An integrated strategy is a simple but effective way of connecting and structuring your content messaging so that customers and prospects have multiple opportunities to experience your brand. Why is it so important to target customers this way? Because customers are gathering data long before they ever engage with an actual person. According to (The B2B Buying Journey, 2020), in B2B sales, sales reps only get about 5 percent of the customer’s time during the buying journey.
It also takes some level of persistence to get through to prospects. People are bombarded with advertising and sales pitches nearly every waking hour of their day, and they have become experts at tuning it out. A recent Harris Poll (Consumer Research Shows, 2021) revealed that three-quarters of U.S. adults are tuning out digital advertising due to the increased time they spend online. While it matters what you’re selling and who your target customer is, it can take between 7 and 13 touches to generate a qualified sales lead (Patel, 2021).
Integrated marketing helps you overcome these barriers and offers several advantages to help improve the overall effectiveness of your marketing initiatives:
- A consistent narrative eliminates disparities in how a prospect or customer interacts with your business, ultimately leading to a better experience.
- Improved campaign performance through cross-promotion and allowing prospects to move laterally through the buying journey enabling you to communicate the value proposition.
- Reduced content development costs, repurposing content across various distribution channels.
- Helps optimize SEO which can improve your inbound traffic.
- Identify your target audience by developing personas and listening to your current customers.
- Determine your goals and metrics for measuring campaign success.
- Find which channels have the highest potential for reaching your target audience.
- Develop a content strategy that will reach your target audience. Be sure to refer to your customer personas and examine what types of content your target customer prefers.
- Create a high-level plan for each channel you decide on, utilizing the marketing tactics best suited to the specific campaign.
- Build and optimize a holistic, integrated strategy based on the recommendations provided in the channel strategies.
- Measure your campaign based on the metrics identified, and optimize your strategy to meet the goals you set
If you enjoyed this article and want to learn more marketing tips, check out the rest of our “Getting Started Series” articles and free eBooks on Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Account-Based Marketing, and Email Marketing.