Disjointed marketing campaigns that have inconsistent messaging are destined for failure. At best, consumers will be uninterested. At worst, they will be confused, and end up with a negative impression of your brand. By understanding how integrated marketing works, your business can avoid these problems.
What is Integrated Marketing?
Integrated marketing is a strategy that aims to unify your promotional materials, both online and offline, in order to create a seamless experience for consumers in any stage of the buyer’s journey.
This includes:
- Copywriting
- Graphic design
- Website design
- Social media hashtags
When marketers refer to “storytelling,” which drastically amplifies awareness of and loyalty to your brand, having coherent marketing is what they’re talking about.
Ways to Ensure your Marketing Campaigns are Properly Integrated
1. Set SMART Goals
Each marketing campaign your business runs should have a different goal. One may seek to spread brand awareness, while another aim to improve for lead generation. Set a goal for your campaign—one that’s specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely (SMART).
For example: “Grow brand awareness by increasing our paid social media reach by 15 percent this quarter.”
Your specific marketing goals will vary based on your business goals, of course, but we will use the above example as a demonstration for the rest of this blog. Remember that the following information can be used for any combination of marketing platforms, not just social media.
2. Define your Target Audience
A nuanced understanding of your target audience will allow you to choose which channels to focus on, as well as help you tailor your message.
Back to our example. After some analysis, you figure out that your customers, as well as the people who express interest in your marketing materials, are comprised of about half Millennials, half Generation X-ers. That’s your target audience.
3. Determine the Appropriate Channels
Once your target audience has been defined, look into where they can be reached.
Generation X-ers’ social media platform of choice is Facebook, while Millennials tend to use Twitter. So, you decide these two will be the best channels for your integrated marketing campaign.
4. Develop Creative Deliverables
In our example, we’re working with two different social media channels that have different best practices for advertising. It’s still vital to maintain consistency across the creative deliverables, though.
For the visuals, color schemes and typefaces should be the same. A unique hashtag is also preferred. For copy, you only have 140 characters to work with on Twitter, so naturally the writing will be slightly different. However, despite the variation in written words, both ads should convey the same message.
5. Launch the Campaign
Set the campaign in motion and give it some time to gain traction with your audience. Letting it run for just a short period of time won’t give you any real data to analyze.
6. Analyze and Fine-Tune
After the campaign has been running for a period of time you feel is sufficient, analyze the results. Are they what you expected? Is one medium performing better than the other? If the campaign is failing to meet your expectations, fine-tune the creative aspect and measure its impact.
Once you get the hang of integrated marketing, your brand’s identity will become much stronger.
