What, exactly, is “integrated marketing”?
November 12th, 2007 by Allen VoivodIt’s a term we hear more and more (and use more and more), and you can kind of figure it out just by using the meanings of the words themselves. It’s something to do with tying together all the ways you promote your business, right?
Yes, but…
What, exactly, does the “tying together” entail?
And if you Google “integrated marketing,” you get all sorts of results. Some match, some overlap, and still others talk about entirely different things from the first results you see.
So what does it mean to integrate your marketing? Well, at the highest level, it’s all about consistency. Whether it’s for a single product campaign (short term) or your overall marketing strategy (long term), to integrate means to maintain the same voice, tone, and style in every place your audience could find you - design-wise, and content-wise.
The next level down is the planning. In a campaign, you want to plan to reach your audience as many ways as possible within a tight timeframe. Movies are a great example of this, because the studios have to get you to go to the movie within a week or two of it coming out, for them to have a shot at making a profit.
The long term type of planning involves Content Strategy and Dignity Marketing™. It’s creating a plan to consistently educate, inform, and entertain your audience so that, when they’re ready to buy, you’ve been at the top of their mind all along while they were considering their options, building a relationship instead of just selling, selling, selling.
And then it’s the connection. No marketing element should operate in isolation anymore. No one on earth buys what you have to sell based on one marketing touch. Instead, you connect one marketing touch with another - and gives your audience a low-risk reason to make the connection.
A direct mail piece that directs the reader to a website for a free download. An article that directs readers to a free ezine with more useful tips, tricks, and strategies. A networking event, where you exchange business cards for a CD of one of your introductory audio class recordings.
Get the idea?
And in the online world, your website is at the center of this integration. Everything you put out into the world should drive people to your website where, once they share contact information in exchange for something you offer, you can build relationships that meet their needs - and build a business for yourself, whether you’re brick ‘n mortar, ecommerce, or both.
Okay, I’m getting off the soapbox for now. 
[...] And it also touched very directly on the concept of intergrated marketing I’ve mentioned in a couple of my last blog posts. For example, they referenced a study where buyers rated seeing an in-person presentation as much more effective at getting them to buy something than, say, a telemarketing call. [...]
Pingback by Epiphanies, Inc. — November 16, 2007 @ 7:32 pm
Sorry Alan, I have to take issue with your definition of “integrated marketing”!
What you are describing is “integrated marketing communcations” which is just a small corner of the world that is “integrated marketing”. You will find more on this on the post “Integrated marketing - if you don’t know what it is you probably aren’t doing it” and others at my blog, but in a nutshell:
“Integrated marketing communications” is making a promise. “Integrated marketing” is this plus delivering it! Which is where most organisations fail. You are not alone in this confusion, but missrepresentation of integrated marketing in this way is only serving to increase the confusion and ultimately therefore the failure rate.
Comment by Phil Darby — January 2, 2008 @ 10:20 am
Hi Phil,
First off, thanks very much for your comment, and second, here’s the link to the blog post you mentioned, since it didn’t come through in our admin panel for some reason.
By your definition, “Integrated marketing means taking all your marketing elements and making sure that they are all working efficiently and effectively together to achieve a common goal.” I think our post here is very much in line with your definition.
If one were to ask, “How do I achieve this integration?” the answer would include the three elements of consistency, planning, and connection described above.
I agree that communications is heavily featured here - as a Content Lover, I almost can’t help it. But when it comes to “integrated marketing” versus “integrated marketing communications,” I think I’d say just about the exact reverse of your comment.
More specifically, I’d say the company’s branding is the expression of a promise within an integrated marketing plan; an integrated marketing plan describes the efficient, effective execution of that promise; and integrated MarCom is the delivery of that promise.
Comment by Content Lover — January 2, 2008 @ 2:03 pm
Thanks for giving the link.
I like your last point, but I still disagree. We could debate this for a long time, but I think we would have to start by establishing our nomenclature.
For example, “branding” is a term I have difficulty with. You are probably right that it (or they) are expressions of the brand. Delivery of the promise though surely has to be the customer “experience” at every touch-point and every stage in the customer lifecycle.
When I talk about marketing I see the “plan” in the context of New Model Marketing - a replacement for the “business plan” which relates to the old business model (that doesn’t place the brand at the centre and marketing in the driving seat). So you are right that “integrated marketing describes the effective execution of that promise …” but I think my visualisation might be broader than yours.
One of my areas of particular interest is applying communications skills internally. Taking a proportion of the communications budget and reasigning it, adjusting the balance of internal/external communications a little in favour of internal. I belive, and I think that it has been proven enough times by enough people, that doing so almost always increases the return.
The objective with internal marketing is to inform every employee of the promise that is inherrent in the brand, get them to buy into that and then help them understand what their role is in delivering it (because every employee at every level influences delivery). This process also inflences and alignes back office and internal support resources so that everyone in the organisation ends up with the tools to fulfill their role.
I could go on, but one observation is that this approach not only helps the client, but provides ample opportunity for any marcoms business to grow their business without getting into stuff that they just aren’t equipped for.
The process of change (that every rganisation will have to go through) is scary for organisations and more difficult the bigger you are, but my Brand Discovery Programme seems to allow organisations to make the change with the minimum of trauma. However, they don’t have much time left and its going to get tougher the later they leave it.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
Comment by Phil Darby — January 2, 2008 @ 2:49 pm