When integrated marketing isn’t always seamless, you can still connect the dots and tell a holistic story of your marketing efforts and their results.
The phrase “integrated marketing” has become somewhat cliché, but the execution of it has far from been perfected. Myriad technologies, departmental silos, and many other factors can limit a seamless connection, leaving marketers to wear their Sherlock Holmes hat when trying to piece together the clues to their marketing story and ROI.
However, there are a few tips I’ve learned with our team along the way that can help tell a more holistic marketing story that showcases your efforts and, equally important, your results:
It’s all about analytics
If you don’t have Google Analytics or another data tool installed on your website, you are missing out on substantial back-end insights. More than just the number of visitors to your site (though this is certainly important), analytics can tell you where your audience is coming to your site from, what content they are consuming, what actions they are taking, and where they might be dropping off.
These are invaluable insights into your audience’s thoughts and actions – as well as ways to align your marketing efforts to meet them.
Here’s more on how to uncover the health of your data through analytics.
Social media is a multiplier
Big events, keynote presentations, sponsorships, employee volunteer days, PR/media hits, etc. – these one-time, live, and/or in-person events are great exposure for your organization. But the challenge is they too often only live in that one moment and only with the people who were there. Through social media, that exposure is multiplied – by every follower, every like, every share. Social media allows even your audience who couldn’t be there to share in the experience. It’s also a great content fodder for your pages.
Be sure to leverage social media in this way as well as connect these dots when telling social’s integrated role across all of your marketing efforts.
Check out these social media tips and trends.
UTM everything
UTM codes are secret weapons. They are unique identifiers that can be placed on all of your links and assets to tell you what content users are engaging with and how. Challenges arise when there is no set UTM structure, process, and cadence within a campaign, especially with multiple partners working alongside each other. This can lead to “holes” in the data.
The rule of thumb is to UTM everything possible and create a datasheet to easily track all codes.
Here’s a simple tool to help create UTM codes.
We need your data, too
As much as we can track marketing with our tools, in order to tell the full(er) story, we need access to the data from your tools, too. For example, understanding the number of inquiry form completions, the number of enrollments, the number of product sales, even any marketing efforts that are occurring outside or alongside the current project. Data on how these are occurring, from where, when, and via which tactics all work to inform the impact of our marketing effort as a whole.
All told, telling a holistic marketing story doesn’t have to be the most difficult part of your campaign. Proper set up in the beginning, leveraging the right tools, and having access to data related to or impacted by your marketing efforts will help set you up to solve the case (before it even becomes one). Want to learn more? We’re here to help!
Giselle is a Sr. Account Executive and Partner with RDW Group. Her life credits include being a mom, wife, mar/comm professional, and wannabe gardener. Success is sometimes questionable on the latter.