Picture a chair in your mind. Now, imagine that all four legs of that chair are different lengths and different widths. That sounds like a pretty useless chair, right? A chair like that couldn’t possibly be very strong or effective.
Well, you may not realize it, but your business’s marketing strategy might be a lot like that chair.
It’s not uncommon for a company to invest in several types of marketing strategies without fully integrating their branding messages or coordinating their marketing efforts. The result is a “chair” that just doesn’t work. In fact, a recent survey found that only 14 percent of companies actually take an integrated approach to their marketing campaigns across all channels. That means the vast majority of companies are not taking advantage of the benefits and power of integrated marketing.
So, if so few people are doing it, why is integrated marketing important?
Integrated marketing is important in that creates a “chair” with a strong foundation. By integrating all of your marketing communications, from social media and blogging to advertisements and PR, you create a seamless and multi-faceted experience for your customers that reflects the core values of your brand.
Integrated marketing is more than just repeating the same tagline in all of your marketing materials. It’s about synchronizing your messages and leveraging the strengths of each type of communication in order to optimize your marketing efforts. In other words, integrating your marketing strategies is like using all the legs of your chair and using them to their fullest.
For example, advertising allows companies to pick when and where a marketing message is delivered and to ensure that the content is exactly as the marketer wants. Media relations on the other hand provides none of these advantages, but it does provide a third-party endorsement of your message. Social media offers something completely different: a two-way conversation, more like discussing your marketing message with someone sitting across the kitchen table from you.
There are many other marketing communications methods and each has its own unique advantage. When you take advantage of each method with integrated marketing, it’s not just adding more marketing communications methods; it’s multiplying the effect of all your methods. The sum becomes greater than the parts.
Each type of communication reinforces the other and presents the marketing message in a way that’s genuine to how your target audience consumes that media. This compounds the results for your target market and ensures that the message is making it through and being reinforced in a variety of ways.
Integrated marketing helps you win with a cohesive strategy that keeps the customer at the center. If you would like to discuss how integrated marketing could help your company move forward, please contact Lori Jones.
