A Beginners Guide to Integrated Marketing

Marketing through different platforms can be tricky. Especially if several people are in charge of different marketing channels.

There might be discrepancies in the tone across different channels. And it becomes harder to ensure that the messaging remains consistent when you have a lot of marketing channels.

That's where integrated marketing comes in. It helps marketers create a cohesive campaign across platforms to showcase a unified and not confuse the target audience.

The concept seems easy, and it is if you do it right. This guide will take you through the process of creating a thriving integrated marketing campaign for your brand.

Table of contents

• What is integrated marketing?
• Example of integrated marketing
• Why should you use integrated marketing?
• How to create an integrated marketing strategy?
• How to track the performance of integrated marketing?
• So start integrating today

What is integrated marketing?

Integrated marketing is a strategy that aligns the messaging across all marketing channels (paid, organic, social media) the brand uses to deliver a cohesive narrative to audiences.

Without an integrated marketing strategy, your brand would seem disorganized and look like you don't have your stuff together.

Integrated marketing integrates all marketing platforms and efforts like:

• Social media marketing (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, etc.)

• Public Relations

• Content marketing

• SEO

• Direct marketing

• Radio ads

• Digital media

• Influencer marketing

• Paid Search

• Press releases (PR)

Let's take a look at an example to help you understand what integrated marketing would actually look like.

Example of integrated marketing

Birkenstock is a popular footwear brand known for making high-quality and long-lasting products. But one common problem their customers faced was that since the product was made from leather and cork, they didn't know how to clean it.

So, Birkenstock created a care kit to help people clean Birkenstock shoes and keep them looking good for a long time rather than replacing them. And here's how they used integrated marketing to ensure that the product doesn't look out of place amongst their regular products.

Website:

Instagram:

Email:

They have used their usual branding (font and color) and used the same copy and images across the platforms. This helps customers understand that the new, unusual product is a part of the Birkenstock brand.

Why should you use integrated marketing?

Now, let's look at exactly how does integrated marketing improve your brand's marketing efforts:

• It provides consistent brand messaging across all your marketing channels. Without consistency, people may think it's a scam and not your brand's product or service.

• When you present a unified front, people feel like your brand/product is legit and are more likely to trust you.

• This consistency can help in brand recognition/recall. So when they see your campaign for the second time on another platform you are marketing through, they feel like," oh hey, I know that I've seen that before."

• Integrated marketing also helps you on the backend by streamlining your team's marketing process. And reducing any duplication or inconsistent information while creating the campaign.

• And it helps you lower your marketing costs because the assets used in the campaigns are the same for all the marketing channels.

How to create an integrated marketing strategy?

Ok, you are on board with the idea and wondering how to create an integrated marketing strategy for your business. Here are the steps to creating an integrated marketing strategy:

1. Set goals and choose your marketing channels

Before creating the overall marketing campaign, determine its goal. It can be anything like promoting a new product/service, rebranding, increasing brand awareness, etc.

Now that you have your goals choose the marketing channels that'll work well for your business and the goals that you've set. For example, if your aim is rebranding, it wouldn't make sense for you to do radio ads.

If you have different teams handling different marketing channels, you need to bring them together for a meeting. And discuss the integration plan and get them on track with what's happening.

2. Create versatile marketing creatives and assets

Here is the step that makes it different from a regular marketing campaign. You have to bring together all the teams and the designers to discuss what kind of creatives they need and make them all look cohesive.

Decide on what copy, images, videos, color palette, etc., you will be using for your marketing channels. Only figure out the general idea as usually there will be differences in size, dimensions, etc. And make sure all the creatives you create are consistent with your branding and are in line with your brand identity.

3. Create a landing page

This is like how you would usually create a campaign where you can direct the people from your marketing channels to your website. Create a landing page for the new visitors and include a way to collect leads or get them to convert. You can include signup forms to subscribe to your newsletter or download lead magnet, create an account on your website, listings in your e-commerce shop, etc. While you plan to collect leads, figure out a plan to nurture them.

4. Launch campaign

Now that you have everything ready in the backend, all left is to launch your campaigns on all your chosen channels. Make sure the website is the first to be ready as it is where you'll link back to. Then launch all the campaigns around the same time.

How to track the performance of integrated marketing?

In general, marketers had seen an increase in marketing effectiveness when they integrated all their marketing channels, but you can't measure that accurately. Let's look at how you can measure the performance and impact of integrated marketing.

Here are things you can measure to find out the impact of your integrated marketing efforts:

• Landing page performance

This is best for e-commerce or online businesses where the website is the last destination a customer has to reach before they convert. Measure the traffic and conversions that come from the landing page. It'll show you how many people directly came from another marketing platform and converted. It shows the efficacy of the integrated campaign to get people to convert. You can use tools like Google Analytics to measure the traffic, conversions, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

• Campaign catchphrase

If your campaign has a signature catchphrase across all the platforms, see if people use it in their everyday lives. If they do, that's when you subconsciously have made a lasting impression on them, and they'll always remember you.

For example, remember that ad from Colgate with the jingle "Brush brush brush two times away. Brush brush brush keep cavities away"? Oh yeah, you remember now, don't you? The ad came on TV, YouTube, etc. Many of us started singing that jingle when brushing our teeth. So when people start using your campaigns jingle or catchphrase, that's one way to know you've made an impact. You can find it out by keeping an eye out on social media.

• Keyword performance

Use tools like Ahrefs, Trueranker, Google search console, etc., and find out what keywords you are ranking for. Your landing page, blog posts, or other native advertising should be performing well for keywords of your product or campaign.

• Social media insights

Your social media metrics like engagement, follower count, CTRs, post shares, etc., should be rising steadily. You can usually check these metrics in the insights provided by the social media you use. And while some of the metrics depend on your brand, product, season, etc., if the integration is done well, the insights continue to increase regardless of the season or time.

• Conversions

You can wait a few months and check the overall increase in conversions after the campaign has launched. Find out how many people signed up, downloaded ebooks, purchased from your shop, etc.

Also, look at the metrics of all the different marketing platforms you use since it's integrated to put out the same message.

So start integrating today

If you want to sound dependable on your social media, digital, and PR channels, hop on to the integrated marketing bandwagon. You can make a stronger impression on your audience by making your communication efforts bolder.

You can also leverage word-of-mouth marketing and take your business to greater heights. Don't take our word for it. Read our guide to find out how Skillshare got people talking about their brand.