Digital Marketing Services: The Power of Integrated Digital Marketing vs. a Piecemeal Approach

True to our digital marketing (and digital consulting) roots, we at Lincoln Digital Group are offering some insight into the power of integrated digital marketing services, especially when compared to the far-too-common piecemeal approach that marketing plans often utilize.

Piecemeal and single-channel approaches are both pitfalls that are easy to find yourself in. Marketing budgets sometimes can’t support the financial investment required to spearhead a fully-integrated campaign from the get-go. Other times, we invest too much stock in one particular channel because it may have proven to be more successful than others in the past. Other times still, it’s simply easier to do less and be satisfied with the results from a campaign that’s a breeze to execute — even if it leaves your business short of its full potential.

So, ask yourself: do you have any “sacred cows” or “go-to channels” that are blocking the bigger picture of your marketing strategy? Are you satisfied on Easy Street, or are you hungry for more? What could you optimize, integrate with other channels and services, or eliminate entirely in order to generate outsized results from an integrated marketing approach?

Integrated Marketing: Important Aspects & Key Benefits

With consumers increasingly splitting their screen time between multiple devices and platforms, some advertisers might be intimated by the thought of launching an integrated campaign. How are you supposed to compete for the attention of consumers when there are so many channels for them to choose from? At Lincoln Digital Group, we think of this and other supposed “obstacles” of integrated marketing as opportunities.

Yes, people are splitting their time among various screens, with 35% of total screen time spent on smartphones, 26% on laptops and 12% on tablet, according to Millward Brown’s AdReaction 2014 Global Report. Taken altogether, these digital platforms account for 83% of the average consumer’s total daily screen time. That means 83% of consumers are interacting with multiple screens and platforms, offering advertisers multiple touch-points between them and their integrated digital marketing campaign. Why is a campaign that leverages multiple channels and touch-points so powerful?

1. Content published in 2-3 channels experiences 24% higher engagement.*
2. 60% of multichannel marketers reported increases of more than 10% in revenue that are attributed to marketing programs**
3. Integrated marketing offers opportunities to overcome resistance to ads on digital screens. Mobile-friendly, shareable content that entertains first and informs second has shown to be the most successful.***

Integrated Digital Marketing Services Open a World of Marketing Opportunities

The answers to your marketing questions and concerns aren’t always simple and easy. Just as most of us don’t have any true sacred cows, there aren’t any magical ways of providing a quick and easy fix to any business’ grand scheme of marketing — especially in today’s ever-changing digital age. But, there are certain strategies and formulas that prove more effective than others. And, in our clients’ experience, integrated digital marketing is the smartest and surest of shots to take.

Here’s one integrated digital marketing services formula that would maximize marketing effectiveness and value for any given business:

• Responsive Website Development: Your website is not only your storefront, it’s where your objectives are met. From e-commerce to brand awareness and user engagement, a website needs to be top-notch if you want to achieve your goals. And when Lincoln Digital Group builds a website, you can be certain it will be responsive, which means it’s functionally and aesthetically optimal while delivering a consistent experience across all device-types, from desktop to mobile to tablet. This multi-device consistency is especially important when developing a site as part of an integrated marketing campaign.
• Creative Services: Design, site content and ad copy are the essence of your brand and business to a customer or prospect, which is why we invest so much strategy, thinking and planning into creative development. Sometimes, how you look is all a prospect has in order to formulate a decision about whether they want to do business with you. And from smartphone apps and responsive websites, to display ads and print sales material, Lincoln Digital Group possesses the skills and experience to maximize your marketing opportunity both online and off.
• SEO: So, you have a great-looking, effective website. But how will users get there? Search Engine Optimization (SEO), when performed correctly, can be a constant source of acquiring traffic, prospects and sales. How? Keep reading.
• Content Marketing, Social Media & Blog Management: There’s no golden arrow that will earn your website top-ranking search results on Google or Bing. That’s why content marketing is so important. To us, content marketing ranges from blog publication and social media initiatives to videos, articles and more. The reason for this holistic approach is because, despite what other marketers might tell you, the only tried and true way to optimize your site for search engines is produce relevant, timely and high-quality content that can be accessed and shared through multiple avenues — which is how search engines judge your site’s suitability for being matched with a particular search query.
• Email Marketing: Email marketing is an exceptional way to drive a large amount of users to your website or online campaign presence in a short amount of time. This ingredient of the marketing mix is perfect for announcing new campaign initiatives, websites, products and more. However, return visitors are only gained if you have the content to support them, which reaffirms the importance of content marketing.
• Mobile Marketing: We’ve all noticed the trend: everywhere people are on their phones, away from their computers, waiting for information to be delivered to them. Mobile marketing helps you keep pace with the trend, offering more connections between customers, prospects and your campaign objectives. Most importantly, mobile marketing places your business in the palm of your customer’s hand (or their pocket) wherever they may be in the world.
• Mobile App Design & Development: Mobile apps allow you to engage customers and prospects in entirely new ways, often enhancing a campaign’s effectiveness across all channels. Want to offer your customers access to personalized, secure information with one tap?  let customers know whenever you release a new offer, product or incentive? If they have your app installed, you can let them know right away with a push notification.
• Video SEO Management: Now that users are spending more and more time consuming video content (e.g. YouTube), video SEO management is becoming increasingly critical to keep rank among the established search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.
• In-depth, On-going SEO Management: Integrated digital marketing services reap the greatest benefits when they are managed over a long period of time. For instance, the benefits of content marketing may take a month or two to be seen in SEO performance. When it comes to integrated, the name of the game is endurance, not a one-and-done sprint.

My Budget is Limited. Can I Even Afford Integrated Digital Marketing Services?

It’s true, integrated campaigns require more initiatives, and thus it would seem obvious that they would cost more than a single-channel or traditional-only campaign. But, the truth is that integrated marketing services often replace some existing costs, and deliver far more value than any initiatives you may launch in a silo. With integrated marketing, 1+1 = Many More than 2.

Want to learn more for yourself? Contact Lincoln Digital Group today. We’d be happy to begin the conversation with a free web evaluation and/or SEO report that will help us begin building a integrated digital marketing services campaign for you.

Lincoln Digital Group Provides Premier Digital Marketing Services & Digital Marketing Consulting Experience

At Lincoln Digital Group, we pride ourselves on helping clients help their bottom-line. That’s why we begin every relationship with an assessment of your website’s current performance, SEO performance and more. That way, we ensure that we are as knowledgeable and considerate of your goals and challenges as you are, so we can be the most effective in building an integrated digital marketing services campaign for you.

Contact Lincoln Digital Group here or call 773-360-1687 for immediate assistance with integrated marketing.

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*Stand Out Social Marketing, Michael Lewis, 2012

**Forrester (May 2012) “The Multichannel Maturity Mandate”

***Millward Brown AdReaction 2014 Global Report