Active vs. Passive Marketing

As founders, we all have our preferred way to grow a business.

It’s the old saying:

When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

You know the cast of usual suspects. Things like SEO, Content Marketing, SEM, Social Media Marketing, “Personal Brands”, Conferences, Affiliates, Integrations, etc, etc.

But I was on a call with Adam Shaw from Marketing For Founders the other day, and he mentioned this concept of Active vs. Passive marketing. And it really got me thinking.

How much Active Marketing am I doing, and how much of it is Passive Marketing.

Let’s define these two concepts, break down the two, and how we might think about achieving a healthy mix that’s right for where our business is today.

Passive Marketing

Tackling Passive Marketing first because it’s probably what most of us do. Ok, I’m talking about myself here maybe.

I’m a big fan of Passive Marketing.

In this bucket I’d put things like SEO, Content Marketing, and even in some instances Paid Acquisition. These are largely things that you set up one time, have a process for, and they just keep running.

Maybe these are tough to measure the direct impact of, maybe not, but you kind of put this in the category of “this is just what marketing is”.

I do at least.

The issue I’ve found with Passive Marketing is that you get complacent and kind of just accept it for what it is, especially over time.

Because of its very nature of a “set it and forget it” type marketing you’re not always looking for that special edge, that way of doing things that really sets you apart. It can get a bit stale.

Active Marketing

Compare that to something like Active Marketing, where you’re going out into the market to insert yourself into the conversation.

In this bucket I’d put things like Product Hunt launches (if you can even call that marketing), Conferences, Partnership (Joint Venture) programs, and any kind of “campaign” that isn’t just running on autopilot.

And when I was talking with Adam he mentioned that a lot of his clients see a boatload of success in doing this kind of mini campaign launch in both LinkedIn and Reddit specifically.

Yep, I know, both platforms have their lovers and their haters, but there’s no doubt that’s where a lot of eyeballs are these days.

So is it worth taking a look at Reddit and LinkedIn to see if there are special campaigns, or Active Marketing activities we can do there?

Without spoiling the fun, think about how you might be able to engineer some engagement, virality, and lead gen on a platform like Reddit or LinkedIn that will drive results for your business.

Sure this won’t be something you do all the time. But what about once a month?

Put in the work and build a really great resource, drive engagement, and create a mini funnel for visitors of those platforms to go through.

To me it’s not so much the specifics of this type of platform marketing as much as it is thinking in terms of Active and Passive Marketing differently. I for one am exploring how I can do more Active Marketing at Castos and really inserting our brand into the conversation.

A Balancing Act

The question is always, how much of each type of marketing should you be doing?

I think it depends on where you are in the business.

If you’re just starting out and want to achieve rapid growth, you probably need to do a lot more Active Marketing to get your name out there. But you also want to plat the seeds for the future. So maybe call it 80% Active Marketing and 20% Passive Marketing.

If your business has been around for a while and things are humming along you may be able to get away with a larger percentage of Passive Marketing. Maybe the mix here is 80% Passive Marketing and 20% Active Marketing.

Avoiding The Trap

But beware (and I speak from experience here for sure). Relying too much on Passive Marketing can be a trap, and a recipe for underperformance.

Because the reality is that with these types of Passive marketing efforts, something is happening that you don’t even know….people are saying NO to you all the time.

They hit your blog post and bounce, they see your YouTube video and scroll right past it, they read your 87th nurture email and delete it after 4 words. But you never hear from these folks.

Instead, when you’re directly engaging individuals on some kind of platform and creating a dialogue you’re creating an opportunity for learning. But also an opportunity for the door to get shut in your face.

When this happens it sucks. But your job as a founder is to learn continuously, and as fast as you can. And this happens from getting feedback as readily as you can.

So I’d propose that we all need to be doing more Active Marketing. We need to be putting ourselves out there, engaging with the market directly, learning, getting a few more NOs in our week, and iterating from there.