Integrated Marketing – the Key to Growing Your Business

What is integrated marketing?

Simply put, integrated marketing is being consistent in your marketing both online and offline. Integrated marketing is the holistic approach to communication, helping to create a unified and seamless experience for consumers to interact with the brand. It fuses all marketing channels to work together as a unified force.

Nowadays it seems as though new media platforms are popping up every day.

Yes, it was only a few short years ago that social media tycoons Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube came about. And more and more new sites and apps are coming about, ever heard of Firef.ly, Yubl, and Storehouse? As with all social media, these each come with their own advertising platforms and diverse audiences. There has also been huge innovation in mobile targeted advertising as people are becoming more and more reliant on their phones. In marketing, there is a constant push to adapt and move forward or risk being left behind. How can all these separate platforms come together for your company to create a cohesive advertising campaign? You've got to turn to integrated marketing to provide a unified brand message across all channels.

Integrated marketing strategies ultimately should turn into a customer-specific selling strategy.

This way you can easily cater to their needs. For example, a client walks into your dental office and because they've downloaded your app, their phone automatically signs them in and notifies the receptionist that they have arrived. Afterwards, they schedule their next appointment and pay from their phone. This appointment time is now blocked off your website so if a new client tries to schedule an appointment they won't be double booked. Make things as simple as possible for clients by having everything work together harmoniously.

Technology can be a wonderful thing.

In addition to client services, integrated marketing is about delivering content to your customers and prospects alike on the channels they prefer. You've already created the content, don't be afraid to repurpose it for different mediums, e.g. after writing a white paper consider other ways that you can use it - tweet excerpts from it, post in a physical newsletter, use it in an email campaign, or on your blog. Learn how to modify your campaign for every marketing stream both off and online to optimize it for each platform while keeping a cohesive message.

Understand that each social media stream has its own unwritten rules. For example, you can post five times a day on Twitter per day and it would be fine, but try five Facebook posts a day and you'll quickly become blocked or unfollowed since it would be considered a nuisance.

Okay. So you've determined what platforms you want to use. Now how do you track it?

You need to measure your progress to determine what is most effective and adjust your strategy accordingly. Dump the dogs. Double down on the winners. Analytics should absolutely be integrated to measure ROI. We integrate Google Analytics with a marketing automation tool (SharpSpring) so we can track our campaigns all in one simple dashboard. Within SharpSpring is an amazing feature - Call Tracking - which does exactly what you think it would.

You can assign a separate phone number to every marketing campaign you use. This way a sales rep can have access to all the data you have about a lead when they call. SharpSpring also tracks via forms and website visits - giving you full picture reporting all in one place. Imagine you are a mortgage company wanting to run a direct mail mortgage renewal campaign. With call tracking, you can attach a unique number to this mail and when customers call they'll be redirected to you. This number can be tracked by SharpSpring 's system so you know how people are responding from that campaign and how it compares to other marketing options such as Yellow Pages, bus shelters, promotional items, etc. If you don't measure, how will you know which marketing channel is effective?

Integrated marketing adds value

Overall, what's most important is that you're creating a clear and consistent message that centers around the target audience's needs. The various channels will reinforce the message and often increase returns on your marketing investment.

Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions regarding setting up an integrated campaign for your company, or about tools to help measure your efforts. We'd be glad to chat with you or give you a demo.

Michelle Levandovsky
Marketing Intern
Mystique Brand Communications