Digital-First Integrated Marketing

Digital marketing is utilizing digital channels to promote your organizational (or personal) goals. In my work, I treat it as a term that covers five major areas: search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, paid advertising on search engines (search engine marketing, or SEM), social media marketing & management, and email campaigns.

I have experience in a wide variety of marketing and communication services. And I have found that, for clients who want to see measurable results in a timely fashion, digital marketing approaches will likely best fit their needs at first. But “at first” is the critical modifier. I believe that those other, more “traditional” marketing and public relations approaches like media relations and thought leadership are important because they supplement and expand on the digital. They help to build and maintain community and resilient relationships with your brand. The combination of digital marketing and traditional public relations works to produce long-term, sustainable growth.

So we will prioritize those digital services and add on others as needed to build on the early momentum that digital strategies can provide. And we do that in an integrated way, meaning that we strive to maintain the same broad customer/client experience across all the channels.

In this case, purpose-driven means that I view my work not just as a means to make a living, but also as a vehicle for doing good in the world. I remain ordained clergy in the United Methodist Church, and I want my life to promote the values of community, inclusivity, justice, peace, and sustainability that I worked to instill in the world as a pastor.

I most value my work with organizations and businesses that at least share those values, or who even want to put them front-and-center in their branding and marketing. While this does not have a strict definition (e.g., “I only work with b-corps.”), I try at all times to abide by the recommendations of the United Methodist Church Book of Discipline and Book of Resolutions. Since I see my work as a way of investing in my clients’ success, I use the guidance on investment ethics as a baseline for deciding what kinds of clients I work with.

Hiring an external digital marketing specialist like me can save you time and money that you would other spend on recruiting, training, and administration. And with those savings, you still get a dedicated specialist in digital-first marketing and communications. It’s a win-win.

Yes. I taught myself how to handle digital marketing as a pastor, though no one called it that. I believed strongly even then that digital outreach was a critical growth area for congregations and all organizations; but in my context there was little or no budget to support it. So I taught myself. I studied. I experimented. I built the strategies myself, and I implemented them myself. I failed sometimes, revised my approach, and tried again.

You can read more about my background.

Here’s a situation I’ve seen: a small business signs up with a well-known agency to build a website and really establish their online presence. That agency has some big-ticket clients, and the senior designers focus on those clients. The small business gets handed off to someone—likely an intern—who whips something up that is nothing like what the client requested, falling short on aesthetics, user experience, and functionality.

When you hire the Tracy Agency, you get Alex Tracy. I pay individualized attention to my clients, and I don’t take on more clients than I can give that kind of attention. And because my overhead is much lower, I can keep costs for small businesses, solopreneurs, and nonprofits affordable. (Have you seen the prices those big agencies are charging?)

That depends on your goals and the methods we choose to achieve them. Social media advertising, website design, search engine advertising, and even content marketing can yield quick results. Search engine optimization, on the other hand, is going to produce results more slowly, but those gains can be sustained over a longer period. Finally, media relationships and thought leadership work more slowly, but generate brand staying power.