Do you ever feel like your marketing just isn’t working?
Maybe your latest LinkedIn post got 78 impressions and three likes? Or that blog article you spent ages writing for your website only had two page views? And your newsletter click through rate – well that is hovering around the 2% mark.
While these can make you feel like it’s all pointless, it doesn’t mean your marketing is failing. But it could well be fragmented. Perhaps a new approach is needed.
Here’s how to fix your fragmented marketing with an integrated marketing strategy.
What isn’t integrated marketing?
You know when you wake up one Wednesday and decide to dash out a once-in-a-blue-moon post for LinkedIn because you haven’t written anything for ages, or because you’ve just started an exciting project and feel like you need to tell everyone?
That’s not integrated marketing.
Or you start a blog for your website, write two articles in six months on subjects you find interesting, decide it’s not working and launch a newsletter instead?
That’s not it either.
What is integrated marketing?
You’ve probably heard the term ‘integrated marketing’ but really it’s just a fancy way of saying ‘joined up’.
It means you’ve put some strategy behind your marketing efforts so that everything ties nicely together, with a consistent message, promoted consistently across the channels you know work. So that whatever stage of the funnel your prospective customers enter, they’ll get a clear idea of who you are and how you can help them.
It all joins up. Even if all you have is a website and a LinkedIn account – the two need to marry. Anything you post on your socials should reinforce your key messages and USPs. And when someone follows a link to your website, they need to see the same themes reflected there.
You have an identified objective for the marketing activities you undertake. There’s no scatter gun, there’s no spaghetti flinging and there’s no random once-in-a-blue-moon posting.
So how do you do it?
Here are some basic steps to a more joined up marketing strategy that is better at getting results. While you can get down to more technical detail, and test and refine, this is a good place to start.
Steps to joined up marketing
- Know your key messages and USPs: You can’t run consistent joined-up marketing without defining the value you give to people and why they should choose you. Distil this down into four or five key USPs that are reflected in all your content and communications (at least one USP per piece).
- Know your customer: Researching who buys from you and why enables you to create more effective messaging that speaks directly to what they need. By understanding the different thought processes customers go through when deciding to buy, you can create messages that help them along each stage.
- Make sure your branding is consistent: It’s an obvious, but often overlooked, element of integrated marketing. It simply means making sure you have a defined brand that people can recognise. This incorporates those key messages and USPs, your mission and values (as well as the logo and colour palette).
- Map the customer journey: This involves analysing how people find your business and move through your sales funnel. Where do your leads come from? What channels perform best? This is where to focus your efforts.
- Defining campaign objectives: Think about the objectives you want to achieve. It might be general, such as increasing the number of sales, or it might be specific, such as launching a new product range or getting sign-ups for a webinar. Then you can make sure your marketing activities are all steps towards achieving that objective.
- Creating consistent content: Use all that information to map out several months’ worth of content, across the appropriate channels, that all joins up in its messaging. Every activity should be designed to answer your customers’ problems, alleviate their doubts and encourage them to buy, step by step.
- The devil is in the detail: Don’t forget the small details. Easy quick actions like linking a new sales landing page in staff email signatures, setting up automated email flows that move people along the funnel, making sure your social channels are linked on your website, and directing Pay Per Click to the new sales page, can all help reinforce that joined-up approach you’re looking for.
Need help joining up your marketing?
Constantly chopping and changing tactics, with PPC here, social posts there, lacks cohesion and direction.
Joined up marketing that is consistent across all your channels, working towards a defined objective, has a much better chance of delivering results. A great example can be seen here. If you need help creating a central strategy that connects everything together, get in touch and let’s chat.