketers can use it to adjust their marketing to suit a fast expanding brand or business. With portfolio marketing, you can approach it all as a single entity and push out as a whole thing through a collection of key terms, ideas, and stories. i.e. Your company gets an array of sub-set brand experiences where each has its own main topics, language, and goals. In this approach, marketers do not necessarily have to create separate brand identities for each of the separate offerings underneath brand.
One example is a traditional four-year university may market its university concepts and values as an overall brand. But the university can offer different experiences for each major/subject. Students who interested in English literature don’t have to see the cutting edge laboratories. Below are some examples on how to express the messages.
- Online experience for undergraduate: Curious about what it is like to be an online student? Learn about our supportive community online.
- Campus experience: You have got bigger plans! You may multiple interests or plenty questions. We can help you connect the dots.
- Regional center experience. Take courses in a traditional classroom setting at one of our region centers in a specific location that is near you.
A second example is for a food company. A big cereal brand many have a different mascot, product title, and aesthetic/appearances that are recognizable of themselves. But it doesn’t necessarily directly point to their parent company. Many food companies may go with this approach.
The important aspect is to be able to integrate this portfolio approach with content marketing into the marketing team’s digital marketing funnel. Again with portfolio marketing, each subset should remain clearly identifiable as a part of the overall brand presence. The expression of the overall presence may be adjusted/tweaked slightly for each portfolio offering.
