There was a time when a lot of businesses could rely on the good old Yellow Pages alone to win business. Unfortunately, that’s not the case anymore. These days, there are so many more channels available for consumers to browse and make decisions via. It could be classed as commercial suicide for your brand not to have a multi platform presence, or what is otherwise know as integrated marketing.
Here’s a quick run down of 5 handy tips to consider when implementing integrated marketing. We’ve also put a quick animation together if you’re short on time. Enjoy!
1. Know who you want to target
It’s pretty unlikely you’re going to sell football tshirts at a knitting convention. Besides the odd sale to a few football-loving grannies you’re likely to be pretty disappointed with your results!
Before you start any kind of marketing, know who you want to sell to. You may say your product or service can cater for anyone e.g. a plumber could offer his or her services to any type of household. However, if this plumber specifies that he or she specialises in plumbing for houses with more than 8 bedrooms and a value of over £1 million within the Yorkshire region, this narrows down the target audience. As soon as you define your target audience, you’ve taken the first step to winning more business.
2. Have a strong call to action
Whether you’re sending out leaflets, advertising online, carrying out email marketing or paying for social media sponsored ads, you need to have a strong call to action. It’s no good getting the attention of your target audience if you’re not prompting them to take the next step in your sales funnel. Examples of calls to action could be:
• Strategically placed ‘contact us’ or ‘ask for more info’ buttons on your website
• A prompt for readers to call a phone number for more information on a specific service or product
• A prompt for people to visit your website for more information. On the website you could then prompt them with a ‘buy now’ or ‘contact us’ button.
3. Choose your channels
There are all kinds of channels available. It just depends on what your audience are likely to use. Examples of popular channels include:
• Email marketing
• Social media
• SMS marketing
• Telemarketing
• Direct mail
• Magazine advertisements
When deciding on your communication channels, think about what your target audience will respond to e.g. if you sell ladies clothes to the 50 – 65 year age bracket, social media isn’t likely to be the best channel.
4. Be consistent
It’s crucial to ensure your brand and messages are consistent across all platforms. Your brand represents everything about you and your business. If it is inconsistent, that’s exactly what it says about your service. Ensure your logo, fonts, colours, slogan, written style and imagery remain consistent across all marketing channels. These might include:
• Stationery
• Website
• Uniforms
• Livery on vehicles
• Brochures
• Adverts
• Email marketing templates
• Signage
5. Track your results
By tracking your results you’ll know what’s working and what isn’t. Examples of ways to track your results include:
• Use of Google analytics on your website to understand the most popular pages on your site and how users navigate around your site
• When taking telephone enquiries, asking your prospects where they heard about you
• Use of email marketing software that tracks results in a similar way to Google analytics
• Placing channel specific codes on adverts e.g. quote ‘offer 123’ when making an enquiry. If each code varies depending on the channel you have advertised through, you’ll be able to track what works and what doesn’t
• Use analytics information on social media
These are just 5 tips to successful integrated marketing. To learn more about how to create tight woven campaigns, get in touch, we’re more than happy to have a chat about how we can help.
