What is integrated marketing?

Marketing is one of the top priorities when it comes to running a business, but all marketing strategies are not the same. Effective strategies must be implemented and need to be adaptable for technological changes that may arise. Integrated marketing allows you to combine all of your marketing into a single message that remains consistent throughout a campaign.

Learning how to set up and use an integrated marketing system requires knowledge of different advertising platforms and strategies. It takes a few steps to create a proper, effective integrated marketing system to help you maintain and grow your consumer base. Let’s discuss the steps.

SETTING UP AN INTEGRATED MARKETING SYSTEM

When you decide to implement an integrated marketing approach, you have to take into consideration the most profitable avenues and platforms for your company, then decide how to unify the message across those platforms. Do you choose a humorous hashtag or a serious slogan?

There needs to be a clear leader for the projects with plans and goals outlined for the campaign. Everyone needs to understand their part in the process, know how to execute and submit their work to the proper channels, and strive for the same goals.

WHY USE AN INTEGRATED MARKETING SYSTEM

An integrated marketing system allows you to apply your advertising campaign across different highways while maintaining a single message. It creates a path of solidarity that consumers can relate directly back to your brand. You develop consistency that reaches your customer base frequently and can help influence their buying decisions.

Using a system like this is also cost-effective because it cuts down on costs associated with creating a new campaign or message for other channels. You coordinate through three types of media, and you need to understand what they consist of.

The types of media you’ll work with are classified as such:

• Owned media is your social media pages, customer service team, direct chats, and such.
• Paid media is advertising that isn’t online, such as billboards and newspaper ads.
• Earned media is your organic market that is generated by indirect means such as word of mouth and influenced traffic.

Integrated marketing allows your company to become a recognizable entity in the advertising world.

RISKS OF INTEGRATED MARKETING

There is risk in every decision, and integrated marketing is no different. Being aware of the presented risks and knowing how to navigate them to stop them from bringing down your company’s campaign.

These risks include:

• Ineffective management
• Error in execution
• Restriction of creativity

If you can’t get your inside team to effectively integrate across departments to even work on the campaign, you face a massive problem. You need your marketing departments working with your sales team, the design department needs to work with your public relations people, and they all need to be able to build and execute the marketing strategies.

If every department isn’t operating on a fully integrated level, you risk poor execution of the plans, which can lead to an ineffective marketing campaign. That kind of misstep could cost the company a lot of money.

The effort into a fully integrated marketing campaign is absolutely going to restrict ideas for advertising in other ways because all of your focus is going to be getting this new integrated system put together and running. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it also slows production for any advertisement production you may have going outside of the new system.

WHY INTEGRATED MARKETING WORKS

Integrated marketing works through repetition. Consumers aren’t likely to be impacted by advertisements that they see once or twice before disappearing into oblivion. Consumers are constantly reading, watching, and sharing anything and everything created by various companies. Being able to attract attention is a must in the market, and the simplest way to do so is to have your material just about everywhere at all times.

This type of marketing allows you to reach consumers that you wouldn’t have access to if you didn’t expand your stretch across platforms. It also allows you to regularly analyze the effects of your campaign with solid, consistent execution.

Showing you the reach of an integrated marketing system and how your advertising campaign is affecting the results of your business dealings makes it easier for you to decide where your efforts need the most focus and where your campaign may be able to improve.

DECIDE HOW TO INTEGRATE

When you start a new advertising campaign, you have to decide on a few other factors, too. How do you even start with an integrated marketing system? If you’re a fairly small company, you may be able to build your system from the ground up without much outside help, but if you’re a large company, you may need to invest in a team of professionals to start your new campaigns.

If you’re pretty tech-savvy, you might be able to figure it out on your own, but a marketing company with experience in integration knows exactly how to put together the campaign and run it with the right approaches to build the brand and pull in new business.

SUMMARY

If you’re a business owner, you likely rely on various forms of advertising to grow your business. If your advertising campaigns aren’t effective, you could be wasting money. An integrated marketing system can battle the losses you might face from bad marketing while spreading your influence across multiple platforms.

Maintaining a consistent media presence keeps your company and product in the forefront of the consumer’s mind and leads to more sales. Having a unifying message running across all platforms lets you put yourself in front of consumers who may have never seen your marketing had you been limited on the platform access.

If your company struggles to bring in new consumers through traditional advertising strategies, it might be time to implement an integrated strategy. Getting the same message in front of all types of people is going to be beneficial, not just for cutting down on advertising costs, but for your company’s profits as well.