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Marketing is a challenge, even for the most well-run businesses. But it’s a necessity, which is why companies spend so much money on it. The top 200 advertisers collectively spent a record $163 billion on advertising in 2018, according to Business Insider.
A lot of businesses feel lost when it comes to marketing. And they have no idea how they can reach their goals and hit key performance indicators (or even know what marketing KPIs are to begin with).
They may have someone doing social media, another person creating videos, and yet another working on search engine ads — and really no idea how each are performing or how much time is being wasted.
That’s where integrated marketing comes in, and why so many digital marketing tips focus on this approach. It’s a strategy that streamlines all of your inbound marketing so you’re building off each other’s efforts, and not competing with each other, all while producing data that allows you to understand how effective your marketing is.
What is integrated marketing?
Marketing integration refers to combining all aspects of a brand into one seamless experience for the customer, from advertising to social media.
Digital media and the internet have made integrated marketing possible, allowing marketers to improve their effectiveness by connecting all aspects of marketing into one unified, multifaceted effort.
It also allows marketers to choose multiple marketing tools to reach customers, ranging from short videos to longer blog posts to more personalized outreach.
- It boosts revenue by more effectively reaching customers who wouldn’t be impacted if you focused on just one marketing channel.
- It helps the company more quickly move customers through the sales funnel by developing a deeper relationship with the customer.
- It makes the message clearer by providing a 360-degree view of what your organization stands for and what it offers.
- It makes your message more consistent, which reduces confusion and increases trust in your brand.
- It saves money because you aren’t duplicating efforts. For example, you’re not creating two different videos to go on two different marketing channels. Instead, you’re working smart and making one fantastic video, sharing it across multiple channels.
Note: When discussing marketing vs. advertising, remember that advertising comprises just one aspect of marketing, and it cannot replace all the other aspects of the process, such as organic traffic from search engine optimization, referrals, and social media, to name a few sources.
Why prioritize an integrated marketing strategy?
An integrated digital marketing strategy sounds great, but why is it important for brand positioning? Can’t you just rely on a more old-fashioned marketing process? And is it really necessary to make major changes to the small business marketing plan you have now?
There are a few reasons why an integrated marketing campaign is vital in this day and age.
It creates a consistent message
A big problem with marketing is having a whole bunch of scattershot messages that don’t create a unified vision of what your company does and what it produces. Worse, it can cause you to make major mistakes in your messaging that could have been caught with better collaboration.
For example, the Department of Education caught a lot of heat after tweeting a W.E.B. DuBois quote with his name misspelled, and then misspelled the word “apology” in their apology. If …….
Source: https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/small-business/email-marketing/articles/integrated-marketing/