There’s no doubt that the digital industry is definitely booming. We’ve seen incredible growth in the last decade alone, and anyone working within this sector will be able to tell you how far digital marketing has come – they may have even found that their own role has evolved thanks to the recent changes in digital.
However, many companies have still been slow on the uptake when it comes to integrated campaigns. While, 57% of marketeers are focussed on utilising cross-channel dialogues in order to increase sales, it would appear that many companies are yet to truly embrace integrated digital marketing.
Why is this? Well, the Emarketeers Digital iSkills Survey showed that there are still three main problem areas within digital marketing, including the following:
1) Lack of resources and time A skills gap is emerging in the digital world, as fewer younger people are interested in enterting into this industry. There are a lot of contributing factors to this – the cost of education is one of the most noticeable. Companies that are struggling to find talented individuals that they can add to their team would do well to consider investing in apprenticeship programmes. At Neil Walker Digital Group, this is something we believe in strongly, as it’s vital that the next generation of digital marketeers are ready and waiting.
As for the lack of time, this is something that companies need to tackle internally, as it’s vital that businesses looking to go digital find new processes and systems that can help to them speed up.
2) Lack of skills and knowledge Many companies new to the digital game put training low on their list of priorities as well, but this simply defeats the purpose. Again, looking to employ apprentices is one of the best ways to combat this.
3) Lack of budget When it comes to issues revolving around budgets and spending, companies really do need to weigh up their options. The digital world is on the up-and-up, and so integrating or updating internally is guaranteed to provide excellent (monetary) results – so long as you follow the rules.
How digital marketing can be integrated
Integration is the buzzword of the day at the moment, as more and more companies struggle to meet the digital boom. Countless companies have made amazing strides forward by embracing digital – the number of companies that have done this has increased by 63% in 2014 alone.
However, as they say, it’s always easier said than done.
Integrating your digital marketing strategy to encompass all departments will make it more successful though, so that you can ensure it hits each and every nail on the head.
Here’s what you need to do:
Know who you’re targeting
If you don’t even know who you want your customers to be, how can you expect them to come to you? You need to figure out your demographic (age, gender, income level, etc.) and look into the psychographics of your audience. This covers their personality types, their opinions and interests, which will help you to narrow down your target customer type down even further.
Not only will this tell you the type of customer you want to target, but it’ll also highlight the best channels to go down. For example, if you’re targeting young students, social media will be the best bet. An older population though may respond better to email marketing or even direct marketing.
Work on your own website
If you want to make sure your brand offers the ultimate in digital marketing, you need to make sure your website is up to scratch first. Think of your website as your invitation to the big digital party – you wouldn’t send out dogeared invitations that some people couldn’t even read properly, would you?
No, you need to make sure your website is compatible with all devices, that it uses Responsive Web Design (RWD) and that it actually suits your brand. Similarly, it needs to suit the type of customer you’re looking to focus on.
Understand your voice
How can your campaign be fully integrated if the tone of voice you’re using across your channels is completely different? For instance, the message you’re sending out needs to sound the same through your social media, PR, content marketing and web design avenues, otherwise it’s as far from integrated as you could possibly imagine.
Decide how to market your product
Whether it’s a service or a product you’re looking to sell, you need to know which channel will work best for you before you go at your campaign all guns blazing. This will already have been half figured out when determining your audience, but now is the time to sit down the really consider your options.
You need to choose channels that your target customer actually uses. If they aren’t on Facebook, what’s the point in wasting your efforts posting update after update on the site? Only focus on what your customer is actually going to be using.
In addition to this, you need to figure out what the strengths and weaknesses of each channel are before you decide to use it (or not to use, if the case may be). Some channels’ pros and cons may change depending on your audience type, so you’ll need to go through this process for every campaign.
Sort out your content marketing
Content marketing is everyone’s new favourite toy, but as it can provide your brand with huge growth it should be treated with the delicacy that it deserves. Your content marketing materials must not, under any circumstances, be ‘salesy’. You need to be creating content that is useful, valuable and of interest to your target market, otherwise they’ll see straight through you.
Use search data for ideas generation
Many people see keywords as a way to rank for whatever your target market is searching for online at that precise moment. While they certainly are used for this, they’re also the ideal ideas generation tool. Content marketing tools such as Buzzsumo rely on this, in fact – you have to input a keyword before you can get anywhere, and using actual keywords (which have been found through research) will bring back much stronger results.
Your social media team also needs to start realising this – as search data can inform them of who they need to be targeting, what they’re searching for and what kind of content they’ll be interested in the most.
Create your content
No matter what type of campaign you’ve decided to run, you’ll always need content. This could be in the form of the written word, videos, podcasts or absolutely anything else in between, but you’ll still need it. You must make sure that it follows the purpose of your other channels as well, including social media, SEO, PPC and anything else by utilising the same keywords, the same tone of voice, and the same target audience.
Your content also needs to be accessible via numerous channels – without it being duplicated. This either means that you’ll need to edit it to fit the purpose of other channels.
Remember to influence your customer’s journey
Simply sending a press release out into the digital ether isn’t good enough – you need to be certain that those who read it will take action. If you don’t include links to your website, product or social media accounts (whichever it is you want to make people visit), they’re much less likely to actually take action on their own. By gently pushing your audience towards an action, you can bank on them doing what you want them to.
It can be as simple as including your Twitter handle on print media, adding a link with a call to action at the end of a press release, activating floating social sharing buttons to your website, and much more. Be smart about how you want your customer’s journey to pan out, so you can be with them every step of the way.
Keep the communication lines open
Teams sometimes have a tendency to fall out of sync if you don’t orchestrate regular team meetings. It can be completely accidental, but when numerous teams are working on the same integrated campaign, but are focusing on separate tasks, they can become consumed with their own piece of the pie. Rather than taking time to notice what everyone else is doing, they can sometimes go off-track without realising it.
This is why it’s important that you have a Project Manager or a Team Leader you can rely on to bring all of the pieces of your campaign back together before they fall apart. Even the most cohesive of companies needs to be gently reminded to work together every now and then.
Similarly, if you’re working in conjunction with another digital agency, whether it be for your own campaign or for a client’s, it’s vital that someone is put in charge of communicating with them. Working off-site and understanding what’s necessary to the campaign can seem almost impossible at times, so keep them in the loop as much as possible and include them in team meetings (via conference calling) to ensure everyone’s on the same page.
Track your success
No campaign can be called a success if you haven’t kept a record of your analytics data, or if you don’t monitor changes in customer numbers or sales figures. It doesn’t matter whether you’re showing the success of your campaign to your clients or your board of directors, as they’ll each want answers that are set in stone and which can be directly attributed to your integrated strategy.
You need to decide how you’re going to track your campaign before you start it, otherwise you could end up scurrying to source data and results at the end. Keep tabs on how things are doing, and report any positive findings back to the teams in charge of orchestrating the campaign. You may find that one channel is working much better than another, in which case it could be time to scrap the one that isn’t performing well and focus your efforts on the other.
Every single part of a digital agency can be included in integrated marketing, and you’ll absolutely see the benefits as soon as you’ve decided to move forward with it. While it can seem like a huge leap of faith if you’ve never tried it before – especially if you like to stick to ‘tried and tested’ methods – you certainly won’t be sorry once it begins to increase traffic, conversions and brand recognition.
Whether you’re working for a client or you’re looking to make your own company’s campaign integrated, by bringing your content, social media, SEO, web design and all other departments together, you can become much stronger as a whole.
What do you think? Are you a fan of integrated marketing or do you think it’s a waste of time? Let us know by getting in touch via Twitter – tweet us at @theukseo.