The scope of digital marketing is quite spectacular. It encompasses not only SEO and content creation, but also social media, email, and even messaging apps. And it’s all being driven by users. Wherever they go, advertisers are learning to follow.
Brands wanting to extend their reach need to understand this new landscape. Trying to attract consumers through a single channel rarely creates the desired impact. If companies want to craft successful digital campaigns, they need to branch out and deliver the same marketing message via multiple avenues.
What Makes Integrated Marketing Campaigns So Effective?
According to Google research, marketing leaders are more than 1.5 times as likely to have integrated marketing and technology stacks. This figure makes sense. You would expect the most successful brands to be those that present a unified front.
Integrated digital marketing campaigns sound superficially similar to omnichannel efforts. In both, you’re attempting to get your audience to do something, such as buy your products, through several different platforms.
But integrated digital marketing campaigns take omnichannel marketing a step further by ensuring that every arm of the operation delivers a common message to your customers.
Integrated marketing campaigns from reputable marketing agencies are effective for several reasons.
- Greater Reach: Unlike single-channel marketing campaigns, integrated methods help you reach more people and spread the message about your products and services to a broader group of potential customers.
- Synergy: Marketing via one channel can boost your presence on others. Companies with substantial social media traffic, for instance, can often see their search results rankings rising over time.
- Cost-effectiveness: Integrated marketing campaigns allow you to quickly share and repurpose material from one channel and use it in another.
- Reputation and trust: Presenting yourself differently on competing channels creates confusion. Integrating your message to present a united front generates trust.
How To Do Integrated Marketing Well
When creating an integrated marketing strategy, you should bear several guiding principles in mind.
Consider The Transition Experience
The whole point of multichannel marketing is to make the customer experience more compelling. However, without genuine integration, it can feel clunky.
Let’s say, for instance, that a customer sees advertising for your products on social media. Your goal is to convert them, so you forward them to your website where they can make the purchase.
How you go about this matters a great deal. If you just send them to your home page, that can create confusion and inconvenience. After all, the customer wanted to learn more about a particular product. Instead, you should forward them to a product-specific landing page that provides more details and overcomes their pain points.
Billboards are another realm in which seamless transition experiences are essential. If a customer sees a “20 percent off” advert as they’re driving, they should be able to quickly find the same offer when they later check your website. If they don’t, they could drop off.
Get Your Marketing Managers Talking To Each Other
Managing an integrated multichannel marketing campaign often requires getting multiple stakeholders from your organization to work together. If they aren’t on the same page, your campaign will be far less integrated than you hope.
Be sure to get all your people talking so that they can agree on the fundamentals and details of your message. Everyone needs to follow a central plan.
Overlap Your Channels
Lastly, you’ll want to overlap channels where possible. Here are some quick-fire ideas:
- Include social sharing buttons on your blogs
- Include QR codes on all your physical advertising
- Include links on your social media pages to your products and bios
- Include your email address on your social media handles
Integrated Marketing Case Study: Old Spice
Old Spice was once one of the most popular deodorants in the US. But ten years ago, the brand was in trouble. Most people associated it with the post-war generation, not the modern world.
Old Spice, therefore, embarked on a comprehensive rebranding exercise. It made itself more playful and used practically every available channel to promote its new persona. It transformed itself from old and stuffy to masculine, sexy, and rebellious.
Its TV advertising came first. But then came the YouTube clips, Instagram pictures of people using the product, and product pages. Everything sat together perfectly, showing consumers that the brand had turned over a new leaf.
In the end, Old Spice reestablished itself as a leading men’s toiletries brand. And it’s been going strong ever since, all thanks to its savvy integrated marketing approach.
