1. Integrated Marketing:
What It Is and Why You Should Embrace It
This is the second of three articles excerpted from the paper “Integrated Marketing: What It Is and Why You Should Embrace
It”
Part 2
WHY USE INTEGRATED MARKETING
Now that you have a basic understanding of what integrated marketing is, you need to
understand why you should use it.
First, let's discuss the fundamental purpose of marketing. In its simplest, most basic form,
marketing is about providing someone with enough information so that it will cause them to
make a purchase decision. Whether that is done through providing data or information,
providing an incentive of some sort, comparing one product to another, emotional
manipulation, or some combination of all of those tactics, marketing is about helping to move
the target audience along the purchase path. Deciding exactly how you will accomplish that
is a function not just of data and analysis, but also of knowing and understanding your target
audience: what drives them, what motivates them, what excites them.
Wouldn't you like to make your marketing more effective and reach more of your target
audience? Be able to interact with your target audience more easily? Help increase their
access to information so that they would move along the purchase path faster? If you could
do those things, wouldn't that increase the effectiveness of your marketing? If so, then that is
why you need to understand integrated marketing.
Integrated marketing is often referred to as the underlying strategic component of the
marketing planning process. This means that in addition to the basics of creating and
developing the marketing activity (the 'who, what, when, where, how'), you need to take those
actions one step further to determine how they will work together to support the overall
campaign. By doing this, you are taking your marketing to the next level and putting in place
the necessary infrastructure to build upon, thereby helping to ensure the overall success of

2. your marketing activity. Integrated marketing not only helps you to optimize your overall
marketing activity, but also helps enhance its effectiveness.
Integrated marketing provides you with the flexibility that a more 'traditional' marketing
approach does not in that it offers you the opportunity to do more than might otherwise be
expected. It allows you to determine exactly what should and should not be included in the
marketing mix for any given situation. Integrated marketing allows you to not only develop
your own strategy and tactics and choose what will be included in that mix, it requires you to
take a more active role in the marketing mix development process.
No longer will your marketing be dull and boring. No longer will you pull the marketing
playbook from the shelf and select 'one marketing activity from column A, one from column B,
one from column C', etc. to create the marketing campaign. Instead, you must actively take
the time to determine your goal(s), evaluate the different options and then determine what will
work most effectively for your specific situation.
As with any other marketing activity though, the devil is in the details and the full marketing
planning process must still be completed. This level of detailed planning is a time consuming
process that will now require this additional analysis to be performed at the beginning of the
development process. However, the payoff for this level of due diligence will be recognized
when the marketing delivers the desired results.
All of the items that are taken into consideration when developing any marketing activity must
still be reviewed and evaluated. Then in addition to all of those steps, you must now also
consider and evaluate items such as:
 Which marketing channel(s) will you use
 How will the various marketing channels that you have chosen work together
 How will the marketing message be leveraged and stay consistent across those
channels
 How will your value proposition be conveyed
 How will you engage with your target demographic at the various touch points
 How will you drive traffic from one type of media to another
 How will you drive traffic from one location to another
 How will you capture demographic (or other) information from your target audience
 How will you integrate and leverage your AR/PR activities
 How will you integrate demand generation activities
 Will you use SEO, SEM or both
 Which social media platforms will you choose
 When/where/how will you use those social media platforms to interact with your target
audience
 What are you providing to your audience (incentives, promotions, information, etc.)
and in what type of format(s)
 What your time frame will be to respond to real-time questions, feedback, requests for
information, etc. that come from social media channels
 How to respond to potential problems

3. By considering questions such as the above, you now begin to evaluate how these aspects of
your marketing activity will work together and to what purpose. In other words, you must now
take control. This approach puts you, the marketer, back in charge and gives you back some
of the creative control that many B2B marketers have lost today.
HOW TO USE INTEGRATED MARKETING
Integrated marketing requires a mind-shift that in some ways takes you back to the earlier
days of marketing, when every activity was not quite as data-driven as it is today. Rather than
just studying demographic profiles and making a decision based on the data contained
therein, integrated marketing requires a more hands-on approach, as you must first truly
understand your target audience and what your objective is with your marketing. This will
then enable you to effectively choose what type of marketing tactic will work, which channel(s)
you should use to most effectively position your marketing message and reach your audience,
what tactic(s) will be most effective, etc. In other words, integrated marketing requires careful
consideration and evaluation of all the factors affecting which medium you will choose.
Integrated marketing ensures that all marketing channels, media and activities that are related
to a specific marketing campaign will support and contribute to that campaign. How?
Through what I call 'marketing cross-pollination' (MCP™). MCP ensures that all of the
marketing channels you have chosen for your specific marketing activity will support and refer
to each other, thereby increasing your reach, efficiency and effectiveness.
How does integrated marketing do this?
Simple. You now have to define exactly what each marketing channel being utilized is going
to be used for (exposure, reach, influence, information, interaction, data gathering, etc.) and
then define how each of those channels will also support the other channels. How is this
done? Here are a few examples to give you an idea of how integrated marketing comes
together:
 Are you using a social media site to hold a contest? Great. Tie it to a request for
additional information that leads the prospect to provide you with demographic
information while giving them additional points towards winning the contest and giving
them a chance to provide feedback as an early adopter. Have a link to your corporate
website where other free downloads are available.
 Do you have a corporate website where a white paper or case study can be
downloaded? Perfect, insert a frame on that page that will display your YouTube video
commercial, that also tells them how they can join an online discussion about the
product or ask questions of industry experts in an online forum.
 Did you place an advertisement in a leading subscription publication? Embed a QR
code on the page that, when scanned with a smart phone, will take the person to
whom the publication was sent to a PURL (personalized URL) where they will
automatically be entered into a contest and also includes links to your YouTube video
and other free downloadable resources.
 On your YouTube site, have a Call To Action (CTA) at the end of your video that invites
the viewer to click on an embedded link that will take them to a landing page where

4. they can get more information on your product, download resources and enter the
contest.
 Provide a link where a potential user of your product can download a fully functional
demo after providing their contact information. Once the download starts, have
another CTA that offers them additional resources (white papers, case studies, best
practices, etc.) that can be downloaded from your corporate website, have your
YouTube video embedded on that landing page and include links to your social media
sites.
As you can see, all of the above marketing scenarios are no longer single, stand-alone
activities, but rather, are linked to and support other marketing actions that provide more
interaction with and more information, entertainment, or value to the prospect. This is the
MCP process in action.
When a prospect goes to one location or activity they are either exposed to other marketing
activities from within that same location, or are invited to interact or engage further in some
manner. Through this type of integrated marketing, your target audience now has the
opportunity to be exposed to or interact with your product or service numerous times. In each
location, whether it is online or offline, they are continuously exposed to additional
opportunities to experience your product or service, while continuing to be exposed to the
underlying consistent messaging that has been developed for this marketing activity.
Not only does your marketing now provide more opportunities to engage and interact with
your target audience at every customer touch point, but you have now drastically increased
the efficiency and effectiveness of your marketing.
A good example of integrated marketing is HP's 'The Computer Is Personal Again'
campaign11,12
, which debuted in May 2006. Created by HP's agency Goodby, Silverstein &
Partners (GSP), this global campaign focused on the highly individual, highly unique and
personal relationship that people have with their computers. The GSP campaign also
changed the focus from mainly discussing the technology inside the computers (i.e., 'feeds
and speeds') to more focus on how the computers help to empower users. This switch from a
'product superiority' to 'experience superiority' perspective was done to help focus more on
the user experience and to enhance HP's brand. As Mike Winkler (HP Chief Marketing
Officer) explained, "what we wanted to do was address the emotional connections that
customer had to the brand. HP wasn't loved".13
A graphic logo of two hands overlaid was developed for use as a unifying element across all
of the various properties chosen for this campaign, which helped to reinforce the theme.
From each point of contact potential customers were able to find out information about the
computers as well as read stories on how other people used them. The campaign was
launched online, on websites such as MySpace, MTV, MSN and people were encouraged to
write blogs, play games, give feedback and reviews, tag videos, etc., all contributing to
building the buzz around the campaign. HP even created a Facebook page that is still in use
today, where they could interact with people, post comments and feedback, participate in
contests, etc.
Thanks in part to this integrated marketing approach, HP beat Dell in PC sales in the second
half of 2006, as well as in 2007. 'The Computer is Personal Again' campaign helped the HP

5. brand gain 9 percent in brand value, (measured by Interbrand), in 2007 (compared to the
previous year) and 18 percent since 2005, compared to a drop of 10 percent from 2004 to
2005. According to Roger L. Kay, president of consultancy Endpoint Technologies Associates,
"It's been a very effective campaign. It's been good at drawing attention to HP's products."14
Although you will find this example often referred to as an example of IMC, due to the
consistency of messaging and logo across all of the channels in use, as well as the
interaction between and support of the various customer touch points, I consider this
campaign to actually be an early example of integrated marketing, albeit one that does
incorporate IMC as well.
WHAT TO INCLUDE IN INTEGRATED MARKETING
While this sounds complicated, this is actually the easiest question to answer, at least from a
marketing perspective. The answer is, 'Use what works'. While this sounds too simple to be
helpful, in reality this is the only answer that you need.
As defined previously, integrated marketing is the process of choosing the appropriate
strategy and tactics for a given situation. Just as a carpenter brings the same set of tools to
each work site and then chooses which specific ones that he needs for the job at hand, as a
professional marketer you have a similar choice to make. Every marketing scenario and
situation is different and every one will require a different strategy, a different set of tactics, a
different set of channels to be used to accomplish your specified goals. Because of this,
there is no single approach to integrated marketing. Your 'tools of the trade' may be the
same, but the way in which you will use and combine them will vary from job to job, in the
same manner as the carpenter.
Remember, integrated marketing allows you to simplify what could otherwise be an
overwhelming, daunting process by helping you to realize that what is important is not the
number of marketing actions and activities that take place, but determining which are the
most appropriate and effective ones to achieve what you need to accomplish. With the
appropriate mix of media, channels, etc., you will maximize the impact and consistency of
your marketing.
When using integrated marketing, in addition to choosing the appropriate marketing strategy
and mix, keep the concept of simplicity in mind as well. Choosing appropriately helps you to
eliminate other, less optimal tactics, channels, media, etc., helping to reduce the required
components to the least required to deliver the desired end results. The KISS rule15
should
always apply, as more does not always equal better. As world-renowned architect Ludwig
Mies van der Rohe said “Less is more”16
(when referring to restraint and simplicity in
architectural design). The same holds true for integrated marketing. Remember, integrated
marketing is about results, not about how many different components can be combined to
support one marketing activity.
One final comment. There is a thin line between integrated marketing and IMC, as well as
areas of commonality, but to be successful and effective, you need to incorporate both IM and
IMC into your marketing activities.

6. © Richard Hatheway – 2013
BIBLIOGRAPHY
11 – HP “The computer is Personal Again” fact sheet,
http://h71036.www7.hp.com/hho/downloads/PACampaignFactSheet6_13.pdf
12 – HP “Computer Is Personal Again” case study solution,
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10953381/Computer-is-personal-again--IMC-campaign-of-HP-
%28case-study-solution%29
13 – Seth C. Burgess, HP Case Analysis, http://www.sethcburgess.com/2008/11/hp-case-
analysis.html
14 – IBS Center for Management Research, 'The Computer Is Personal Again': A Global
Integrated Marketing Communications Campaign,
http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Marketing/The%20Computer.htm
15 – KISS = “Keep It Simple Stupid”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
16 – Wikipedia, “Ludwig Mies van der Rohe”,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Mies_van_der_Rohe