A selection of the most appropriate promotional channels and measurement techniques has a cumulative effect on your campaign results and consumer recall, therefore, choosing the right agencies to represent your brand is key.

Aligning marketing messages across different media channels, in the most relevant and cost-effective way, is proving more and more of a challenge for brands. With a rapid influx of emerging media, brands have to deal with a myriad of options to most appropriately target consumers with their product information. And if this wasn’t challenging enough, consumers are now demanding more personalised access to information.

To ensure a campaign reaches the intended target audience with the right message at the right time, brands need to have a clear concept, strategy and an understanding of which touchpoints will deliver which results. But how do you choose the right agencies to work towards your common marketing goals?

As most agencies specialise in one core communication channel, balancing all the elements of an integrated marketing campaign can become a complex challenge; especially if you have a power struggle between agencies for budget and control. How can agencies provide the best service, insight and support if they are offering a one size fits all solution for their clients? Would you really want to invest your money with non-specialists?

Effective integration is possible with the right parties working together with clear objectives. Sometimes, to achieve your goals, your strategy may not need all channels. Your agencies must understand your customers’ behaviour and decide upon the most appropriate way to effectively create successful two-way communications.

The measurement challenge – How do you analyse long-term customer behaviour?

Within today’s fragmented marketplace, when measuring the ROI of integrated campaigns across different channels, agencies tend to focus upon the number of impressions rather than the actual level of consumer engagement with your brand.

In an interesting article about shifting from ‘consumer impressions’ to ‘expressions’, Joe Tripoli, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer of The Coca-Cola Company, has discussed how consumer touchpoints have changed substantially in recent years. The fact that consumers are more informed and demanding makes the “old one-size-fits all approach” give way to precision marketing and one-to-one communications.

The main idea raised by Tripoli is that to try and win over this new era of “empowered, engaged and networked consumers”, brands need to start measuring expressions instead of just impressions. Impressions are passive and only highlight the level of brand awareness. By comparison, expressions can offer you some great consumer insights, by measuring the level of engagement between consumers and your brand.

The fact that experiential marketing creates an invaluable brand experience for your target audience, on a one-to-one level, can generate positive results for your integrated campaign. The successful combination of advertising, PR and digital strategies can have a cumulative effect on consumer recall. In addition, through integration, your campaign message will be extended far beyond the consumers who come into direct contact with the experiential activity. Subsequently, you will achieve an increased number of consumer “expressions” amongst your brand, which will make a dent in long-term customer behaviour.

The experiential solution – Where does experiential marketing fit within your integrated campaign?

Experiential marketing pushes your brand through the sales pipeline quicker than other channels. Knowing how and why to communicate with customers throughout different points is the key to successful campaign implementation. Using pre and post tactics to drive awareness of experiences can add depth to the overall plan.

Experiential can also result in great PR stories and digital content; and good PR can always increase the credibility of your brand. When you are giving people a meaningful brand experience, you are making your product more relevant to that group. At this point, people begin to understand the value of your product and, thus, believe in your brand.

Ultimately, whatever approach you decide to use within your integrated strategy, you need to ensure consistency through all related marketing touchpoints. This will ensure that your experiential activity will be much more hard-hitting, and guarantee a long-term brand and sales-driving initiative.

Check out our top five tips for a successful integrated campaign.

1. Choose the right partners, with a clear overall vision. Let the specialists help to provide solutions.

2. Consistency. Keep the campaign message consistent and interesting whilst conforming to the unique value proposals of each medium.

3. Cut the Bull. Get to the point quickly, as people have limited time to be interrupted by what you are trying to tell them.

4. Invite people to express themselves. With digital technologies, creativity and media unite with a greater level of success than ever before.

5. Encourage inter-agency comms. Measure the performance of each channel to reach a higher goal.

 

Hotcow is a multi-award winning brand engagement agency specialising in experiential marketing. Our mission is simple: to help brands understand the power of “experience-based marketing” and create effective two way communication by offering expertise in how to develop, plan and execute campaigns in the right way to get the right results. For more information or a free consultation about how to integrate experiential marketing in your strategy, contact us.