What do effective integrated marketing campaigns have in common?
Integrated marketing campaigns can be a tricky art to perfect. We live in a multi-media world, which means that new media and old media sit alongside one another, sometimes competing, other times working collectively - in the case of integrated campaigns they work together.
However despite saying all of this, what is it that actually leads to successful results? Consistent branding and messaging, frequency of communications and deciding on your primary medium are collectively important points to factor in. Let’s take a look at some of the most impressive integrated campaigns:
#1 Compare the Market - Baby Oleg
On Christmas Day 2013, comparethemarket.com released a television advert revealing new character Baby Oleg. In January 2014 the campaign went into full swing with an advertisement promoting a cuddly toy to accompany the cute Meerkat. Following this announcement a blog was created for Oleg online, for customers to…
Halloween marketing party tricks - you are never too old
The holidays are coming. However, holiday shopping no longer waits until Black Friday or even the month of November to get underway. Instead, to get ahead of this holiday season, smart businesses must consider their marketing kick-offs much earlier. This makes Halloween an excellent starting point for the 2014 holiday season.
Halloween isn’t just for kids anymore whichever country you're planning your Halloween campaigns for. In fact, according to the US National Retail Federation, 71.5% of adults plan to celebrate or otherwise participate in Halloween-related activities this year. This means that there’s no specific demographic for Halloween, and chances are you can profit from this knowledge.
Ideas for marketing Halloween
Is your business ready? Looking for ways to incorporate Halloween into your company’s marketing strategy? Look no farther. Check out…
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September 23, 2014
6 Essential parts of a marketing campaign
In a previous post I gave these examples of 6 common problems which can kill a marketing campaign. This post is a companion to that article and shows what you should include in a marketing campaign plan.
The structure I outline in this post is based on this Smart Insights marketing campaign planning template originally developed by Dave Chaffey when he was a tutor on the Integrated E-marketing campaigns training workshops for the CIM and then updated in his books. More recently, it’s been extended for Smart Insights Expert members in association with First 10 and is used by us on a regular basis on planning client marketing campaigns.
The recommended structure of the campaign and the questions to ask at each step are:
1. Campaign goals and tracking. What are we trying to achieve through our campaign and how will we know when we achieve it?
Here you define…
People still love print – sometimes more than digital – so enabling good printing is essential for online marketing success
Internet marketers live in a digital world, but they should not forget printed documents. In this article you will discover:
Why print is psychologically important
How to ensure your website is printable
What printed documents are worth providing
Back in 1975, Business Week magazine predicted that we would soon have a “paperless office” thanks to all the new technology being introduced at that time. Of course, here we are almost 40 years later and the paperless office is still a distant dream.
Even in this age of instant digital information, where you are not short of things to read, the chances are you also have a pile of print to wade through. The notion that digital would replace print clearly hasn’t happened. Indeed, even though the sales of ebook readers have soared, printed book sales are…
Integrating different inbound channels as part of a content-led digital strategy
Here's the only way to approach your marketing: What content will your customers thank you for?
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs @MarketingProfs
In the ever-evolving sphere of digital marketing, creating compelling content just isn't enough. Instead, what you need to do is develop a strategic plan that is both consistent and integrated and will help drive traffic, generate leads and increase your conversions. While content creation still plays a pivotal role in an effective marketing strategy, smart brands are taking a more holistic approach - and that means focusing on how content marketing, SEO, social media, blogging and email marketing all work in sync.
Along with our own tips and tricks of the trade, in this article AWeber has enlisted a few industry leaders to share their insights…
Bringing ideas to life - developing the perfect process for content ideation
"Creative thinking inspires ideas. Ideas inspire change." Barbara Januszkiewicz
Ideas are the lifeblood of campaigns and the content strategy to support them. Creating brilliant ideas and developing them into unique and appealing content is what marketing campaigns have used to generate audiences for years, and that won’t be changing anytime soon. The value of the creative process is something we recognize and respect at Zazzle Media, which is why we spend hours – many, many hours – honing that process. In this post, we'll describe 12 process steps to consider as part of content ideation.
But contrary to popular belief, there’s a lot more to producing fantastic ideas than huddling together crossed-legged in a Zen-like state, shouting random ideas at each other during a wacky brainstorm session. Adopting the structured approach this article suggests will help produce consistent results across the board, whatever…
Ideas on making your marketing campaigns more effective
As the take-up of smartphones continues to grow with 61% of adults now using one - it’s changing the marketing landscape at an incredible rate. Ofcom’s new Communications Market Report offers great context as to why your marketing might be outdated and getting results that don’t match your experience. Here’s 2 snippets:
The average adult in the UK spends over half of their waking hours engaged in media or communications activities. On average, UK adults sleep for 8 hours 21 minutes in a 24-hour period, while they spend 8 hours 41 minutes engaged in media or communication activity.
UK adults squeeze over 11 hours’ worth of communications and media activity into less than nine hours. The total volume of media and communications activities undertaken by an individual each day equate to 11 hours 7 minutes. But as some media activities are conducted simultaneously, this…
Desktop continues to trump mobile in directing online traffic from print according to new DMA research
DMA's report on 'Mobilising Print Media' polled over 1,000 UK adult consumers, to find out how consumers are 'driven online by brand and charity print marketing'. Nick Barnard, Chair of the DMA Inserts Council and head of Telegraph Reach at Telegraph Media Group, said: '
Today, the path to purchase is more complex than often thought, particularly on how certain media channels are perceived. What media owners, agencies and clients need to remember is that in the end the consumer is always the most integrated and important person in the marketing mix.'
Results were interesting as collated in the Infographic, which highlights:
54% of respondents were more likely to visit a brand/charity's website after receiving a direct mail piece; 25% visited the website from a smartphone or tablet.
Main barrier to mobile phone usage for direct response is the functionality; 1…
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June 26, 2014
Avoiding common 6 pitfalls of marketing campaign planning
In my previous post reviewing techniques for digital marketing integration post I touched on the three major challenges to integrating digital marketing: planning, people and agencies. In this article I will look in more detail at these challenges as they relate to marketing campaigns, giving suggestions on how they can be avoided through better management.
To help make the campaign successful it can help to think about what can go wrong in the planning and execution and then avoid these pitfalls. In this post I'll show 6 pitfalls that I’ve seen with campaign planning - each of the following pitfalls is directly aligned to one of six stages of creating an integrated campaign covered in the Smart Insights marketing campaign planning/briefing template which I will describe more fully in a later post:
1. Campaign goals and tracking.
2. Target audience,…
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June 25, 2014
Incorporating the 4Cs of integrating digital marketing into marketing campaigns
Do you know the “4Cs” of integrated campaigns? When thinking about how to create a successful integrated marketing campaign, Pickton and Broderick’s 4 Cs explained in their book Integrated Marketing Communications can be a handy test. They outline the four key concerns that need to be addressed in order to give your campaign a chance of reaching its goals. The 4Cs are:
Coherence – different communications are logically connected?
Consistency – multiple messages support and reinforce, and are not contradictory?
Continuity – communications are connected and consistent through time?
Complementary – synergistic, or the sum of the parts is greater than the whole?
In this post we take a look at three high-profile campaigns, and offer an insight into their results related to the 4Cs .
02: Be More Dog
O2’s foray into 4G advertising asked us "to be more dog". The overall message of the campaign is that life in the digital…
