Your Online Marketing Campaign Needs a Coordinated Message

For the past decade, it's been impossible to open an advertising or marketing textbook and not be immediately greeted by the idea of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). Sometimes it would be trendily referred to as a "360 approach" or simply as a "holistic strategy."

No matter the name, the idea was the same, coordinating your marketing message and strategy between different media to give your campaign a consistent theme and tone. It makes sense, why shouldn't your print messaging be consistent with your TV commercials and billboards. It was about blending the different media into one cohesive message vehicle, because at the time, every medium was independent of one another.

The Internet has now presented a unique opportunity and challenge. It stands as the only medium that consists of multiple different marketing channels. In order to have a successful online marketing campaign, you must take an integrated approach and use all of the channels that the Internet affords you.

A typical online marketing campaign, even with a small budget, can easily consist of a half dozen different online channels: main website, online ads, SEO, social media, e-mail marketing, and blogging.

When working with an Integrated Online Marketing Communications (IOMC) strategy, it's important to keep your messaging and "feel" consistent across the different online channels.

As an example, the company Edvisors positions itself as an expert on providing student loan advice, so their CTO starts every morning by Twittering financial news. Their brand is supposed to convey that they are financial experts, so why would they do anything different on Twitter? This is a perfect example of integrating separate online channels with the same, consistent message.

You lose value and brand equity when you dilute your brand's theme by varying the message between different online channels. No matter what channel you're working in, be sure to remain faithful to your brand's core message. Your brand no doubt operate within many online channels, it's important that each of them is conveying a coordinated message.