If you’re looking for a way to drive promotional campaigns across a diverse range of channels (print, email, social, in-store promotions, etc.), then you should be experimenting with integrated media campaigns. Integrated campaigns allow you to tailor brand experiences at each customer touchpoint so your messaging remains steadfastly consistent.
That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that launching a successful integrated media campaign is not the easiest thing in the world to do and has caused many an enthusiastic but unprepared marketer to develop a substantial headache or two.
If you don’t have a ton of multi-channel media planning skills or experience tracking performance and leveraging data, do not fear. We are about to share 3 ½ tips to creating an integrated multi-channel media campaign.
Tip 1: Know Your Ideal Customer
Before the planning and development phase, you’ve got to spend some time researching and understanding who you are marketing to. Different audience segments will congregate within different channels, so it’s more important than ever to leverage the mounds of customer data around you. Research, test, and understand the most likely channels your ideal customer will be found. Why spend money on integrating 6 channels when your biggest response might come from only 3.
Tip 2: Bring Value and Emotion
Just when you think you know what your audience wants, it wants something else. It can be maddening trying to keep up with today’s consumer demands.
An easy and powerful way to never be out of line with consumer demands is to always bring emotion and value to the table. Above all else, today’s consumers long for a genuine connection to brands, and there’s no better way to connect than through human emotions. Make them laugh, cry, wonder and hope. And always, always, craft messages that include real valuable insights.
Tip 3: Ensure a Consistent Customer Experience
Consistency plays perhaps the largest part in how your brand is perceived and how successful your campaigns are. Your customers’ experience of your brand should be a holistic one. Once you’ve determined which channels you will use, pay attention to details so your message and image are consistent across all channels.
Are you using the same fonts, brand colors, keyterms, and images? Will your audience recognize your brand message instantly? Make sure all of your in-house teams are working from the same brand bible and off of the same campaign plan to avoid any inconsistencies.
½ Tip: Track at a High Level
It won’t necessarily be easy getting robust visibility into all of the moving parts of the campaign to determine burn rate and performance. Using specific metrics can help your team track results and gain a clear perspective of the data coming in to recognize what’s working and what’s not at a high level. In this way you can allocate resources appropriately on a rolling basis to prioritize channels and messaging.
BONUS ½ Tip:
Alright, alright, here’s the second half of that tip:
Consider using cloud-based reporting dashboards that will automatically pull data from different channels so you can act nimbly.
Here are some other useful metrics to track:
- Landing page A/B testing
- Social media ad conversions
- Email click throughs
- Daily website traffic
- Earned media program results
- Cost per click
- Cost per lead
- Unique print promo codes
- QR codes
ANOTHER BONUS Tip #5: Automate
Alright, since we’re on a roll, here’s a final bonus tip for you…
The tasks that always turn out to be the most time-intensive are never the ones you first expect. It’s usually the smaller, menial management tasks that eat into your time and budget in a big, big way.
Automation can be the difference between a ‘meh’ campaign and one whose ROI knocks your socks off. Consider using automation tools for your next integrated campaign. These could be as simple as using email templates to building out go-to playbooks, to buying fully-loaded cloud-based automation software solutions.
If you want to engage with audiences in a consistent and meaningful way that results in a meaningful ROI, your best bet is to focus on an integrated campaign that gets your message in front of the right people at the right time and in the right place.
Need helps with your integrated marketing campaign? We do this for a living, which means we can take care of everything so you can focus on what you do best – growing your small practice or business.
