If you’re not using an integrated marketing campaign strategy, then you’re not using your marketing channels effectively, and losing out on ROI because of it.
Having an integrated marketing campaign requires identifying the channels that work best for your brand and strategically leveraging them together to maximize impact.
This means that for your integrated campaign to be successful, you need to have an intimate knowledge of your brand’s past performance on different marketing channels so that you can continue expanding on past successes. You also need to have a strategy that allows you to gather critical information, such as industry and competitive marketing intelligence, in order to creatively test new ideas.
What your integrated marketing strategy should do for you
Using the right analytics to track and measure success is critical for creating an effective integrated marketing campaign that drives ROI.
“The most important aspect of any campaign, and most especially integrated campaigns, is putting the proper analytics and attribution methods in place to really understand how you’re achieving conversions and/or results,” Dylan Whitman, cofounder of Brand Value Accelerator, told CIO.com.
The best marketing analytics will not only empower you to improve your campaigns in real-time, it will connect your campaign performance to business goals and revenue across all of your marketing channels. This means you can tell whether or not your integrated marketing strategy is driving the results that are important to your company.
If you’re fully leveraging the right channels for your campaign, then you should see a few key performance indicators (KPIs) — both leading and lagging — to help measure success:
- Correlated increases in channel engagement (leading) — If you’re taking full advantage of all of the channels your target audience is on, then you shouldn’t see an increase in engagement for just one channel. You should see increased engagement on all of the channels involved in your integrated marketing campaign. If you don’t, then identify the weak links and either improve your channel tactics or reevaluate if having that channel is an effective use of resources.
- Higher conversion rates (leading) — Higher conversion rates from the channels you are targeting as well as your specific campaign means your campaign tactics are working well. You are getting consumers to take the actions you want on your website. If you don’t see an increase in conversion rates as a result of your integrated marketing campaign, reassess your tactics and the channel mix you’re using.
- Quality of leads (somewhat lagging) — So you’ve seen an increase in engagement across channels and higher conversion rate. But is your integrated marketing campaign driving the right leads and shoppers to your website? Keep track of shopping cart abandonment rates (for ecommerce websites) and disqualified lead rates (for B2B websites) to make sure you are contributing to an efficient sales cycle.
- Multiple channel touches (lagging) — Are you attracting hot leads and amped shoppers? Your integrated marketing campaign should help you interact with every buyer across multiple touches and channels before they even fill out a form on your website or drop an item in their cart. In today’s world of infinite information via the internet, you can bet that your competitors (and a zillion other things) are trying to win over consumer attention. Make sure you are interacting with consumers on as many of your target channels as possible so you have them convinced that they are interested in your brand before you even know get to your website.
- Increased ROI (really lagging) — This is the bottom line. Is your integrated marketing campaign leading to higher returns and revenue for your business? Use marketing attribution and goal tracking to measure the impact of your campaign on ROI.
How to build an effective campaign
Building an effective integrated marketing campaign takes forward thinking and a data-driven mindset. Here’s what you should focus on while honing your strategy:
- Find out what channels your target audience uses and what they talk about, using your marketing persona as a guide for defining your ideal buyer. You may need to segment your audience if your brand has more than one buyer persona, in order to find the best channels for different groups.
- Gather intelligence to find out which of your competitors are dominating different channels so you can better differentiate your brand’s messaging from theirs.
- Find the best tool to help you track analytics and improve your strategy in real-time. An integrated marketing strategy requires an integrated marketing analytics platform to help you track performance and results.
- Create a testing strategy to hone the tactics for your integrated marketing strategy. Find out what channels work best for:
Your brand. This is the stage where you verify that the target channels you identified for your buyer persona work for your brand in particular. As you are testing, remember to tailor your messaging for each channel.
Different kinds of content. Test blog posts, white papers, special offers, events, webinars, and any other content your brand has in its arsenal. Track what content types work best on what channels using UTM parameters.
Different topics. As you are testing content types, you can also test different topics in combination with content types and channels. You can use an analytics platform like TrackMaven to examine the performance of your campaign by topic and channel.
- Track your findings in a chart so your campaign managers have a guide for what works best for your brand. Here’s an example for a retail department store:
- Create a strategy for using the best practices you uncovered, testing new content and ideas, and tracking and reporting on results moving forward. Rely on your campaign managers to execute, but keep track of overall performance using your marketing dashboard and analytics platform.
Integrated marketing campaign examples
Want brand role models to follow to see this advice in action? Check out these integrated marketing campaign examples:
REI
REI’s #OptOutside campaign is the stuff of legends. The campaign asks people to consider going outside rather than going shopping on Black Friday. It has expanded beyond that one focal point and the hashtag is now consistently used to support outdoor sports and activities throughout the year.
REI’s integrated marketing campaign continues to use marketing tactics and channels to maximize impact. Here is an example of how #OptOutside was used to support content about snowboarding on Periscope, Twitter, Facebook, and Facebook Live:
Want to learn how easy it is to fall in love with snowshoeing? Watch our recent Periscope event to learn the essentials. #OptOutside https://t.co/SQp75W1zZS
— REI (@REI) January 19, 2017
L’Oreal
L’Oreal created an integrated marketing campaign around it’s shea butter products, supporting sustainable development and environmental awareness.
Here are a couple social media posts around the campaign on Twitter and Instagram:
.@Loreal‘s sustainable sourcing of shea butter from Burkina Faso benefits local growers & protects the environment https://t.co/SsEZ5JrP0d pic.twitter.com/9tNXAdMUbJ
— L’Oréal USA (@LOrealUSA) January 19, 2017
Want to get a head start on leading your marketing team to success? Download this free marketing executive’s toolkit!
