To be more precise, since we are a digital business, let’s clear the air and say that we are specifically focusing on integrated digital marketing for the purpose of this page.
Nowhere does more effort and investment go to waste despite the best efforts of all of us than in marketing and there are two primary causes of wastage:
Messages that are contradictory or not coordinated.
Lack of integration between marketing campaigns, messages, departments and people is a prime cause and difficult to eradicate in busy departments.
For an agency like ourselves, the issue is even more acute because we are frequently called on to fill a gap in capability and deliver on a specific need rather than to contribute to the strategy. In these instances of course we always offer advice, but ultimately we deliver what our client asks us for. The same applies to every individual, or team in our industry.
In fact most marketing firms let their own websites get out of sync frequently while paying attention to their clients including ours I’m afraid.
Poorly targeted messaging.
This problem has a whole range of potential causes, but the commonest one is misidentifying the user journey stage, buyer stage, funnel stage, use what terms are familiar to you, but what we are referring to is the unavoidable problem of aiming research and discovery content at people who are shortlisting on price or aiming special offers at people who are still unsure about the nature of their problem.
Given the unavoidably impersonal nature of marketing, small improvements made on these problems pay big bonuses for a busine,
Above is a broad view of how different channels may impact your potential customer at different stages in her journey.
It is important therefore to really understand your users in terms of their journeys and also in terms of your specific proposition and its place in the competitive environment before you begin to create content and invest in specific channels. That is what we mean by Integrated Digital marketing.
For example, your customer may be someone who has his assistant spend three months researching all of the above before finally clicking a CTA and inviting you to engage. You may be a market leader with a reputation for quality. You would most likely be feeding this journey at all stages with appropriate content.
On the other hand you may be selling the cheapest widget on the market against a dozen others selling the identical product and you may focus on the moment when they are shopping on price and the message that your price can’t be beaten and overcoming last minute fears.
Until you really understand your customers and how they perceive your proposition and deliver the right messages at the right times you will always suffer from excessive wastage and reduced returns on investment.
- In many industries for example such as high ticket B2B, Social Media advertising doesn’t drive sales, but it may be a powerful way to build trust and support the awareness stages.
Adverts on Google maps will drive tons of customers to your roadside restaurant, but maybe not to your high-end consulting firm. - GMB will keep a locksmith very busy, but maybe less so an online fashion retailer.
- All the advertising in the world won’t drive buyers if you have been receiving bad reviews that wee ignored or people are talking in negative terms about your brand.
- Likewise, if people are online asking advice on your product, you should be there to answer their query and gain a new customer.
Ways in which different channels support each other.
- Social media is a now a very important thermometer used by Google and many others to measure the popularity of businesses and products and of course web pages and websites.
A link to your page shared on Social media can help a great deal with your SEO driving new free traffic to your website. - Good reviews on the many review sites not only encourages customers, but it affects quality scores on Google and Facebook thus making your advertising cheaper.
- Well designed web pages and good content that retains the customers attention tells the advertising platform that sending more visitors will be profitable and it results in lower costs per click and more visitors.
- Finally and most importantly, if your staff engage via social media and reviews, you will gain that valuable insight that informs not only your marketing but your product strategy too.
- Email drip campaigns and re-marketing are both powerful ways to continue showing content or adverts to the same users after they have shown an interest in your product or service. With re-marketing you wont pay unless they click again and f they do it is a strong indication that at least some of their needs have been met. If you stage your re-marketing adverts to match the buying stages you stand an even better chance of a lead or purchase and this is borne out by the figures.
Email drip campaigns can run indefinitely providing the user with valuable information and new product launches or offers until she decides one day to engage again. This considerable volume of extra revenue can have a very big impact on your bottom line figures. - Customer profiling and conversion funnels alongside of email drip campaigns can provide a sort of breadcrumb trail of the content they engaged with and the journey they followed and thus make it much easier to target your content and to identify content gaps.