Why the Integration of Digital and Traditional Marketing is Important

Consumers digest content on many different channels at different times of the day. This is why it is important to understand where and when to reach them. The most successful brands use an integrated marketing approach to create a coordinated experience for consumers to interact with their brands.

The goal of integrated marketing strategies is to merge the efforts of your digital marketing —digital ads, social media, SEO, website, and email content marketing—with any traditional marketing channels you are using, such as TV, radio, print collateral and direct marketing, so they work together as an integrated campaign.

By coordinating messages across multiple channels, brand awareness and purchase intent are far higher than when taking a less integrated approach. This integrated strategy will help ensure that your consumer-focused messages are effectively using the eachplatform to its highest potential in a coordinated effort with multiple touches to increase awareness and engagement.  

It takes multiple impressions and touchpoints to convert a consumer

Today’s customer journey crisscrosses along many devices and touchpoints before resulting in a conversion.  In fact, it generally takes 5-7 consumer touchpoints —often across a mix of channels— to achieve a conversion or sale. That’s why it’s crucial to follow-up, remarket, and follow-up again.  To optimize campaigns and create more personalized consumer experiences, you need to understand—through solid data analytics—which touchpoints and messages are driving positive actions within your target market. 

Multi-touch attribution models have become important for marketers, especially those looking to measure the impact of digital campaigns. This is because they provide a person-level view into the success of touchpoints across the buyer’s entire journey. This type of granular data can help marketers as they take steps to customize their messaging to meet consumers on the right channel at the right time.

How can traditional media, like TV influence your digital marketing

One of the big benefits of TV advertising is that it reminds consumers about your brand and helps to keep it top of mind. Another key benefit of TV is that it helps drive activity elsewhere in the media eco-system, making other touchpoints within an integrated campaign work harder.

• Campaigns that use TV and online together are twice as efficient as those that incorporate brand advertising with other kinds of activation channels (Binet and Field)
• TV generates 29% of media-driven sales through web traffic driven direct-to-site
• TV has a significant impact on social media activity, responsible for 33% of all media-driven interactions for brands on Facebook
• TV can also create 'Halo effect' across a brand's portfolio with 37% of TV's total sales effect is felt by products not directly advertised. In other words, TV is likely to boost sales of other products not featured in the original ad

Are you seeing more traffic to your website after a radio or tv spot? Identify where this increase is coming from (direct, organic, paid) and see how fine tuning your messaging can affect different touchpoints.

It’s vital to have an engaging brand story, but don’t assume that customers are paying attention to all the channels in your integrated marketing campaign. According to The Brand Storytelling report by content marketing agency Headstream:

• 85% of consumers couldn't name a memorable story told to them by a brand
• 55% of responders are more likely to buy the product in the future if they really love a brand story
• 66% want to see and hear stories about regular people

Regardless of how good you think your marketing is, the reality is that the vast majority of people are going to forget it very quickly. The Brand Storytelling Report indicates that thousands of storytelling efforts were completely forgotten by over four out of five people. To ensure this doesn’t happen to you, talk to the integrated marketing campaign specialists at ParkerWhite.

Integrated Marketing Campaign:  Fairfax EggBank

Good integrated marketing is much more than having the same slogan, logo and brand colors splashed across all channels in your marketing mix. It begins with an overarching engagement strategy and weaves a coherent and compelling story through everything the brand does.  Take a look at the integrated campaign for the Fairfax EggBank.

Integrating your digital and traditional marketing channels can boost conversions

Making the most out of touchpoints is critical to your lead nurturing process. Your sales strategy should aim to educate and inform your potential customers, adding value as they make their way down the sales funnel.  

Every touchpoint—whether digital or traditional media— is an opportunity to help gain the trust and admiration of your prospective customers. The more valuable they find each touchpoint experience, the more likely they are to view you as a brand they can trust.

Struggling to integrate your digital and traditional marketing efforts? ParkerWhite can help you strategize, plan, and execute the right marketing mix to reach your customers and grow your sales. Let's start a conversation.

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