An integrated campaign is when different channels are brought together to help deliver a cohesive message that relates back to what your business represents.

To be successful, brands must create campaigns that cross divisions. According to Forrester, 86% of marketing professionals agree that integrating marketing, channelled into one concise strategy, is vital to their success. If you’re looking to create something effective, here are some suggestions that’ll help you make integrated marketing work for your business.

Understand your target audience

Without knowing who your target audience is, it’s hard to fully map out your marketing campaign. Look closely into demographics relevant to your business and identify any attitudes or interests you need to be aware of.

One of the best ways to understand your audience is to create buyer personas. These fictional representations will allow you to identify who your ideal customers are with a deeper understanding of their likely activity.

To create personas that match your audience, look through your database of customers – are there any patterns or trends that you can pick up on? Also, spend time talking to those responsible for generating sales in the business and identify the type of people they’re communicating with.

This research, alongside interviewing past and current customers, will help you create a deeper understanding of who your business serves and how they best respond to you. Once you have your buyer personas, you can then begin to cater your campaign to these audiences – meeting their expectations and requirements.

Thinking socially

These days, social media is massive tool for businesses to utilise. AdWeek reports that 91% of retail brands now use at least two social media channels to communicate with their audience, showing just how important social media use is to the success of a business.

With that in mind, it’s important to use social media effectively to help source your audience. Now that you have identified who they are, you should also have an understanding of what platforms they’ll be using – Sprout reports that 87% of people aged between 18 and 29 use Facebook, while only 37 percent of the same demographic use Twitter.

To encourage audience interaction, create custom hashtags that can be used that relate back to your business and campaigns – this way, you can keep engagement flowing and also track who’s interacting with your brand.

It’s important to not just post content for content’s sake. Using your buyer personas, think about what they want to see from you and what they would find valuable – for example, if you’ve discovered one of your personas is tech-savvy, cater to them by creating content they would enjoy and using a tone they would connect with.

The insight these personas provide is essential to curating a campaign that works.

Keep content adaptable

The idea of an integrated campaign is that you will be relying on multiple platforms and channels. Some things will work better on one platform than another, so it’s important to keep your content adaptable.

It’s important to keep your brand’s message consistent across your campaign. Having different channels interacting with one another will allow momentum to grow and deliver a strong, unified message to all audiences.

That being said, it’s important to choose carefully which channels you do use. Again, reference your personas to decipher which platforms are relevant for your campaign. If your core audience aren’t using Twitter, don’t waste time and money on it – use your resources where they will be most active.

If you’re not entirely sure which channels will work best for you, either look at similar content for inspiration or just experiment. By seeing what does and doesn’t perform well, you’ll gain an understanding of how to move forward.

Integrate your marketing campaigns

With a deep understanding of your target audience and what channels you should be using, you will be ready to start your next integrated marketing campaign.

International speaker and author Michael Lewis reported that content published on two or three channels is 24% more likely to receive engagement. An integrated campaign may just be what you need to help your business succeed.

 

By Sophie Chadwick, account director at Peppermint Soda

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