Improve Lead Gen with Integrated Campaigns

Marketing campaigns integrating four or more digital channels outperform single or dual channel campaigns by 300%, according to data from marketing automation software provider HubSpot. According to Forrester Research, 86 percent of marketing decision makers see integrating multiple channels—both online and off—under one single integrated marketing strategy as critical to their success.

Previously, many software companies organized their marketing activities and programs around product launches. With the advent of software as a service (SaaS), many software companies introduce upgrades and new features on a rolling basis.

A blog post on a new feature and links to the blog in the startup's social media can be great to "preach to the choir" who already follow those channels, but fail to reach a broader audience. This increases the importance of integrated marketing campaigns, which provide relevance and a memorable narrative for potential buyers.

Concept

Creativity is key. Your competitors have access to all of the same marketing tools and assets that your company does. What distinguishes a successful campaign is a creative concept that appeals in both intellectual and emotional levels with your target buyers and influencers, together with marketing team leadership to execute well on each component and maintain campaign continuity for long enough for the campaign to be successful.

For bootstrapped or seed-stage startups, one good place to start are the marketing tips compiled by Heavybit in San Francisco. While written as a Developer Marketing Guide, many of their suggestions apply equally well for marketing to other B2B or B2C audiences.

The Human Face of Big Data project highlighted real-life examples of how data affects the daily lives of people around the globe. This narrative and compelling stories generated interest. I served as the project lead from Tableau.

As noted by Smart Insights editor Robert Allen in his blog, "What you need to create a truly successful integrated campaign is center it around a big idea that connects with your customers. It has to be interesting, and not just a little interesting, it has to really jump out. To do this you need to harness the power of emotions."

As an example, one of the data-informed storylines that I wrote about for Human Face of Big Data involved how residents of Japan responded to the tsunami and collapse of nuclear reactors in Fukushima.

Residents across central Japan purchased dosimeters and Geiger counters to see if their drinking water was safe. New mothers found radiation in their breast milk. Concerned citizens uploaded their personal-device data to public forums to help educated their neighbors. Here you can see the interactive dashboard I created combining radiation readings and social media during the months after the tragedy there.

Partnerships

Integrated campaigns offer a great opportunity to involve one or more of your company's best partners. For an early stage startup, this can include inviting one or two of your large vendor partners, who can help pick up the campaign costs. At the same time, it's good to involve local resellers or system integrators with in-person events.

For the Human Face of Big Data, Tableau partnered with EMC. We held joint events in New York, London and Singapore, and EMC actively promoted the campaign with a Human Face of Big Data landing page on the EMC corporate website.

What you want to avoid is having your message diluted. This is different than trade shows or conferences, where your company may be one of dozens or hundreds of participating companies. With an integrated marketing campaign you want your firm to be in the lead with the selection of campaign themes and customer references.

Components

An integrated marketing campaign comprises multiple marketing channels and assets — such as digital advertising, email, customer case studies, a use case demo, webinars and in-person events — that are promoted in multiple stages to ensure that the marketing message is consistently received by the greatest possible number of people in the target market.

The Human Face of Big Data project combined in-person events in multiple countries, interactive data visualizations, software apps, a book and a documentary film together with digital ads, blogs, emails and PR.

It's not necessary to include all of these components in your campaigns. For an early stage startup, what's key is to combine the many marketing activities that you are already doing — such as blogs, web pages, customer testimonials and paid search — under a compelling campaign theme.

It's useful to add digital advertising and social media ads. Ad retargeting is especially effective to include as part of an integrated marketing campaign. You want to show advertising links to informative and valuable content to website visitors as they consume Internet content in the hours and days after visiting your company's website.

Visual Identity

It's important to maintain a consistent visual identity across all of the assets of your campaign. You want your audience to immediately associate a PowerPoint slide with an email they received or an ad they saw on an Internet site.

Length

Campaign continuity builds salience. Resist the temptation to change campaign topics too soon, as this can hurt breakthrough. Early-stage startups are often guilty of become bored with a campaign long before buyers do. For an early stage startup, a thought leadership campaign should run for at least 6 months, and a more narrowly focused lead generation campaign should last at least 3 months.

Happy marketing, and happy selling,

Brett