Integrated Campaigns are really about Word of Mouth

We’ve talked about the power of integrated marketing campaigns because the combined message creates a sense of credibility and trust among the buying public. After all, if you do not trust the merchant then you will certainly not buy from them. Customer loyalty is another method of measuring and assessing how much trust your customers place in you. However, many Marketers drop the ball on creating this sense of trust. It’s easily done with some integrated marketing tactics.

Consider the use of customer testimonials. Clients leave them all of the time. At worse, you simply need to ask for them. It’s amazing how much people like to share and to talk. An integrated campaign will take that quote and create a case study. The case study then gets pitched to a major and trusted publication usually tied in to some human interest angle. That leads to a press release announcing the happy customer, or event, and referencing the case study and the industry coverage. Accordingly, you inform your opt-in email list of the great news and perhaps associate a short-term promotion tied to the event. Your email service provider utilizes the Forward-to-a-Friend feature to allow your email subscribers to share the news, and the positive branding, with their friends. Now suddenly your relevance in the search engines increases proportionately to the multiple references. Your higher rankings, and your supporting mentions, combine to nurture the consumer with a positive experience of your brand. Said another way - your integrated marketing leveraged one piece across multiple marketing channels. That’s what I’m talking about!

So where is the Word of Mouth we alluded to? Simple. It’s the by-product of your campaigns. People like to talk. Why do we want them to talk? Because online sales tools only nominally augment the likelihood to convert according to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The study goes on to say that 64% found out about the product from friends, family, or co-workers.

So how do you encourage word of mouth because we know that will increase actual online conversions? Simple - you create a personalized, one-on-one experience for each consumer or visitor and then you complement the experience with integrated marketing. Combined, you create credibility and trust — and buzz!

So! How goes the integrated marketing?

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Posted in Conversion, Darryl Praill, Email marketing, Personalization, Search Marketing