Integrated marketing involves taking your branding message to your target audience through diverse channels. It's all about presenting a unified message that's easy for people to identify with your company. Unfortunately, it's easy to undermine your brand with inconsistent marketing in different channels. This week will discuss how to keep your branding in order with integrated marketing.
What Are the Marketing Channels?
It's easiest to categorize marketing channels into two main categories: digital and traditional marketing. And, beyond these, we can descend to more specific groups. But for now, let's look at a simple list of common marketing channels and their classification as digital or traditional.
Traditional Marketing Channels
- Radio
- TV
- Direct Mail
Digital Marketing Channels
- Business website
- Paid search
- Banner Ads
- Social media
- Blogging
- Over-the-Top (OTT)
How Integrated Marketing Builds Your Brand
The essence of integrated marketing is distributing your well-crafted brand message through marketing channels that mutually support each other. As individuals in your target audience move throughout their day, they should encounter your marketing efforts in different media. The key is to ensure your brand message gets through regardless of the format you're using.
Imagine your mowing business is running OTT ads on Hulu. Your messaging emphasizes that your company offers 'advanced, scientifically formulated turf care for every yard.' If you then run radio ads that inform your potential customers, 'you are the 45-minute lawn care specialists of the four states,' your marketing channels are not reinforcing the other's message. The result will likely be that your customers will remember neither marketing point and ultimately not remember your business at all.
Instead, the integrated marketing approach would have chosen one brand message and distributed it through various digital and traditional channels. The scripts and copy can all vary according to the constraints of each marketing channel but will always reinforce the root brand messaging point.
Integrated Marketing with the BrandsFormation System
BrandsFormation also helps small business owners make sense of the bewildering array of marketing channels available. Taking your first steps in integrated marketing is all about knowing how to allocate a limited budget toward marketing channels that will reinforce each other and deliver a high ROI.