Integrated Marketing: Process, Use, Tools and Examples in 2024

Integrated marketing is focused on developing a multi-dimension, seamless, and consistent brand experience for the consumer.

The branding (marketing) efforts are deployed on various platforms, including television, print, radio, in-person, and the internet. They all come together to reinforce the same message, i.e., that of the brand.

Marketing is the most important key factor in the growth of the company.

It is the base of revenue generation for any organization.

Integrated Marketing Strategy ensures the promotion of the business so that the brand gets popularity among the people. Nowadays, traditional marketing strategies have changed and become more innovative.

Various companies propose various marketing strategies to acquire their customers. Marketing a product or service is one of the most challenging things for a company. It includes multiple types of approaches that deal directly with the customer.

There are various channels, markets, customers, and products in today’s era. Marketing a service or product becomes a bit complex considering all these aspects.

Several types of research were done to make it better. Experts suggest several strategies and tips that simplify the job, and Integrated marketing does this in the most nimble and result-oriented manner possible.

Let us now understand what integrated marketing is in a more detailed manner-

What is Integrated Marketing

Multiple types of organizations perform various marketing approaches.

There is a unique approach to marketing that is called integrated marketing. Now the question arises of what integrated marketing is. It is a type of marketing that deals directly with the audience’s reviews.

It is an approach that combines the coherence and fragmentation of the marketing world.

This approach delivers a consistent product or service based on the customer’s needs by understanding their views and considering their opinion.

This marketing style has become more popular in the last couple of decades.

It focuses on decentralizing the customer and drawing their attention toward the brand. This article will discuss more integral marketing and its various elements.

Why is Integrated Marketing required?

• Integral marketing efficiently brings together all the crucial components of marketing together. They collectively communicate a similar message regarding a company to users.
• Through minimal costs, integrated marketing will go a long way by creating and increasing user brand awareness. It helps direct interaction with any existing customer or potential customer.
• Integrated marketing helps to establish trust with customers. Through this marketing strategy, a similar message reaches all users. Thus, there is a better impact on them.
• Integrated marketing blends various strategies and tools to create an active marketing effort. This includes PR, direct marketing, advertising, and such.
• It is observed to perform much better than other strategies as it tries to win new customers and also focuses on building a healthy and long-term relationships with existing customers.
• Integrated marketing also gives ‘customer feedback’ the importance it deserves. Through this, it understands their preferences as well as their needs. It then uses relevant marketing tools, which helps increase productivity.
• It plays a critical role by delivering a unified message to all customers. This, in turn, helps develop a sense of loyalty among the users.
• Integrated marketing also helps in saving time that is often lost when figuring out the best marketing tool for a company. This is because the tactic efficiently blends all tools to produce better results.
• This marketing technique uses several methods to deliver its message. This includes hoardings, newspaper advertisements, banners, brochures, TV and radio ads, coupons, press releases, PR activities, social networking platforms, and membership clubs.
• Integrated marketing uses traditional and advanced marketing and communication tools to reinforce each other and, thus, improve marketing effectiveness.

So, with the help of Integrated Marketing campaigns, you will enjoy greater brand visibility for your business. It will also empower your brand with optimized media coverage and thought leadership in your industry, ultimately ensuring better brand recognition, lead generation, and conversions.

Integrated Marketing is also significant for precise and consistent messaging for establishing an impeccable brand tone in the target niche. The cohesive strategy of Integrated Marketing campaigns is also very productive in better search ranking.

Introduction to the world of Integrated Marketing Strategy

As the world becomes more technologically advanced, companies are increasingly required to deploy their marketing campaigns over several media channels.

As consumers primarily use their smartphones, they should be able to access information about the companies or brands as they go. It is the same for other devices as well, such as laptops and tablets, among others.

The massive build-up of marketing across various platforms helps solidify a company’s online and offline reputation. It can make any re-branding exercises more difficult as they must establish communication between all marketing channels to enact the branding changes.

However, this marketing is integrated so that it is still deemed one of the most effective marketing methods despite the challenges.

This marketing method is gaining significant interest owing to the high fragmentation of media. Moreover, the exposure has further begun to desensitize consumers. This is because of the bombardment of ads.

It isn’t easy to stand out, as only the most consistent and integrated brands can do so and remain memorable.

Integrated marketing communications consists of a competent marketing team driven towards generating compelling content and ads for the brand and deploying them according to every channel, covering each aspect of the brand.

Components of an Integrated Marketing Campaign

(i) A focused and sturdy brand image

(ii) Has a consistent and clear communication

(iii) Maintains its look as well as feel consistency throughout all media channels

(iv) Makes use of both traditional as well as digital media platforms for brand promotion

Who needs Integrated Marketing?

Today’s marketing and advertising scenario are very dynamic. Integrated marketing is employed by those companies which:

(i) Need to advertise on several media channels

(ii) Are you planning on targeting a specific audience

(iii) Need to keep the accountability and data supporting the marketing campaigns in check

(iv) Need to promote to other businesses or consumers

Companies whose revenues are in multi-million or billion dollars can go ahead with integrated internet marketing campaigns, and strategies without any issues as their internet and television campaigns are reaching a large number of people already.

Smaller businesses should also employ this marketing technique as it helps them gain a competitive advantage over others and boost sales.

Process of Integrated Marketing

The integrated marketing planning process includes specific steps that a company usually follows.

Step 1: The first step is identifying the target audience. This step includes analyzing the need of the audience and fulfilling them.

Step 2: After proper analysis, a company must perform a SWOT analysis to ensure the strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for the company.

Step 3: This step is all about determining the final objective and strategies

Step 4: The final step includes tactics, implementation, and deciding the budget and effectiveness.

Importance of Integrated Marketing

Integrated marketing is one of an organization’s most precious strategies for branding and promotion. There are several brands nowadays. People hit various advertisements every day. Why is your product unique? Why should people buy your product?

Answers to these questions should present in effective integrated marketing. Effective integrated marketing ensures the following things.

(i) To impose the brand image to the audience

(ii) Communication with the audiences representing the brand and discussing their requirements

(iii) Maintaining a constant vision of the brand through media

(iv) Utilizing the media platforms for promotions

Integrated marketing helps drive the performance of marketing campaigns. It has been observed that marketers integrating all media channels have reported higher marketing effectiveness.

Moreover, companies with annual revenue of greater than USD 200 million saw the effectiveness of their multi-channel marketing efforts as compared to non-integrated marketing campaigns thrice.

Another observation was the fact that shoppers who are omnichannel and purchase both online, as well as in-store products and services, have a 30% higher lifetime value as compared to those who follow a single channel. Thus, integrated marketing is an efficient strategy to boost a company’s advertising efforts and sales.

Integrated Marketing Tools

Various companies take various approaches to market their products. Some of the strategies give successful results, whereas some are not. Integrated marketing strategies include eight tools.

1. Advertising

The type of promotion by the service provider creates a brand image in the audience’s mind. There are various platforms where companies advertise their products. The main advantage of advertising is that it simultaneously reaches a massive number of viewers.

Audiences generally trust the advertisements that come on the TV or newspaper. It creates a positive view of the product in the audience’s mind.

2. Sales Promotions

This includes various goodies and coupons, along with the product that drags the customer towards the product. Many companies announce discounts and offer on the purchase of higher quantities. This type of marketing ensures fast growth in sales.

3. Personal Selling

Audiences come across various advertisements per day. They get multiple choices.

Interaction is one of the most effective ways to gain the total concentration of customers face-to-face. You may forget an advertisement that you saw a day ago. But you won’t remember a person whom you saw a day ago.

4. Public Relations

Getting a customer is a difficult job. But once you get the customer, you should not lose them. To maintain customer retention, a business must possess favorable public relations.

Public Relations should be two-way interaction that can collect the customer’s feedback to provide a better service.

5. Direct Marketing

This type of marketing needs a proper analysis of the market. An organization needs to point out the need for targeted audiences after considering the nature of the product.

Direct marketing strategy involves acquiring customers through email, telephone, or the internet.

Companies generally store a database of email ids, Phone Numbers, and other information so that they can reach out to customers based on their backgrounds.

6. Event Arrangements

Events are one of the best platforms to promote any product. It is the place where people come to schedule their time. Creating a brand image in the event is an easy task.

Companies generally give a brief introduction to the product and its review. Audiences also get involved in product talks. It also creates a brand image in the mind of the customers.

Events always engage the audience with a variety of activities. Viewers get ample time to think about the product and discuss it.

7. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is one of the most trending topics these days. Almost 80 percent of the people in our society use social media. It is the place where you can get a considerable number of customers.

There are various platforms in the social media world. Companies analyze the need of  social media users and place their product advertisements in front of them.

According to a study, it is proved that social media marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies. Customers can directly interact with the product end people. These days’ companies place their advertisements between online streaming videos. It also drags the attention of the audience.

8. Mobile Marketing

The mobile phone has become a lifeline for the last couple of decades. More than 90 person people in our society use mobile phones. Mobile phone marketing involves communication via phone calls or simple text messages. It is one of the cheaper and more traditional ways of integrated marketing that has increased since the last decade.

Integrated Marketing Examples

Many big brands implemented integrated marketing, and yet they are successful.

Their sales increased, and it is a brand image also developed. In this section, we shall discuss a few effectively integrated marketing examples that led a company toward success

1. Domino’s

When we think about pizza, the first thing that comes to mind is Dominoes. Domino’s created a campaign called “AnyWare” that allowed people to order their pizza via tweet, text, or smartwatch.

This type of marketing was possible because Domino’s pizza profile saved the email ids and the contact number of their customers. It became easy for the company to acquire these customers again and again.

2. Go Pro

We come across various video vlogs by several video creators. Videography has become one of the most significant sources of income. Go Pro made the videography handier and more stable. Go Pro used integrated marketing strategies precisely.

Initially, GoPro was limited to a YouTube channel. Its content was so attractive to the audiences. The materials were full of adventures and actions. Mini action cams shot those contents.

Those shots include unique videos with sufficient clarity. Soon the users were attracted to the action camera, and they also used to post their videos on the Go pro channel.

The users are multiplying daily, and now there are more than a million followers.

GoPro created a fan base by uploading YouTube videos. Nowadays, Go Pro provides content almost daily on their channel to maintain traffic. Now there are more than thousands of GoPro users around the globe, and it is increasing day by day.

Conclusion

There are various platforms through which a company can promote its product or services.

These days several companies implement innovative marketing strategies to help their product. Marketing a product is not an easy task. To simplify the task, experts recommend various marketing strategies. Integrated marketing is one marketing strategy that allows a company to create a brand image among the audience.

The word “integrated” in integrated marketing means promoting a product and imposing the brand name within the audience’s mind. It enhances the brand value in the audience’s mind and convinces them to buy the product.

Various B2C companies around the globe implement this strategy to acquire more customers. Integrated marketing follows specific steps.

Effective implementation of integrated marketing always triggers the sales of a company.

Using integrated marketing has several advantages for the business prospect. It makes marketing easier and triggers sales for the company. In the competitive market, integrated marketing is one of the most critical aspects of maintaining its existence.

Hopefully, by now, you must have understood what integrated marketing is and must have cleared your concept through integrated marketing examples.

Want to learn and master different channels of an effective Integrated Marketing Strategy? Enrolling in a Digital Marketing Course would help you do this in the most comprehensive and dexterous manner possible.

How important do you consider Integrated Marketing Strategy in today’s time? Tell us about your thoughts in the comments below.

FAQs:

1. What is the goal of Integrated Marketing?

The goal of Integrated Marketing is that when customers or audiences communicate with the same brand or business in multiple ways, the same kind of information is provided to them from the brand side irrespective of the different ways of communication chosen from the audience side.

2. What is the benefit or advantage of Integrated Marketing?

The benefit of Integrated Marketing is that the same layout, same visual experience with the same slogans and designs, same promotions, etc. are provided to the audience when they reach the same business through different channels.

The knowledge provided to the audience should be similar for each channel of the business.

3. What are the 8 components of Integrated Marketing?

8 Components of Integrated Marketing are:

1. Content Marketing

2. Strategy

3. Websites

4. Public Relations

5. Creatives

6. Search Engine Optimization

7. Paid Social and Paid Media

8. Social Media

4. What are the 4 elements of Integrated Marketing Mix?

4. The 4 elements of an Integrated Marketing Mix are:

1. Product

2. Price

3. Place

4. Promotions

5. What are Integrated Marketing Examples?

Some Integrated Marketing Examples are Same Logo, same design, tone of voice, similar promotions, same font, and same marketing campaigns used in all the different channels of the business.