#Lockdown Live: How to run a Successful Integrated Digital Marketing Campaign in 2021 and beyond

I did a series of live videos on our Digital Marketers Unite Facebook group during lockdown level one, one of which was specifically about campaigns and integrated digital marketing, which proved to be quite popular, and so we have transcribed it for you below because I believe it's still relevant for businesses today.

PS: Do feel free to join our Facebook group, as we often share the latest tips, tools and tricks on digital marketing there, plus it’s just a great community for marketers.

Let's zoom out a little...

What is Integrated Digital Marketing?

According to the DMA, Integrated digital marketing is,

" ...an approach to creating a unified and seamless experience for consumers to interact with the brand/enterprise; it attempts to meld all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and social media, through their respective mix of tactics, methods, channels, media, and activities, so that all work together as a unified force. It is a process designed to ensure that all messaging and communications strategies are consistent across all channels and are centered on the customer."

So integrated digital marketing is when you use a mixture of the different channels or platforms available to you in an integrated manner, to advertise your products or services: you might use email marketing, social media, blogs, videos or podcasts. Be sure to give the campaign a similar look and feel, as this is how to make everything pull together cohesively.

Writing a perfect blog post means that it must be just as engaging as it is informative, and by getting to know your audience better, you will learn how to speak their language. 

What is the result of these efforts? A growing community of readers who will return to your website wanting to read more.

What is a marketing campaign?

A marketing campaign is when you use the different channels to push one specific thing. A marketing campaign normally has a specific start and end date and focuses on one goal.

3 Steps to an Integrated Digital Marketing Campaign

Step 1: Strategy

Here are the steps to create an integrated marketing strategy:

• Goal:

The best place to start is with a good plan. Ask yourself what the goal behind your marketing campaign is: Is it to reach new audiences or grow people's awareness for your brand, or maybe to get more loyal customers and increase sales?

• Key Performance Indicators - KPI’s:

How are you going to measure the success of this marketing campaign, will it be sales? Downloads, clicks to the website? Views? Signups? It’s important to only have ONE goal for each campaign and ONE KPI that you will be measuring.

• Target Market:

You have to identify your target market using our handy target market table. Once you know who they are, you can target the right people with the right content.

• Needs:

Next focus on the customers' needs. What do they want? Which one of their needs will you be addressing? This is important, as for every different audience, you need to create different content, artwork, and the language you use might also differ. I strongly suggest that you run separate marketing campaigns for the different audiences that you have.

• Platforms or Channels:

Then look at which platforms this specific target market can be found on (Example Facebook, Email Marketing, etc.).

• Budget:

Next step is to clarify your available budget so that you know how much money you have available to spend on advertising.

• Duration:

How long do you want the campaign to run for? 

Step 2: Create your channel content

In order for your marketing campaign to be integrated, all your content has to have a similar look and feel across each channel, and yet, it has to be unique to each channel. Easy? I think not!

• Blog Articles:

I normally suggest you start with a blog. With a blog it is easy to be clear about your offer, and it gives you content and structure. It also helps you to become logical and coherent. Remember to use subheadings and bullet points, making it easier to read, and visually appealing. Also crosslink to your services, and give them easy, quick access to your other products.

Watch my quick 30-minute tutorial on SEO blog writing!

• Video:

We wrote a popular blog about using video in your content marketing. After the blog we usually do a video, and you do not need to be a professional video editor to do this. Simply turn your phone landscape and not portrait, go somewhere quiet with good lighting, and make your video using your notes to ensure that you do not forget what to say.

• Social Media Marketing:

Next you are going to create a social media marketing plan and set up ads. When using more than one social media platform, try to give off a similar visual look and feel across all of them to avoid causing mistrust amongst your audience. If you have people that do this for you, I suggest that one person takes care of the visual aspect and content of all the platforms to ensure that there is a strong copy theme to it that ties everything together.

Remember that Facebook needs to be a bit more light-hearted, LinkedIn is all business, Twitter can be dangerous, proceed with caution, Instagram is all visual, videos and hashtags, etc.

For our Instagram 30 minute live tutorial, click here!

• Remarketing:

When you implement your Facebook and Google pixels, Google and Facebook remarketing becomes a good option as well. They attach a little line of code to the browser of people who visit your website and accept the cookie, so you can remarket to them on other sites using a marketing banner at a later stage. However, before you can start using these remarketing banners, you have to have at least 1000 cookies, so I suggest you get that sorted out as quickly as possible, especially if you have slow traffic on your website. If you decide against remarketing, I suggest that you still implement your pixels, as this allows you to grow and build up your list of people to possibly remarket to one day if you choose to do so.

• Email Marketing:

Next I want to talk about email marketing. People often only convert into customers over 8-12 of touchpoints or interactions, so if you have their email addresses, you could mail them helpful content over long periods of time. Email is a very powerful marketing tool. The more you build up your mailing lists, the more people you have to advertise to after the fact, so make sure you have on your website a place where they can easily subscribe to your newsletter. Mailchimp gives you a little form that you can easily add at the bottom of your website.

If you want to watch my Facebook group video about Email Marketing - it will give you a very quick tutorial on Email Marketing best practices.

• Journey Mapping

Using attribution modeling, you can break up your customers' journey, and attribute where your sales are coming from. I suggest you also have a look at the video I posted on our Digital Marketers Unite Facebook group about customer journey mapping, which will help you better understand which content to show to which audiences.

Step 3: Report

As a marketer, it is easy to leave out the reporting step, as you are probably time poor, and perhaps not that enumerate. However it is critical that you take the time to pull all of your stats together and create a report. This includes pulling your email marketing report, your Facebook report, ads report, your video views, podcast views, and your Google analytics report. 

Once you have all of this information, you need to try and make sense of it all, to interpret and learn from it. Different marketing campaign examples will basically tell you which of your channels are generating the most traffic, and which of the channels are not doing so well. It will tell you if the banner or ad that you posted is working or not.

People are often in such a hurry when it comes to their marketing, because they are on a budget or running out of time. You need to give your integrated marketing campaign a chance to do what it is supposed to.

Give it Time

Only after about three months will you start to understand and build up the knowledge and get insights about which channels are effective for advertising your specific product or service. 

It also gives the machine learning in Google and Facebook time to kick in and work better on your behalf.

 So do yourself a favor and give your marketing campaigns enough time to do its job. 

 If your budget is a problem, I suggest you have a look at the video I posted about marketing on a budget on our Facebook page, Digital Marketers Unite, and also feel free to join the group as we often share the newest on digital marketing. Hope to see you there.

Good luck with your campaigns, and please shout if we can help.

DK

About Dylan Kohlst?dt

Dylan Kohlst?dt started Shift ONE digital in 2011 and now has a team of top subject matter experts working with her from her offices in Cape Town and Jo’burg, and clients based all over the world.

 Shift ONE specialises in getting you customers through authenticity: creating authentic content that builds communities and turns customers into fans. We create believable top-converting websites, that rank on page one of Google SEO, and next level social media, online advertising, email marketing, graphic design, blogging, press and PR, lead generation, writing, video, animations, and more.

 Dylan also founded the Digital Marketing Academy in 2013 in order to pass on what she knows, upskilling marketers and entrepreneurs in digital marketing skills, in a fun, face-to-face or online environment.

Dylan Kohlst?dt has worked in advertising, marketing and online in South Africa, UK and Australia and attended a Google for Entrepreneurs immersion program in Silicon Valley where she learned about going from garage to global. 

Dylan Kohlst?dt, CEO and founder, is a subject matter expert on digital marketing whose articles are regularly featured in entrepreneur and business magazines, TV and radio. Dylan has 20 years of marketing management experience, eight of which are in digital marketing. She also has an MBA through UNISA.

You can reach Dylan at:

Email: [email protected]

Social media: @dylankohlstadt

Web: www.shiftone.co.za