The 80/20 rule has been used to describe a variety of business operations including personnel, sales and profitability. What this concept basically means is that a small portion of your effort or investment is producing the vast majority of your rewards. 
Within an effective marketing strategy, the 80/20 rule can be applied to a variety of strategies like social media and product promotion. Your inbound marketing strategy should strive to identify the “golden” 20 percent and use these products or techniques to leverage greater success.
The 80/20 principle can be utilized in marketing strategies like:
- Social media—When engaging consumers on sites like Facebook or Google+ it is imperative that you focus the majority of the conversation on consumers. Here the 20 percent refers to the amount of time you should be spending talking about your products or organization. Most users are not visiting these sites to receive a promotional message but to socialize, so marketing messages should be introduced infrequently and subtly.
- Product promotion—Identifying the top 20 percent of products that generate the most profits is essential to any marketing strategy. Not only should your promotional campaigns focus on these products, but you should be engaging your customers about what the compelling features of this product are. Once you have identified these features, you can convey this information to sales and product development personnel so they can incorporate them into sales pitches and new products.
- Client management—The 80/20 rule is especially relevant when allocating resources to select clientele. In your organization, you are probably wasting time and effort on many customers who are only minimally profitable, while the top tiers of clients produce the greatest financial benefits. In order to make your marketing strategy more effective, you should tailor your promotional campaigns to attract clients who fit the profile of other top 20 percent clients.
- Marketing refinement—It is commonly accepted that only 20 percent of a marketing strategy is producing the most return on investment. While it is not always easy to identify which 20 percent is working well, using effective tracking methods can help. Your marketing program should be constantly undergoing evaluation and refinement as you take features from the most effective components of your marketing campaign.
The primary lesson to be learned from the 80/20 rule is to identify the most successful elements of any marketing initiative and transfer them to other initiatives.
If you are utilizing social media to promote your organization, take special care to recognize the limitations of that platform; self-promotion should be reserved to only a small portion of the time spent there.
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