Posts Tagged ‘Integrated Marketing Communication’
Seasonal marketing is often tied to a cause marketing effort. We recently defined seasonal marketing, but cause marketing hasn’t been heavily discussed in this blog. Essentially cause marketing is the combined effort of a for-profit business and a non-profit cause to raise mutual awareness, brand affiliation, and money. I suspect you see where this is going now…
Taking integration to the “next” step, a savvy marketer will often marry their seasonal promotion activities to a cause to tug on people’s heart strings (and purse strings!). This cause may be one that the company has supported over an extended period of time – such as Wendy’s support of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, or it may be a cause that ties well to the season, such as companies that support Toys for Tots over the holidays.
3 Savvy Ways Companies Can Blend Seasonal + Cause Marketing
1. Percentage of Sales Donations – Pick a seasonal marketing timeframe. Then pick a percentage of proceeds from your seasonal sales to go to your charity of choice. For example, seasonal Back to School promotions may work with charities such as your local PTA or Back to School Clothing Drive.
2. In-Kind Donations – Cash donations are great and often appreciated, but sometimes a company is able to garner more support and resources around an in-kind donation. In-kind donations vary from charity to charity, but examples include fans for Project Cool in San Antonio, where fans are collected and distributed to the elderly in order to handle the intense summer heat. Your company may give these gifts outright and tie it to a seasonal promotion; it may make the amount donated dependent on sales during a seasonal promotion; or it may serve as a collection site.
3. Time – Sometimes a company may offer a donation of time – either by bringing employees in for a project or recruiting volunteers for a project to help their pet cause. Ever see Extreme Home Makeover? Look at the companies that donate time to the building of homes on that show – often showing up in force!
One thing we recommend companies keep in mind is that don’t lose focus on the fact that cause involvement is still ultimately an element of your business plan. Its great to do it, but you couldn’t do it if your business wasn’t in place. So make sure you are vocal about it. It will have multiple levels of impact – on your company, your cause, and the way people perceive both. So don’t leave the information out of your seasonal marketing efforts – imagine the impact you could have if others take up your cause as well!
Seasonal Marketing…people either love it or hate it. Retail business tend to love it. The tie between a season or holiday is so strong that its often easy to sell hard goods to compliment the occasion. But if you sell a service, you may struggle with seasonal marketing.
Here are 5 savvy seasonal marketing tactics that help most businesses, regardless of whether you sell products or services:
1. Seasonal marketing must be relevant.
Whatever your promotion, ensure that the link to your business makes sense. If people can easily understand the link between your business and your promotion, they are more likely to respond to your marketing efforts. Giving money to charity? Talk about why that charity matters to your business!
2. Seasonal marketing must be timely.
Don’t launch your seasonal marketing too early – or too late. Timing is key, so take time to plan well in advance so that your marketing is maximized!
3. Seasonal marketing must be concise.
Keep your messaging simple. Keep your promotions simple. Make sure people know what is happening at a glance. It will make your life easier and help drive your sales higher!
4. Seasonal marketing must be promoted.
Sometimes businesses come up with a great promotion but then forget to promote their promotion. Whoops – what a missed opportunity! Make sure you get the word out to get the biggest bang for your buck.
5. Seasonal marketing must be integrated.
You know how we feel about integration! Make sure you integrate your seasonal marketing efforts into your marketing promotions and advertising venues. Talk about it online. Drop info into your newsletters. Post on your signage. Integrate, integrate, integrate!
Seasonal marketing can be a lot of fun. Make sure to sign up for The Savvy to get our June issue, full of tips and case studies on seasonal marketing!
Yay! This month’s theme is one of my favorites: Marketing Integration! Even before I had heard the term “marketing integration” coined, I was preaching to co-workers on this topic. Afterall, everything you post sends a message, every message builds your brand, and if you want everyone to view your brand a particular way… well, it’s obvious that integration is key!
So this week I am going to talk about marketing integration overall, with the next few posts for this month really getting into the nitty-gritty of integrating your social media + marketing activities. But first, I’m nailing down the technical description of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC).
IMC is ” a process for managing the customer relationships that drive brand value” (IMC Using Advertising & Promotion to Build Brands)
Now, what does that REALLY mean?
According to Merriam Webster, integration is “to form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole.”
It basically means instituting a strategy of internal and external marketing integration so that everyone understands the processes, methods, and goals for achieving brand success (how that is defined differs from company to company!). Without internal understanding, you certainly won’t have external understanding, and without that you’ll get nowhere.
5 Savvy Things to Know About Marketing Integration:
1. Integration is more than just visible blending. Match your website to your newsletter, your Twitter to your Facebook, your advertising to your sponsorship materials, etc. While all of that is extremely important, true integration is both broader and deeper than visible similarities.
2. Integration entails cross-functionality. This means that more than just your marketing team is involved. After all, if your branding is to carry throughout all elements of a business, it’s easier to achieve when you have representatives from customer service, sales, etc., all contributing to the team effort!
3. Integration means touching all of your stakeholders. After you have worked on your internal components, move to the external-vendors, customers, etc. Integration doesn’t stop just with the person who buys your product!
4. Integration can involve strong data mining. If you have ever needed to build a list for marketing outreach, you have probably done some data mining. And as you may have figured out, data mining can be critical in reaching the right folks with the right message to drive sales and awareness. So make sure you make time to data mine!
5. Integration means more than just posting matching messages. It means posting the right message(s) in the right place(s) at the right time(s). Think about the power of that! If you have to touch folks 7 times to drive action, strategic timing and location are essential to make it happen!
So that, my friends, is integrated marketing in a (very small) nutshell.
Want more sites to look at on this topic? Enjoy below!
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENDIF in /home/content/40/5540840/html/wp-content/themes/tcstheme/sidebar1.php on line 89