Integrated? If Not, Why Not?

Coordinate your marketing activities to meet an overall aim

Due to the numerous ways in which companies can now communicate with their audiences, it is now accepted amongst professionals that an integrated approach to marketing is essential to ensure brand consistency. And to make the integrated approach a success, planning is the key.

An integrated approach refers to considering all channels available and using a combination to reinforce the same message. Online channels include search engine optimisation, PPC, banner, email and affiliate advertising, email marketing, blogging and any other way of communicating with an audience which uses the internet. Offline refers to the more traditional channels of television and radio advertising as well as press and PR, mail shots, relationship marketing and any way of communicating with an audience that does not use the internet.

So, how do you use integrated marketing to improve on the current marketing activities undertaken by your company, improve your position in the market and most importantly, get more sales? The best place to start is back at the drawing board.

The basics…

Firstly, take a good look at your current situation and ensure that you have the basics covered. Are you happy with your logo and is it always represented consistently across everything that corresponds to your organisation? This includes business cards, invoices, brochures, your website and anything else that your customers might see. If not, you need to put a logo and branding guidelines document together and easy to use templates in place. You then need to make this available to all staff and stipulate the importance of consistency. Use colour and size references.

Next consider the way your staff describe and promote the organisation and the products or services that it offers. Ensure that basic descriptions (with customer benefits) are available for staff to use when talking to customers, and reinforce these messages through any promotional literature and your website.

How to use the integrated approach for a specific campaign

Now consider increasing sales of a particular product or service through an integrated marketing campaign. You may already have a product or service in mind, however if not, take some time to look at the current marketplace. Research where your competitors are focussing their efforts as well as current topics of interest for your customers. Once you have this decided, it’s time to look at your target markets and the best channels available for reaching them.

Start by looking at your existing customer base. Are there any customers that you currently sell other products or services to that are likely to be interested in what you are focussing on in this campaign? If so, pull their information from your database and have a separate list available with their contact details on. Additionally, can you purchase a list of contacts that match the target audience requirements for this particular campaign? If so, it is often worth investing in as it saves considerable time and effort. The message to each of these target lists is likely to be slightly different as you can use a more relaxed tone to the existing customers. It may also be the case that you choose different communication mediums for each; for example, your existing customers may be happy to receive emails from you (which will also get through their spam filters), whereas a mail shot is more likely to land on the desk of those on the purchased list. You need to look carefully at your target audiences and make a list of the communication channels that they are likely to use and respond to. Within this, consider which magazines and newspapers they might read, which television and radio stations they might watch/listen to, which websites they might receive newsletters from and follow etc.

However you decide to approach communicating with your audience, think about ways that you could reinforce the message, for example, if you sent a series of promotional emails to your existing customer target list, you could reinforce this message by sending a brochure or leaflet for the product or service you are promoting with their next invoice. You could then follow this by offering them a discount promotional code which they can enter into your website, again enabling you to reinforce the message on the website landing page. You can use as many channels as you feel appropriate, but just remember to keep the message the same. It’s also worth considering getting articles published in magazines that your target audiences might read, either as paid advertorials or editorial contributions. Any way that you can reinforce your message and your company’s position as the best place to purchase from will be valuable. Also consider ways in which you can keep your audiences attention once you have it – this could be done through blogging, micro-blogging and social networking sites.

However you decide to go about your next campaign, make sure you spend time planning it so that you understand the time it’s going to take, the cost and how you are going to measure its effectiveness. As you can see, to make integrated marketing a success, time and effort is required and if you don’t have the necessary resources in place, you are unlikely to get the results you deserve.

If you have a marketing team, ask for a detailed plan and go over it to ensure that every angle is covered. If you don’t have a marketing team, why not get some help on a freelance basis? Call me to discuss further using the contact details on the left hand side of this page.

Happy campaigning!

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