It’s commonplace for a digital marketing campaign to fail. Half of all social media campaigns fail to reach their target audience, whilst ineffective marketing spending totals some $600bn a year globally.
Why do campaigns fail? There are various reasons. Bad planning, unrealistic expectations, poor messaging and even just an inferior product certainly don’t help. But one key area that many organisations overlook is that for most marketing campaigns to succeed, they need to be working in coordination with other digital activities.
Marketing campaigns run in isolation giving themselves just one chance to gain a sale or sign-up. When almost half of all web traffic bounces when it first visits a website, and on average it takes 3-4 visits to actually make a sale, many digital initiatives are simply not set up to work in the first place.
However, brands that take a more integrated view and approach towards their digital marketing are far more likely to see positive initial results and have more data to begin to optimise and improve.
What Does an Integrated Digital Marketing Strategy Look Like?
An integrated digital marketing strategy works by strategising how each channel of activity relates to another.
The fundamental idea behind it is that each channel supports the other, or drives initial top-of-funnel interactions with other avenues that can then nurture into a sale.
For example, you may have a PPC campaign that fires traffic into a landing page. If that traffic bounces, then social remarketing kicks in to tempt that user back to the landing page from a new touchpoint. If they do convert, then a series of email workflows kick in to turn that initial interest into a paying customer.
When that user does become a customer, their data is then fed back into paid channels to create lookalike audiences to go and find the next customer, and so the cycle continues.
The Different Elements of an Integrated Approach
There are plenty of different channels and campaign types you can put to work as part of your integrated digital marketing strategy, but that doesn’t mean you have to use them all in tandem.
Some of the typical components include:
Website – Where you’re sending traffic
CRM – How you store lead data and the email workflows to nurture and upsell
SEO – ‘Free’ traffic from search engines, either looking directly for a solution or more information
PPC – Paid, high-intent traffic direct into your landing pages combined with remarketing
Social – Organic and paid campaigns to attract, inform and sell
Some integrated campaigns will utilise all these channels (and more) such as influencer marketing, affiliates, PR and content marketing too.
Others may take a far more streamlined ‘funnel’ approach with paid traffic firing users into a lead magnet which then triggers a series of emails, enhanced by Klean Leads, to sell a final product.
Any of these setups can be highly effective. The key is that none of them is relying on just one channel to work the first time asking and combining numerous digital touchpoints to inform, persuade and ultimately… sell.
The Benefits of Integration
Creating an integrated digital marketing strategy is worth the initial additional time in strategic thinking and set-up for a raft of reasons, but three of the key ones include:
It Increases the Chance of a Sale
As noted above, when you run one digital channel in isolation, you’re making it more unlikely that an individual site visitor will convert.
By creating a marketing ecosphere of activity, that initially acquired click can be nurtured and remarketing too.
It Can Save You Time and Money in the Long Run
Though it takes time to set up the initial integrated approach, once it’s fully up and running, it means you can focus your time and efforts on other marketing activities – such as partnerships or content and website development.
Trying just one or two siloed channels at once can take more management time, but also runs the risk of those campaigns not working as well as hoped. When you run multiple channels at the same time, you can ascertain more quickly which channels, messaging, and campaign types are the most effective at engaging and converting your audience.
It Improves Customer Engagement
It costs more to acquire a customer than it does to continue upselling. Integrated digital marketing is fantastic for boosting customer engagement through content and email promotion, as well as continued brand visibility through remarketing on Adwords and social.
The upshot of this additional activity following the first sale is that it entices both customer advocacy and improves lifetime value, thus boosting the overall profitability of your entire marketing efforts.
Begin Creating Your Digital Ecosystem
Sold on the idea of dedicating some time to set up your own integrated digital strategy? Great! Now it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work.
The first step is to decide which areas of the strategy you want to take care of yourself. If you’re a seasoned all-rounder when it comes to digital marketing, you may want to manage all areas of the strategy yourself.
The best approach sometimes though can be to either outsource to a specialist digital agency, or cherry-pick specific specialists to manage different areas. For example, a specialist SEO consultancy could manage your keyword research and content strategy, whilst another PPC agency sets up your paid search campaigns.
Whichever route you go, remember that the more work you do on set-up, the better chance of generating great results the first time of asking when you turn all your campaigns on.
Happy marketing!
