Make sure everything is working together with Integrated Marketing.
Think about the kinds of business development activities that take place in the average firm in our industry: a website, email marketing, social media, some content marketing, maybe a salesperson, networking, PR, etc. Fairly typical, right?
And generally, we think about each of them as their own entity. We have a sales plan… a content marketing plan… an email schedule… and so on.
But rather than that ‘silo mentality’ – where each of these activities are implemented separately – think about what they would look like if they all worked together… connected to one another… and fed off of each other. That is how to maximize your marketing & sales impact.
To help illustrate that point, I’ve put together an example of what an integrated marketing & sales flow chart might look like…
And here’s the explanation for how all of those activities work together…
- All sales leads generated at networking events or that come from phone/email/website inquiries (1) get entered into the CRM (2).
- The names in the CRM (2) are exported to become the email list for the monthly email campaigns (3).
- The email campaigns do several things: link recipients to the blog (7)… or the landing page for the upcoming webinar (5)… or to the website, in general (6).
- The blog post (7) can also be re-published on one of the employee’s LinkedIn Profiles (11). When that happens, it is easily shared with that person’s LinkedIn connections and with the members of the groups to which they belong (10).
- All visitors to the website (6) can easily link to the landing page of the latest webinar (5) or read the latest blog post (7).
- Social media posts can be used for many purposes… sharing posts of general interest with connections and groups (10)… or linking readers to the latest blog post (7) or promoting an upcoming webinar and linking people to the landing page (5).
- Press releases can be sent out to industry outlets to promote an upcoming webinar and link people to the landing page (5).
- Everyone who registers for the webinar (5) will be automatically added to the CRM (2). Everyone who attends the webinar (5) will be handed off to the sales team for follow-up (4).
One other thing to keep in mind… Integrated Marketing isn’t just about the flowchart. It’s also about the “look & feel.” All of your marketing efforts should be very consistent in their color, font, use of logo, tone, writing style and so on. That is… your website should look & feel like your emails… should look & feel like your brochures… should look & feel like your advertisements… and so on. Bottom line: Anyone who sees or reads anything from your firm should know immediately who it’s from.
OK, now it’s your turn!
The flowchart above is just one example of how a variety of marketing & sales activities might work together. And while some of these kinds of things may be happening at your firm… the “flowchart” is a different way to think about integrated marketing. And when you actually put pen to paper to create one, that truly makes it come to life.
So, don’t waste any more time… grab a sheet of paper and take a few minutes to sketch out a diagram like this for your marketing & sales activities. Make sure they’re all working together. If you find an activity all alone in a silo – either find a way to connect it to your core efforts… or stop doing it!
When you take advantage of integrated marketing like this, 1 + 1 [really does] = 3!