Integrated Marketing: What It Is and Why You Should Embrace It (part 3 of 3)

This is the third of three articles excerpted from the paper “Integrated Marketing: What It Is and Why You Should Embrace It”

Part 3

HOW DO I KNOW IF MY INTEGRATED MARKETING HAS WORKED

Actually, this is not the question that you need to ask, as integrated marketing is not going to guarantee that your marketing activity will be successful.  Unfortunately there are no guarantees of this sort in the business world.  Integrated marketing is simply a way to help you ensure that what you include in your marketing mix is the appropriate marketing strategy, combined with the appropriate mix of tactics, methods, channels, media and activities that best support the desired end result of the defined marketing activity.  If you have done that, then you have optimized your possibility of success, the results of which will then be evaluated in the same manner as any other marketing activity.

At the end of your marketing activity's specified time frame there are some basic metrics that have to be evaluated and analyzed, such as:

• What is the ROI for the marketing activity?
• Did that ROI meet or exceed the predefined ROI goal(s)?
• Did you determine the right metrics to track?
• Did those metrics/statistics meet your goals?
• Did you go over budget?
• Did you accomplish what you needed to within the specified time frame?

If, upon completion of the analysis of the results, the marketing strategy, tactics, methods, channels, media, etc. that you have chosen have delivered the desired result(s), regardless of what those results are, then your integrated marketing process has worked and you have successfully used integrated marketing.  As a marketer you have chosen the proper mix to create a program that delivered results.

One cautionary note: at this point you may want to benchmark this process that you have just completed and create a template for future use to help ensure future success.  However, remember that as defined earlier, integrated marketing is about selecting the appropriate strategy, tactics, methods, etc. that best support the desired end result.  It is not about standardizing the process flow to duplicate time and again.  Each marketing activity is unique and each requires the same level of analysis and attention to detail to develop a specific marketing strategy.  The general framework or structure may be similar, but the specifics will not be.

INTEGRATED MARKETING AND PERCEPTION OF MESSAGES

From the end-user or target audience point of view, integrated marketing makes it easier to become familiar with a company and their goods, products, or services.  Consistent communications and messaging, coupled with information and interaction, reinforced across different marketing channels tends to strengthen and reinforce the credibility and believability factor, rather than fragment it, making it easier for the consumer (whether B2C or B2B) to proceed down the purchase path.  Regardless of how the marketing is delivered (whether online, in print, broadcast, etc.) and whether the target audience interacts with it in person, via a tablet, cellphone, laptop or any other manner is now less critical, as the branding, the messaging and the interaction continuously supports and reinforces itself, regardless or channel or medium.

Depending on which study you read or which resource you choose to believe, you will find that consumers are exposed to (or bombarded by, depending on your point of view) on a daily basis anywhere from several hundred to several thousand advertising messages,¹⁷ in a wide variety of formats,  Regardless of what the actual number is, suffice it to say that it is a large amount of data in one form or another that is daily being presented to each of us.  Yet when asked, most people will only recall a small fraction of those messages.  Why?  Because humans have an internal perceptual filter that helps to regulate “background noise” (all of those marketing campaigns, advertisements, commercials, etc.) that is not relevant to them or their life at that particular moment in time.¹⁸

In other words, if your advertising, commercial or marketing message is not relevant to your target audience at the moment that they are exposed to it or interact with it, it may be seen but it likely will not be remembered or acted upon.  All of the time, money and resources that you have spent developing and placing that marketing may not be worth a single cent if your target audience does not register it in their consciousness.  Integrated marketing helps to reinforce that marketing message by ensuring that regardless of when/where/how the consumer is exposed to your marketing, every aspect is consistent with and supports what they have already seen or interacted with in other formats and/or mediums, helping to more deeply ingrain that message into their consciousness.

Marketing is about influence, about providing information on your goods, products or services to your target audience, and about helping your target audience make informed decisions when choosing between competing goods/products/services.

As such, to maximize the investment that has been made, and thereby increase the potential ROI, you need to utilize every tool at your disposal to ensure that not only is the message delivered, but that it is also registered and acted upon by your target audience. Regardless of format, channel or medium, integrated marketing will help ensure the consistency and integration of your message and activities across all channels your target audience may encounter.

SUMMARY 

In summary, integrated marketing is an approach to developing marketing activities that allows you to become much more involved and in control of the entire marketing development, delivery and execution process.  Integrated marketing provides you with the process to choose the appropriate marketing strategy, along with the control over determining which specific marketing activities, tactics, strategies, channels, etc. are the most appropriate and relevant to achieve your desired end results.

'Integrated marketing is the disciplined process of choosing the appropriate marketing strategy, combined with the appropriate mix of tactics, methods, channels, media and activities that best support the desired end result of the defined marketing activity.'

Congratulations!  You are now more familiar with the concept and use of integrated marketing and will be able to incorporate this into all of your future marketing activities.

© Richard Hatheway – 2013

All rights reserved.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

17 – Google Answers, http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=56750

18 – McGraw Hill Online Learning Center, http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0256133603/student_view0/chapter9/elearning_sessions.html