Use Integrated Marketing to Deliver Results
There are many different components of integrated marketing, and if you don’t know what they are and how they work together, you can’t evaluate your marketing approach.
Integrated marketing involves developing a number of different strategies to spread messages across print, digital, branding and content. But it also includes elements like customer data analysis, market research and competitive intelligence — in other words running your business as an integrated whole.
An example could be finding out that 48% of your customers use Facebook to make decisions about what products to buy. This information will let you tailor the content for your Facebook audience rather than just making general posts about the company or product. It’s a more targeted marketing approach.
This type of integrated marketing is often used by companies that have a number of different products and services to sell.
An example would be a small business that makes chainsaws. The business can use integrated marketing to create content that brings customers back to its website or Facebook page to buy chainsaw accessories made by the same company.
Integrated marketing is about using digital channels and opportunities for outreach, but also about using facts about your services and products to influence people.
An example of this is a car dealer who has found out through customer data analysis that people who purchase the more expensive, high-end model of a certain brand tend to live in certain zip codes.
This car dealer can use that information to focus on a neighborhood or city and often get customers through avenues other than print advertising or digital outreach.
Integrated marketing involves making sure your product, service and company are easy to find online by using digital strategies combined with tactics that involve product knowledge.
For example, if you run a clothing store, you not only want to use SEO techniques like having clean websites and content optimized for keywords, but also make sure you have signs in your store explaining the differences between different fabric materials.
Integrated marketing is a form of marketing that uses data from customer analytics and market research to help you figure out if your strategy is working.
For example, if your business has a blog and people aren’t commenting on it or tagging it on social media, then you may want to tweak the content or approach of your blog posts.
Another example of integrated marketing would be using information about how people are using your website to tailor different sections. For example, you could use a heat map tool to find out that users tend to click on certain links in specific areas of your website. This information can help you improve the design of certain pages or create targeted content for users who tend to read certain sections or ignore others.
Integrated marketing can be used by anyone with a business model that relies on providing information, products or services to customers. Some of the most common examples would be real estate agents, insurance companies and small businesses.
The main focus of integrated marketing is to use information you’ve gathered about your business, customer needs and targeted customer groups to tailor your content and outreach.
You can use customer data analysis to identify trends in specific customer groups (like finding out that people who buy certain types of chainsaws also tend to like purchasing barbecue supplies). You can also use it to find out how people are using your website and what pages they tend to visit (using heat maps).
Market research helps you find out more about your customers and how they perceive your business. For example, if a lot of people who read “How to Use a Chainsaw” on the website of a local chainsaw store don’t actually own or use chainsaws, this could be something that negatively impacts your site and business.
Competitive intelligence can help you learn about rivals, competitors and trends in the market that you can use to shape your business. An example would be finding out that another company has gained traction for a certain product category because it was able to find out about trends through customer data analysis — or vice versa.
Though there are many different components of integrated marketing, the most important thing is understanding how they work together to create a comprehensive strategy to deliver results.
To do that, you need to know if your business is using integrated marketing. The components of integrated marketing might be broken down into three distinct areas: data-driven intelligence, engagement and reinforcement. Here’s a closer look at each.
Data-Driven Intelligence: Establish appropriate reporting channels through which business performance data can be captured and shared with the appropriate individuals in real time across the organization and among affiliated companies.
Establish appropriate reporting channels through which business performance data can be captured and shared with the appropriate individuals in real time across the organization and among affiliated companies. Engagement: Integrate marketing initiatives that stimulate customers to take an active role in the development of value for the brand, product or service being offered.
Integrate marketing initiatives that stimulate customers to take an active role in the development of value for the brand, product or service being offered. Reinforcement: Use multiple tactics to reinforce and maintain customer relationships across various channels by delivering top-of-mind awareness, loyalty, preference and advocacy through products, services and experience.
Your marketing strategy can fall into one of these three categories if you use integrated marketing. They’re not mutually exclusive. For example, if a customer bases his or her buying decision on facts about your product (like how long they have to wait before they can use it), but also reads posts on your Facebook page, then you’re using data-driven intelligence.
If your marketing strategy also revolves around using social media and content marketing to drive traffic to a website and conversion rates, then you could be validating your customer’s purchase by bringing them back to the site when they make a purchase. You could also reinforce their relationship with you through digital fulfillment and customer service experiences. All of these tactics are integrated into the same marketing strategy for this type of business.
Now that we’ve reviewed what integrated marketing is, it’s time to look at how you get started with it.
Who Should Use Integrated Marketing?
Any business that delivers information, products or services to customers can use integrated marketing. Some of the most common examples would be real estate agents, insurance companies and small businesses like barbershops and restaurants.
For example, a local restaurant could use integrated marketing to promote its website by putting up signs advertising the specials each night by using a digital strategy (signage and SEO) combined with tactics that involve product knowledge (barbecue recipe). This could attract people who visit the restaurant’s Facebook page for updates about the specials.
Conclusion
As you can see, there’s really no reason your small business can’t use integrated marketing. But to do so effectively, you need to understand what it is, who uses it and how to get started with it.
To learn more about integrated marketing for your small business, check out these posts about the benefits of using forms-based ecommerce and how to start a data-driven business.
This post is part of our contributor series. The views expressed are the author's own and not necessarily shared by TNW.