When it comes to creating a positive experience for your customers, the first step is making sure you have an integrated marketing plan in place.

But what is integrated marketing and what are the benefits? In this blog, I’m going to explain what integrated marketing is and why it’s important for your business.

What Is Integrated Marketing?

Integrated marketing is a way for you to arrange your business’s marketing so all aspects and campaigns can be uniform and on-brand.

As a business, you will create marketing campaigns to promote your products or services that follow your brand voice, colors, imagery and much more.

When your campaigns use consistent branding, messaging and work with each other to create an ideal experience for customers, you have an integrated marketing plan in place.

Regardless of how a customer interacts with your business, their experience should not vary from platform to platform.

For example, if a customer visits your Facebook page followed by a visit to your website, your business name, logo, colors, mission statement and more should be consistent.

If the branding or messaging changes from platform to platform, this can cause confusion to your customers and website visitors.

Also, keep in mind that integrated marketing doesn’t just apply to your digital efforts. If you utilize any traditional marketing efforts, such as radio ads or billboards, these are a part of your integrated strategy, too!

Why Is Integrated Marketing Effective?

When you utilize integrated marketing, your campaigns become united.

Think of it like this – Integrated marketing can be seen as a coach and your marketing channels are the players. The coach comes up with the plays and the players work together to win the game.

When you use integrated marketing across all your channels, you’ll end up with more effective results. Here are just a few examples:

• When you create a campaign across multiple channels, you can reach a larger audience.
• Consistent messaging across platforms and channels helps create trust with consumers.
• When consumers see your messaging multiple times, it pushes them closer to a conversion.

With integrated marketing, there are some steps you should follow so it can be as effective as possible:

1. First, you need to set the main goal for your entire campaign including your key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ll be focusing on.
2. Next, you’ll need to choose which channels/strategies you’ll be utilizing as well as setting individual goals for each channel/strategy.
3. Determine who is your target audience for each channel/strategy. Creating buyer personas can be helpful for this step.
4. Assign team members to manage the channels/strategies. Assignments should be based on experience and knowledge.
5. Create your assets, including graphics and content. Make sure your assets follow your business’s branding.
6. Break down how you are collecting leads from your campaign and how to report them.
7. Last, but not least, it’s time to launch your campaign. Be sure to measure results as the campaign runs and make any necessary adjustments to optimize the campaign.

Once you follow these steps, you’ll be on your way to having an effective integrated marketing campaign.

Final Thoughts

While integrated marketing might seem like a new concept, you’re probably already on your way to creating an integrated marketing plan for your business! Sometimes it just takes a bit of extra planning to tie everything together.

With your marketing, it’s important to look at the entire picture for your campaign. You want your channels to work together, not against each other. If you’re solely focused on one channel at a time, you’re actually creating more work for yourself in the long run.

Integrated campaigns allow you to reuse content and messaging across platforms, which not only saves you time but money, too.

And remember, if you aren’t using consistent messaging and branding across all channels, you’ll only cause more confusion for your consumers.

If you have questions about integrated marketing or are ready to improve your online presence, our team at RevLocal is here to help!

When you work with us, we’ll guide you in creating a strategy that’s perfect for your business. Our industry experts utilize best practices and techniques to make sure your business is found by consumers online.

Find a consultant in your local area to get started or send us a message on Facebook!