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5 Integrated Marketing Strategies That Actually Work

By Jenna Bruce on Mon, Nov 18, 2019 @ 10:00 AM |

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Ask any CMO what their biggest challenge is and they’re likely to tell you selecting the right channels to deliver their brand’s messaging. There was a time when marketers had limited channels to choose from, namely traditional outlets like print, radio, TV (if they could afford it) and OOH. But beyond these traditional channels, marketers now have the option of digital channels such as social media, mobile marketing and email marketing, to name a few.

We can remember when the discussion among many CMOs was whether they should stick with traditional channels OR switch to digital. Luckily, today’s CMOs can develop and launch integrated marketing campaigns that mix the best of both worlds.white 3d growth illustration with the sky in the background

Here are some ways marketers can win with their integrative marketing campaigns.

  1. Know Your Audience

How do you go about selecting the right mix of traditional and digital channels? Close your eyes and throw a dart at a list? Pick a slip of paper out of a hat? Just guess?

To select the right mix of channels you’ve got to know who your audience is that you want to target. To do this, you’ll need to come up with far more than demographic data like age and annual salary. You’ll need to dig a little deeper to unearth information about your audience such as their attitudes, interest, behaviors, and concerns. By uncovering these, you will be able to identify which channels will best reach your audience.

Here are some brainstorming questions to get you started:

  • Who are my current customers?
  • What motivates them?
  • How do they like to obtain news and information?
  • What information will they find useful and relevant?
  • What language will engage them most?

Don’t even think about choosing channels until you know the answer to these questions.

  1. Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin

Let’s put a myth to bed right now. You do NOT have to be on every single channel out there. Even if you find through your research that your audience may live on 6 different channels, feel free to pick 2 or 3 of the channels to test.

One of the biggest mistakes we see people make is selecting too many channels at the same time. You’ll never be able to manage your campaigns effectively if you and your content are spread too thin. Integration does NOT require you to exhaust yourself and your resources.

Don’t be afraid to be ruthless in choosing channels. Give a few channels a test and adjust as needed moving forward.

  1. Create a Consistent Brand Identity

One of the biggest keys to successful channel integration is ensuring a consistent brand identity throughout. This means making sure your overall look and feel matches. Be it colors, logo, images, graphics and fonts, all of your communication, no matter the channel, should appear as if it came from the same brand. This means when a prospect opens an email after viewing a billboard ad, they know at once it comes from the same brand.

  1. Work Toward Uniting Your Channels

All of your channels should be united, working together to help you achieve your overall campaign objective. This means whether you are running a newspaper ad along with Facebook ads and SMS ads, you’ll want to send all of that traffic to the right landing page – or in some cases – right through your businesses’ front door. This means all of your content on these integrated channels must share a similar call-to-action, telling the reader specifically what you’d like them to do.

  1. Track and Adjust

While all campaigns require proper analytics, integrated campaigns particularly call for a watchful eye. If you are a brand looking to drive in-store sales with coupons, consider using a tracking platform that generates unique barcodes with every coupon reader print. This is how major national brands get data from all of their regional retailers. You can use the same method.

 

If you are new to running integrated campaigns but are curious if they can work for you, get in touch with us. We help CMOs get their message in front of the right audience at the right time, every time.

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