Providing a customer experience worth sharing is one of the biggest challenges for marketers. In this scenario, integrated marketing can be a strong ally for your company or higher education institution.
It seems that since digital marketing started to expand, we have seen a real battle between online marketing and offline marketing. Did you ever notice this "invisible battle"?
But, the truth is that one does not replace the other! Quite the contrary, they are complementary, just as advertising, public relations, design and press relations strategies, among others, contribute to forming the integrated marketing mix from any company or education institution.
For anyone who is immersed in the marketing world, it is easy to see how the online and offline universes are intertwined. But, for those who are not so aligned with the trends, maybe it is not clear that we should, more and more, work with the integrated marketing, providing a omnichannel experience for our customers.
What will you see in this post?
- What is the difference between media on and media off?
- What is omnichannel?
- Connect your touchpoints
- Promote events and stream them via live streaming
- Use all the power of messaging and SMS
- Attract more subscribers with social media
Want to know how to do this? Let's go ahead!
What is the difference between media on and media off?
The main difference between online media and offline media is in the form of delivery. The offline media is based on strategies that do not depend on the internet to reach people, while the online media is composed of advertisements that necessarily use the internet to reach people.
With the growth of social media and the digital market, especially in the pandemic years, many end up trying to find a way to justify that one strategy is better than the other (or not), when in fact, this does not exist.
The best strategy will depend on the audience you want to reach, the budget for the actions, the type of action you want to carry out. There is no way to say that one is 100% better than the other.
The best thing is that you know how to work these two forms of communication in a way that increases your reach and strengthens your brand's branding in the public's mind.
And that brings us to the next topic on our list: omnichannel.
What is omnichannel?
if the term omnichannel is not part of your vocabulary yet, enter it now.Omnichannel is a strategy whose objective is to offer an integrated shopping experience in multichannels, that is, we are talking about connect all customer touch points, both online and offline marketing, providing a shopping experience only.
When we talk about integrated marketing, it is inevitable not to think about omnichannel, because when we think about how the market has worked and the most diverse ways to provide the best experience for the consumer, it is important that all channels have integration.
For example: you can create a flyer distribution campaign in the center of your city, aiming to publicize the institution's entrance exam. In the flyer, insert a call for the potential student to enter your website, register and compete for a tablet or exemption from the registration fee for the test.
Remember that the better your user's experience during the purchase journey, the greater the chance of loyalty and, consequently, of him becoming an active defender of your brand.
Nurturing this relationship and having unity in each and every point of contact this lead has with your brand is extremely important to ensure a lasting relationship.
So, did you understand why integrated marketing is so important? With that in mind, let's highlight some advantages (and tips) that putting this integrated communication into practice can bring to your company or education institution. Let's go there?!
Connect your touchpoints
As we mentioned in topics one and two of this post, the important thing in integrated communication is that the marketing channels intersect, strengthening the relationship with your audience and, consequently, attracting more conversion opportunities.
For this, it is important that you raise all your contact channels (yes, all of them) and understand how to cross them with each other.
There is no rule for crossing these data, you must analyze them one by one and understand the best way to combine them.
Have one CRM that records interactions with your lead or customer. This record can be shared with your commercial and sales team, so whenever you need to talk to that person, both teams will be able to understand previous contacts, avoiding unnecessary calls and messages, for example.
Promote events and stream them via live streaming
Live streaming tools have revolutionized the way of organizing, publicizing and executing events.
Your company or educational institution can create an event locally and transmit it in real time, with the possibility of interaction, over the Internet.
Let's use an educational institution as an example: let's say you're on the eve of an entrance exam. Organize eve classes, calling local entrance exam students to participate in person, and broadcast them via YouTube (or another platform) to entrance exam students in neighboring cities.
Such strength before the test motivates any student to want to enter your university.
Take the opportunity to use the most diverse types of content audiovisual: podcasts, interviews, lives to answer questions, humor programs, newsletters... For your marketing team's creativity, technology is the limit!
Understand the type of content that connects with your audience and combine this content with other touchpoints such as capture pages and materials that can generate leads for your company.
Together, these actions have immense potential for reaching online media, in addition to increasingly strengthening your brand's relationship with leads and customers.
Read to:
- The importance of mental and physical health in digital business
- Blog Post: the 6 most common mistakes when publishing;
- Integrated marketing: how to unite online and offline actions
Use all the power of messaging and SMS
It seems that SMS has been forgotten, doesn't it? But it is one of the most effective offline marketing strategies. There are no intermediaries between you and your future student, and your message reaches them in a matter of seconds.
Take the opportunity to promote your brand via bluetooth, on a weekend, inside a mall. Send a link to your company or education institution website, invite the recipient to answer a survey and compete for a prize or discounts.
After capturing a lead, you can use SMS to send news, blog updates and encourage hashtag usage in social media, to gain greater visibility online.
All of this is also valid for WhatsApp messages! You can create databases of contacts based on lead scoring and create specific actions for your leads by score, by region, etc.
Attract more subscribers with social media
One of the most valued benefits of social media it's the power of viralization that a well-made publication has.
You can, for example, create a cultural contest that encourages more shares on social media and, at the same time, attracts several people to a face-to-face event, such as a joint effort to enroll in the entrance exam.
The same tactic can be used to fill an auditorium for a lecture or to close a class in an extension course. The possibilities are countless!
We firmly believe that integrated marketing is the best way to put your company in evidence. And you, do you believe that too? Then talk to our team! We can help you choose the best strategies to help you unify your communication and capture more customers.