Today, digital marketers and business owners are faced with the complex puzzle of effectively reaching people with relevant products, offers, or services—without relying on outdated traditional marketing methods. The average internet user sees over 4,000 ads on a daily basis. Staying relevant and keeping the attention of viewers is now a full-time job, and to do it well, you may need a new approach. Enter the concept of integrated marketing. When done right, an integrated marketing plan can deliver a seamless, user-centered experience that wins every time.
What Is Integrated Marketing?
Meant to provide clarity to the complex and disorganized marketing world, integrated marketing aligns and coordinates brands and businesses alike by helping them deliver a consistent message across every platform. Essentially, integrated marketing keeps the customer at the center of every website, ad, or piece of content published.
Why the Integrated Approach Matters
No matter what industry or market niche your brand operates in, increasing efficiency and performance by maintaining open communication across all parts of the marketing process will help you leave the competition behind. In addition to integrated campaigns outperforming single and dual-channel marketing campaigns by upwards of 300 percent, research shows that 72 percent of consumers actually prefer an integrated approach. By utilizing a variety of marketing channels to create and share consistent, on-brand content, you allow your audience to understand and relate to your content, no matter how it is absorbed.
Why Integrated Marketing Will Matter Even More Tomorrow
We’ve already shared that the average user is exposed to over 4,000 advertisements every day. This overwhelming amount of content means that many messages (even the helpful ones) get lost in the noise. To avoid contributing to the overall cacophony or, maybe even worse, being caught up in the fray, all parts of your marketing team need to work together. By instituting a holistic approach that aligns all your production efforts and integrates all channels and mediums, your brand can gain the upper hand and break through the noise to reach your target audience.
5 Steps to Help Build a Stellar Integrated Marketing Plan
It may take some trial and error to arrive at a comprehensive plan that produces the best results. As your team works on developing a customized, targeted marketing plan that’s perfectly integrated with every part of your production process, consider these steps.
Champion Your Own Cause
Identifying and training cross-functional leaders within your brand or business is key to success, because these types of leaders understand the importance of filling in the gaps and establishing joint goals. Maybe this means working harder to build a team of like-minded people or promoting a long-term supporter to fuel existing efforts. Or, perhaps it means bringing in new leadership or marketing experts that can work with your company to develop the ideal plan.
Check Your SWOT Score
Analyzing your brand’s existing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) will help your team uncover both real and potential issues. Whether you need a stronger website, a more detailed editorial calendar, or higher-quality content, a SWOT score can reveal the areas of your marketing strategy that need the most integration. It’s also helpful to keep these four characteristics of your brand in mind as you brainstorm and develop your integrated marketing plan.
Get to Planning
Once you’ve built support for your cause and have identified existing and potential SWOT points, it’s time to start developing your integrated marketing plan. As the planning process begins, keep all available lines of communication open to ensure a collaborative process across teams. That might mean forging news chains of communication that didn’t exist before. Ultimately, you want to be sure that everyone starts and stays on the same page as you build your plan.
Implement a More Holistic Workflow
Adopting a holistic marketing strategy involves interlinking every part of your production process to ensure cohesiveness across all marketing materials. From content and web design to strategy and social media, utilizing a transparent and collaborative workflow ensures that every box gets checked—and nothing slips through the cracks.
Leverage Available Tools and Best Practices
Thanks to digital technology and tools like Hootsuite, Slack, and Trello, creating and executing marketing plans has never been easier. An integrated technological approach brings all marketing channels, means of communication, and internal teams together to make sure your whole brand is working cohesively. Do your existing scheduling and planning technologies support an integrated approach? If not, consider checking out some new tasking or scheduling tools that can get your team on the right track.
Drive Results With Smart Digital Marketing Strategies
At Snap, we’re all about combining strategic insights with bold design and marketing solutions that work. Unmatched communication between our team and our clients helps foster a cohesive approach that keeps things running smoothly. If your brand needs an integrated marketing plan, contact us today to get started.