How Integrated Marketing Concepts Can Help You Write Emails That Convert

Despite its age, there’s no denying that email marketing just works. Email has been there since the early days of the internet, but take a look at some of these statistics:

86% of business professionals prefer email for communication.
59% of B2B marketers say email is their most effective channel.
The number of email users is expected to grow to 2.9 billion by 2019.

“86% of business professionals prefer email for communication.”

But this isn’t necessarily news to most B2B marketers who already use email regularly. Proper marketing strategies require a mix of channels rather than relying on the one or two that have worked historically.

A common issue that marketing teams run into is that each channel's message is developed in isolation. Marketers are expected to generate results, and that sometimes means abandoning consistency across each channel.

What is Integrated Marketing?

The key to building or improving a brand is employing a diverse and effective marketing campaign.

Digital marketing allows brands to communicate with prospects and customers in a more consistent way, while direct mail and physical media campaigns can help them connect with them in a more intimate way. Both offer different experiences, but they are both trying to achieve the same goal of resonating with their target audience.

Diving deeper, look at several channels in digital marketing:

Organic search (SEO)
Social media
Paid search
Email
PR
Content

Not every brand leverages each channel, but they’re most likely using a combination. All require different skill sets and expertise to do effectively, which means uniting them can be challenging.

More and more, brands are realizing this isolation between marketing channels, and are trying to do something about it. This is what’s known as integrated marketing or “IMC” (integrated marketing communications). Companies that have already adopted integrated marketing know it works because their numbers show it.

Here are two pieces of research that should peak your interest regarding IMC:

A survey from Gartner Research found that lead management campaigns integrating 4 or more digital channels will outperform single or dual-channel campaigns by 300%.
Companies that implement integrated marketing into their campaigns see, on average, a 50% higher Return on Investment (ROI).

Benefits of Integrated Marketing Communications

The world today has so much in terms of choice that consumers can feel overwhelmed with the number of marketing messages they’re exposed to on a daily basis, that it can all seem like noise. Brands run the risk of being overlooked and ignored if they are not relevant to consumers' needs and wants. It’s an uphill battle, and even identifying the best time to message customers can be the difference between success and missed opportunity.

One of the major benefits of integrated marketing is that marketers can clearly and effectively communicate their brand's story and messaging. Integration also comes with more cost-effective results than traditional media since consumers are likely to interact with brands across the digital landscape.

Users will continue spend more time on Internet connected devices, and marketers have the opportunity to tactically capture multiple exposure points amongst their target market. Integration also means a more unified way of looking at all the performance data rather than fragments, trying to piece it all together.

The other benefit of integrated marketing communications is that it creates a competitive advantage for companies looking to boost their sales and profits. This is especially useful for small- or mid-sized firms with limited staff and marketing budgets.

IMC immerses customers in communications and helps them move through the various stages of the buying process. The organization simultaneously consolidates its image, develops a dialogue, and nurtures its relationship with customers throughout the exchange. IMC can be instrumental in creating a seamless purchasing experience that spurs customers to become loyal, lifelong customers.

Why Integrated Marketing?

Integrated marketing is the strategy and implementation of leveraging and unifying different marketing activities. The overall purpose is to complement and reinforce the overall impact of each of these marketing methodologies, so that the marketing process is not only more consistent across different mediums, but also more effective in meeting marketing objectives and increasing a business's bottom line.

Companies spend, on average, 10.7% of their total digital marketing budget on search marketing, though a good chunk of that more than likely is dedicated to paid search. However, when it comes to the activities that marketers view as most attributable to their marketing success, only 8-9% of all companies surveyed rated search marketing (including paid) in their top 3.

When Content Isn’t Enough, Email Works

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.

How to Get Started — Proper Alignment

Before you even begin to think about how IMC concepts can help you improve your email efforts, there’s a critical conversation to be had. And it involves getting more than just your marketing team on the same page.

Many high-level marketing pros are already familiar with this, but nothing will strengthen an IMC campaign than the idea of sales alignment. This is achieved by opening a dialogue between marketing and sales teams and uniting them with a single goal. Each side has their own tailored goals they want to reach, but bringing forward the right sales alignment strategy will do wonders for your organization as a whole.

Once alignment is achieved, then it’s on to the next most important step — messaging.

Messaging (hint: consistency)

If there is one word you could associate with integrated marketing, it would have to be consistency.

con·sist·en·cy

kənˈsistənsē

noun

conformity in the application of something, typically that which is necessary for the sake of logic, accuracy, or fairness.

Consistency is the foundation of branding, but branding most often goes far beyond the product itself. Every interaction a consumer has with a brand, regardless of experience, device or platform, the messaging must be clear and understandable at each touchpoint.

“Every interaction a consumer has with a brand must have a clear and understandable message.”

By having a superior/ultimate brand vision, crafting your message can begin. Thinking about how an integrated marketing approach can be applied, you can then improve the potential impact on customers regardless of how they interact with your brand.

Having a Realized, Self-Aware Understanding of Your Customer

Consistent messaging drives how marketing channels can supplement and help one another, but this in no way means abandoning best practices. This is where you can lean on your current strengths in email or it’s time to explore how your team can get better.

Beyond that, the best copy that converts is copy that speaks directly to your customer. This means having an honest understanding of how they perceive your brand and how you can bridge the gap in solving their problems or providing the solutions they desperately need.

The difference here is that rather than relying on copywriting best practices, the core concepts behind integrated marketing is ultimately what can take your email efforts to the next level. Assuming your customer’s only exposure to your brand isn’t through an email list, email is just one of many touchpoints.

Integrated Marketing - A Modern Day Phalanx

If you’ve ever watched the film 300, you might be familiar with the combat formation the Spartans used to fend off waves of Persian soldiers.

This is known as the phalanx, and it wasn’t preferred by just the war-hardened soldiers of Sparta. What gives the phalanx it's strength is it's ability to give soldiers a support system in which they can lean on one another.

As with the old cliche, the same can be said of the phalanx — an army is only as strong as its weakest link.

Integrated marketing tries to strengthen multiple channels by unifying under a single objective or consistent messaging. Email is a viable digital marketing channel, but you have the power to make it better by applying integrated marketing concepts.