How Integration Makes Your Marketing Work

Integration in marketing is implementing your strategy with the same focus and message at every level of communication. From signage, to Web sites, to promotional literature, to the elevator speeches you make when people ask what you do; integration is the consistent positioning of what makes you unique.

It makes your brand strong. Through integration your business, products, organization or purpose are instantly recognized, quickly understood, and easily communicated in the marketplace.

To achieve integration you need a well-defined marketing strategy that you adhere to. Then your strategy should be implemented at every level of your business, both internally and externally.

We have all just witnessed what is possibly the best example of how a well-defined marketing strategy, implemented and integrated at every level, produced an enormous success. Here’s how you can take the strategy and outcomes from that example and apply them to your own business or organization to create your success in 2009.

The strategy I refer to is the presidential election campaign of Barack Obama. In August of this year I sent a Muse that was titled What You Can Learn from Political Campaigns. It focused on the success of Barack Obama as a brand from his campaign during the primaries.

In his acceptance speech on election night, Obama referred to David Plouffe as the “unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.” I would go one step further and say that it is one of the best campaigns ever; not just in politics.

Here’s more in-depth information about the Obama campaign strategy, what you can learn from it, and how to apply it to your business.

Coordination

The campaign had a central person who oversaw that communication and message were timed, released, displayed, and executed with clarity, simplicity, and consistency regardless of what media was being used. This central person was David Plouffe.

With many different teams working on the various aspects of the marketing, from TV to Web to public appearances to grass roots canvassing and fund raising, the coordination of all the components is considered to be the most important factor in the success of the Obama campaign.

Take a look at your marketing and sales efforts. Do different staff members communicate different messages? Is there conflict between your advertising, marketing, and sales departments or are they all selling the same? Do you have departments within your company not knowing what other departments are doing? Do you have staff members who are not aware of what other staff members are doing and why? Do different departments and employees have different perspectives on what is the desired outcome or goal of your company or organization?

If you’ve answered yes to any of those questions you need coordination. One way to start implementing this at your business is to change job titles. Replace managers with coordinators. Managing is a vertical task relating to handling those people or situations under a manager’s responsibility. Coordinating is a horizontal task that relates to merging and communicating across various groups of people.

Technology

The Obama campaign was masterful in understanding and utilizing the power of technology, especially in Web marketing, e-commerce, and e-communication. People signed up by the millions on the Obama site. They used the site for information and purchasing (contributions.) By mid October 2008, 3.1 million people had contributed $600 million dollars to the campaign online – which is nearly $200 per contributor.

What makes this even more significant is that it happened when gas prices were at an all-time high, the economy was imploding, credit was drying up and family budgets were strained.

Web 2.0 contributed to the groundswell, especially among younger voters who used their social networks to send messages and openly show support.

The Obama Web team kept in almost daily communication with each contributor and supporter through email messages that were personalized for the state, area, and situation where that supporter lived.

At 11:33 p.m. EST, the night of the election, each contributor and supporter of Barack Obama received a personal email of thanks sent before he left to speak at Grant Park, with a promise to keep them engaged in the work ahead. The email was simply signed, Barack.

Personal recognition is one of the most powerful motivators in marketing and this campaign harnessed that power.

How are you using technology at your company? Does your Website bring in revenue? Does it generate revenue through other streams? What are you doing with customer’s email addresses? Do you sell by email? Do you keep customers engaged and informed through email? Use technology to create a smarter customer and in turn you will have a more loyal and productive customer.

Targeting

When it came to niche marketing, audience segmentation, and targeted communication, this campaign left nothing to chance. The brand message didn’t change; but the application of the message did. It related to each niche market.

This resulted in strong personal connections with the Obama brand for people from different age groups, ethnicities, income levels, lifestyles, and educational levels. Brands are an extension of how we see ourselves. As consumers, once we embrace a brand we become spokespersons for that brand.

How strong are the connections your brand makes with your customers? Is it personal? Are you a non-profit they choose to support? Do you sell products they choose as an extension of their image? Do they feel personally connected to you? Secure the engagement of consumers with your brand and you can overcome incredible odds.

Goal Setting and Consistency

From the start of the primary campaign, the Obama message and mantra was about change. The strategy recognized that change was what their potential customers wanted most. The campaign stayed on message and never took its eyes off the goal.

Set goals for your business or organization and stay true to them. Don’t allow yourself to be steered in a different direction by external or internal factors. When factors do arise, and they always do, deal with them and continue to stay on course.

Guerilla Tactics

Grass roots efforts were vital in generating the successful outcome. Nowhere was the application of social and tech mediums used more dynamically than in setting up guerilla marketing campaigns at local levels throughout the entire country.

States that were considered impossible to win by the “experts” were treated the same as states where a win was all but guaranteed. Legions of volunteers worked for free to canvas neighborhoods, hold rallies, distribute information, and organize fundraising events.

What made these efforts even more remarkable is that when asked about the “product” (Obama), each volunteer guerilla marketer described it the same regardless of market or community. This was the result of a message that stayed on focus month after month. Because the brand was so clearly positioned, customers knew exactly how to generate “referral” business by bringing new customers into the process. It is perhaps the most significant example of the power of integrated marketing.

Even if Barack Obama wasn’t the candidate of your choice, you can’t deny the excellence and success of the strategies used in the marketing of the Obama brand. Grab onto the coattails of this success and look at ways you can adapt these strategies to improve the results from your marketing.

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