What is Digital Marketing Integration?
We all today are having a virtual word but hardly know about what integration. You may be inclined to think a brand is merely a logo, a tagline, or even just the name of your business or individuals. However, a brand is much more than that, it is the emotion invoked at the mention of your business or individuals. A successful brand gains widespread recognition, ideally through trust and loyalty. Branding informs people about the reputation, products, and services being provided.
Your brand voice, message, look, and feel are weaved through the other components of your digital marketing or online marketing components. How you market your brand works to competitively position your business in the eyes of potential customers.
Content
Without content, you don’t have a digital marketing integration. Content must be customer-centric for the purpose of content strategy is to attract and retain customers by creating consumable and usable content on a regular basis. Once the content is created, the format it is delivered in and its placement in Digital marketing vehicles such as email, social posts, website landing pages, blogs are critical. A content strategy should clearly maintain a consistent message and amplify the brand.
All this workaround content creation then provides a way for customers to find you organically and for you to communicate with them without trying to explicitly sell them anything. If you are going to go through the effort and resources to produce company content, then you need a content strategy to make sure all that valuable content is being put to good use, consistently and clearly amplifying the brand’s messages.
Website
Just as your content needs to be customer-oriented, your website should be at the center of the digital experience. All other digital components and tactics will drive potential customers to it. Content placed in an email, social posts, and blogs all drive traffic to the website making digital marketing integration effective.
Whether you capture a customer’s information on social media or even at an event, they are going to pay a visit to your website, and currently, website landing pages are still, the predominant way that customers provide the most information about themselves and ask for contact from your company.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Your brand message and content feed into the tactical components of an Integrated Digital Marketing plan. SEO is an important, tactical component of an integrated internet marketing strategy, used to make a brand’s web presence accessible to a search engine and ultimately to improve the organic rank of the site on search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO is determined largely by certain elements search engines look for. These include content on website pages and blogs, (text, titles, and descriptions), website performance, and user experience. Conversely, search engines are not looking for the following attributes: keyword stuffing, purchased links, and poor user experience. Specifically, Blog Strategy is an important part of SEO. It has the potential to be the voice of a company in an informal and approachable way. Being relatively simple to implement, a blog is a great way to draw traffic to a brand’s website while also projecting company personality. Make sure to put forth content that solves problems rather than selling brand products and services.
Given that searching done online is the first way customers come into contact with your brand, google and the like are the new yellow pages. SEO helps search engines like google, bing, yahoo determines what a given webpage is about and whether or not it’s useful for the user conducting the search. Ranking high on SERPs is no longer an option, but a critical component of a larger marketing strategy.
Read Here: Tools for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
A broader term than SEO, SEM utilizes search engines to grow your audience by advertising your brand on the web through paid for tactics. It is essentially the practice of buying traffic for a brand’s web presence mainly by bidding for search terms so that your banners and ads are placed ahead of others optimizing for the same terms. These tactics are commonly referenced as CPC (cost-per-click) and PPC (pay-per-click) marketing. Another way this tactic is enhanced is by retargeting i.e. following someone who has clicked on your ad around the web so that you stay on their mind when they are ready to buy your product.
Even companies that have globally recognized brands use PPC, CPC, and re-targeting. The bottom line is that SEM will garner you more awareness in a quicker time frame than SEO. But both are necessary- the day you start doing SEM is when you show up both organically and via a paid ad on the first page of a search – although if you rank organically and via SEM, then you own more real estate on the first-page search results. With attributes like increased visibility, precise targeting, and trackability/ measurability, SEM is a must-have in any digital marketing strategy.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
SMM focuses on creating content worth sharing. Think word of mouth, but for the internet age. The ultimate goal is still to gain traffic for the brand’s web presence, but in SMM the traffic is gained through promoting your brand and content via social media outlets.
Many consumers perform searches on social media channels and the social channels are accommodating this by dramatically improving their search functionality. So it is in a brand’s best interest to have a notable and engaging presence on such channels. SMM is also a way to connect directly with your audience and provide customer service in a personal way, all the while generating brand awareness. Its’ also a great way to engage with customers and advocates for your brand and services.
Read Here: Tools for Managing Social Media Accounts
Others
Email Marketing: disregard the naysayers who claim email marketing is dead because of its potential for spamminess. But 59% of B2B marketers say email is the most effective channel in generating revenue.
Website Design: Alluded earlier to the fact that if a person’s eyes are the windows to the soul then a brand’s website is the main door to the company. The company website design (usability, navigability, accessibility) will determine who walks through the door and ultimately becomes a retainable customer. Design well and reap the rewards of loyal, satisfied consumers.
Why Work on Digital?
Leads generated digitally using content marketing have a proven value that far exceeds those generated using traditional marketing methods such as direct mail or events. They show a journey of engagement, allow for ease of access to your brand, and provide a strong indication of interest depending on the number and duration of digital interactions. Whether it’s increased ROI (inbound marketing is much more cost-effective than traditional outbound marketing) or the willingness of leads to turn into retainable customers, B2B businesses today need a digitally integrated content marketing strategy.
So are you digital marketing integration proper? But I Do