...are businesses realising this fully?
Companies and organisations market themselves successfully all the time. Unsurprisingly, this activity is usually based on what has worked well in the past and can sometimes rely on just one or two marketing disciplines.
This is when I believe many businesses can really miss out commercially, by not realising the huge potential to be gained from running a fully integrated digital marketing plan.
All companies and organisations have clear business objectives – an integrated approach to all marketing activity can be very effective in helping you achieve these objectives.
The opportunity
Clearly, you can opt for producing an advertising campaign and just rely on new enquiries. But by developing an integrated digital approach, for example by creating an Adwords campaign, developing your website to engage your prospects, building your authority through targeted articles in key publications or developing quality content people want to share, you and your business will be engaging with all your key audiences in many different ways and in many different environments.
The data benefit
This integrated approach also means you will have a lot more analytics at your finger tips and you will be able to gauge the effectiveness of your activity much more accurately.
Value for money
In summary, by creating an effective integrated digital marketing plan you will get the very most from your marketing spend.
By adopting a unified approach, the content you create can be used in many forms, enabling you to get the most from the marketing collateral you create. Also, managing and coordinating different marketing activity will be so much easier because your team have a clear plan to follow.
With an integrated approach in place, your brand promise will then be much more consistent and powerful across all the different marketing channels.
Developing the plan for your business
To develop a marketing plan requires a logical, methodical and creative approach. No two plans should be the same and they should always be tailored to an organisation's specific objectives.
The first step in developing the plan is assessing the current market situation for that business or organisation. The perfect way to do this is to conduct a SWOT analysis, which will enable you to identify the various strategic options within the overall commercial environment. This will then provide a clear vision of where you want to be.
The next step is to identify the key target audiences and set some clear objectives. This will then be the perfect time to review the brand proposition and the key messages that need to be developed to create a brand platform which will ensure all communication is consistent and engaging, on and offline.
Then experience and expertise is required in selecting the most appropriate tactics and channels. A clear understanding of the key audiences will help to determine the right mix of activity, from digital marketing to PR, advertising and design.
The final part is of course measuring how effective the marketing activity has been. Once everything is in progress there will be a lot of data to review, from online analytics and sales enquires to customer feedback. This will then be the perfect time to review and analyse what marketing activity is effective and hone the plan accordingly.
If you are looking for a forward-thinking marketing plan that will deliver real commercial impact for your company or organisation, on and offline, please don't hesitate to get in touch with myself or one of the creative team here at Westgate: shaun@westgatecomms.com