You want to create leads for the sales team, but they’re probably also contacting customers. Of course, most marketing campaigns affect sales. Integrated marketing strategies, however, do not usually include sales experience.
Through unified marketing campaigns, businesses indirectly empower sales teams with qualified leads, ready-to-decide prospects, and delighted customers.
Integrated marketing strategies are among the holy grails of any successful marketing strategy. They help companies reach their target audience, increase brand awareness, and increase revenue. All of this depends on how well-coordinated each campaign is across channels.
What is Integrated Marketing?
An integrated marketing campaign uses several channels and methods to reach a specific audience. An integrated campaign provides prospective customers with a smooth experience by communicating consistently across all touchpoints, including:
- Social media campaign
- Email marketing
- Content marketing
- Events marketing
- Paid ads
An integrated campaign maintains your presence wherever your potential customers are.
The Benefits of Integrated Marketing for B2B Campaigns
Multi-channel, seamless marketing is a lot of work. But the payoff is worth it. Here are results of an integrated campaign if executed correctly:
- Reaching a wider audience. One-channel targeting excludes valuable audience segments. By spreading a consistent message across all media, you may attract the right leads.
- More lead interactions. After someone views your ad, post, or blog, you need a way to keep your name and solution in front of them. An integrated campaign lets you reappear, providing you more chances to attract customers.
- Recognition and trust. Consistently appearing as an expert builds audience trust. If you provide excellent value before a purchase, customers will remember your brand and want to engage with you again.
- Flexible and agile strategy. Using many channels lets you alter your strategy if one fails. Marketers can test different messaging and approaches across channels to find what works best for their target audience, allowing for greater creativity and experimentation.
These benefits depend on a well-coordinated campaign and how you do to accomplish that.
Core Elements of An Integrated Marketing Strategy
Coordinated Campaigns Across Touchpoints
Everything works together to make coordinated campaigns more effective. An Instagram video promoting a special deal can drive users to a landing page, mailing list, or website. This linked approach boosts traffic and sales and keeps customers engaged longer by creating a seamless flow across touchpoints.
Consistent Messaging Across Channels
A consistent message helps customers remember your brand. Ads, social posts, and in-store interactions should sound the same. When the message is good and resonates with your audience, the result increases trust and speeds up buying decisions.
Shared Goals
Campaigns run more smoothly when all marketing channels work toward the same goals. It’s about making each blog, ad, or article have a purpose. By attentively leading customers through the customer journey, this method yields short-term gains and builds long-term relationships.
Single Brand Messaging
Create a memorable appearance and feel with a single brand. A lasting impression is achieved by consistent messaging, tone, and images. It’s not just about grabbing attention today, but also about setting expectations so customers know what to expect every time. This familiarity keeps them coming back and builds loyalty.
Best Practices for B2B Integrated Marketing Campaign
Are you considering a campaign that leverages these benefits? This is what you need to do to shape an integrated campaign.
1. Set Your Goals Before Start of Campaign
Before you start your campaign, you should remember two golden rules.
- Use data to start a campaign, and
- Remember that there are other goals outside sales.
Without baseline data or a statistic to improve, it’s difficult to track a campaign’s progress. Before starting, define what you want to measure—leads, pageviews, entries, etc. In many circumstances, you’ll need various indicators to assess your performance.
You should then gather baseline data for each measure you track. Know your starting point and history if you want to track how many new leads a campaign brings to your contact form. Data from all channels should be collected for an integrated campaign.
2. Research Your Audience
You are familiar with your industry and have likely developed buyer personas. However, for a campaign—especially an integrated one—it might be beneficial to explore your target group in greater depth. Different segments of your audience may be more receptive to your message at various times of the year or month.
3. Pick Your Best Channels
To reach your audience where they are, you must include their preferred medium. Some industries thrive on Facebook, while others rely heavily on LinkedIn. For some businesses and campaigns, social media may not be the idea.
Beyond your website and social media, you can also consider industry-specific platforms for your campaign to maximize your campaigns.
Understanding your audience helps you decide where to reach them and where not to. B2B event marketing strategies can be particularly effective for building personal connections with prospects.
4. Consistent Messaging
Inconsistent marketing messaging can confuse customers and make your brand look amateur. Always check and read blog articles about a company’s product or service. Your customers may read their social media or website and find their messaging drastically different from the blog post that brought them in.
Integrated marketing unifies your brand’s messaging across media, reducing misunderstanding and boosting brand identification.
5. Create Helpful Content Across Channels
Customers will investigate your products and services before buying. Include useful content in your advertising. After downloading an ebook or whitepaper, your customers may not be ready to buy, so a successful integrated marketing campaign will focus on providing ongoing, helpful content to keep them engaged and educated so your solution will be top-of-mind when they are.
Creating helpful content like this can also boost your Google ranking, so the piece you publish to nurture an existing lead may bring in more new ones, keeping your funnel flowing.
6. Plan Ahead for Potential Leads
All marketers want to avoid having too many leads. Leads are excellent if you can convert them into sales. Use a methodical approach to avoid wasting valuable leads:
- Start by segmenting leads by needs, interests, and behavior.
- Manage them efficiently with a CRM.
- Create a lead nurturing approach with personalized emails, social media, and other marketing.
- Solve their problems and demonstrate your competence, offer whitepapers, case studies, webinars, and demos.
7. Rinse and Repeat, Use Experience for Next Campaign
Understanding your audience determines how you run integrated campaigns. You’ll learn more and improve your efforts as you investigate and launch additional initiatives.
If your first campaign is successful, you’ll know how to handle the next one, so track your performance, take notes, and analyze your outcomes.
Take Your Integrated Marketing Campaign to The Next Level
Effective B2B marketing strategies must be tailored to address the unique needs and challenges of each stage in the sales pipeline. Integrated campaigns allow you to leverage multiple touchpoints to capture and nurture leads, ultimately driving more conversions while creating a more personalized experience for your prospects and a profitable pipeline.
If you have the resources on your team to pull off a successful integrated campaign in-house, then you’re well on your way to generating quality leads.
