THE IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRATED MARKETING

In order to stay relevant with their audience, today’s marketers are tasked with having to diversify their campaigns and successfully intertwine multiple channels. Running siloed campaigns is no longer a viable solution. In order to accomplish an effective cross-channel campaign, it is imperative that marketers implement an integrated marketing approach.

What is Integrated Marketing?

Integrated marketing is all about bringing together different marketing channels and promotion methods to create a consistent brand experience that features unified brand messaging. The Direct Marketing Association defines integrated marketing as a marketing approach that “attempts to meld all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and social media, through their respective mix of tactics, methods, channels, media, and activities, so that all work together as a unified force.”

Why Integrated Marketing is Important

Let’s look at an example. Say an advertiser wants to promote a retail offer to their millennial demographic. Millennials are known to be a tech-savvy generation, so the advertiser creates a digital-heavy marketing campaign with an emphasis on social networking. On the surface, this marketing approach seems ideal for this target audience. However, did you know that the NPD group found that 51% of 18-34 year olds use the newspaper as their primary source for coupons and retail offers? By focusing solely on digital ads and social media, the advertiser pigeon-holed their retail promotion and missed an opportunity to fully engage with their consumers.

Integrated marketing requires a focused strategy in order to be effective, and it can be a difficult strategy to implement because first you have to identify your audience and their mannerisms.

Get Started Today

So what is the best way to execute a successful integrated marketing campaign? While there is no surefire formula for a successful integrated marketing campaign, Pickton and Broderick summarize the characteristics for successful integrated marketing communications into 4 C’s. If your campaign contains these four characteristics, then you are on your way.

• Coherence – different communications are logically connected.
• Consistency – multiple messages support and reinforce, and are not contradictory.
• Continuity – communications are connected and consistent through time.
• Complementary – synergistic, or the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

For more in-depth information on how to kick-start an integrated marketing campaign, give us a call. Our full-service agencycan help you figure out where to begin and how to use integrated marketing to increase your ROI.