What is an integrated marketing campaign and why is it important?

An integrated marketing campaign is a cross-channel marketing strategy that involves creating consistent campaigns across different platforms to provide a cohesive experience to the customer. Each brand experience should be consistent whether a customer experiences the brand through social media, direct marketing or another channel.

What is the integrated marketing strategy planning process?

An integrated marketing campaign understands that customers are not confined to a single channel. Consumers today are encountering brands and advertisements everywhere they go, from the bus to their favorite websites to their email. For your brand to stand out to customers, you need to create campaigns that live on the platforms that customers frequent. Simultaneously, the campaigns must share similar features, so they stand out in customers’ minds.

When your campaign is fully integrated, customers will recognize your brand regardless of where they see it. This will help them remember what you had to say, thus beginning your relationship with them.

Download Integrated Marketing Whitepaper

What are the elements of an integrated marketing strategy?

A quality integrated marketing campaign will take on a few features. Visually and textually, they will provide consistent messaging regardless of the platform. The colors, layout and images should all be easily recognizable across the different formats.

Your campaign should also specifically target a variety of platforms that are regularly viewed by your target audience. Break down social media sites, email touch points, PPC keywords and any other features that will be included in the campaign to maximize exposure for this particular buyer persona.

You also want to make sure that the people behind the brand are informed about this campaign. If you have a physical store, make sure employees know how to redeem email coupons for online discounts.

How to build an integrated marketing campaign?

1. Decide exactly who this campaign will target and how success will be determined.
2. Identify where this targeted audience is most likely to interact with your content and make those channels the focus of the campaign.
3. Bring together the marketing and sales teams that will participate in the campaign and have them set common goals.
4. Have the teams outline how they will contribute to achieving the goals.
5. Use your defined metrics to judge the success of your campaign and to understand which platforms are the most effective at bringing in these customers.
6. Use this information to guide future campaigns to be more efficient and more productive.

Integrated marketing campaigns are an important part of reaching modern consumers. This type of campaign acknowledges that consumers do not interact with your brand on just one channel. Instead, they will be using a variety of different platforms, and they want to be able to interact with you regardless of where they are. An integrated campaign helps you effectively meet these people and bring them closer to your brand.

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What is a backlink? A backlink can be either an internal link directing one page of your site to another page of your site or an external link which directs users from your site to an outside source. If another business is linking your site on their website, they trust your site and your content enough to link to it. This is helpful for SEO as Google monitors which sites trust your site and content. 

Reputable sites backlink to other reputable sites while spammy sites likely link to other poor-quality sites. Linking to any site with spam, can result in Google and other search engines penalizing your site. Search engines crawl and reward or penalize site ranks to avoid leading users to any sort of spam. If you link to poor-quality websites, there's a good chance your site will lose ranks.

Why does SEO link building matter?

Link building is a ranking factor for SEO. If other sites are linking to yours, they're indicating to search engines and readers that they see your content as authoritative and trust their visitors to you. 

Your collection of external backlinks is referred to as a backlink profile. In order to maintain a well-built backlink profile, you need to be sure you're creating quality content that informs readers. You also need to regularly maintain your site's health to ensure an error-proof user experience. You can leverage ContentIQ to perform a site audit and locate any errors that need fixing.

Importance of Quality Links

In April 2012 Google launched the Penguin update. This Google update was designed to downgrade sites that had artificially inflated their rankings by purchasing links or obtaining their backlinks through networks that were specifically designed to fool Google’s algorithm. Since then, there have been regular updates made to Penguin to continually check for sites that are abusing the backlink building process. These updates also reward sites that have gotten rid of the poor backlinks and instead focused on building quality links.

In addition to sorting out poor-quality links, Google also does not want to see links that all originate with the same anchor text or pairs of sites that continually link back and forth to each other. Attempts to manipulate the backlink system are all officially frowned upon by Google.

Monitor your success to see where your backlinks stand with Google. You can see how many you are able to cultivate from other quality sites through efforts to obtain backlinks naturally (link to project page about building backlinks) as well as any poor-quality backlinks, such as those from spam sites. With this information, you can properly prepare your strategy to maximize your backlink potential.

How do I monitor backlinks?

There are two main ways to monitor your strong backlink profile.

1. You can use link:”your website” such as link:brightedge.com. This will pull up the list of sites that Google has that link to that specific website.
2. You can also use tools like BrightEdge Backlink Management to better understand the profile of sites that are linking to your page. With BrightEdge, you will also be able to monitor the link profiles of your competitors and gain insights about the links that seem to have the most positive impact on their rankings and ideas that you can use to build your own profile.

Regardless of the method you choose, it is recommended that you disavow any links that come from poor quality sites. Although Google does not indicate these spam sites can hurt you, it is still a good idea to make sure that Google knows you want nothing to do with them.

Monitoring your backlink profile can help you understand where you have room for improvement and what sites need to be disavowed. It will help you improve your rankings and should be a part of any marketing strategy.

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What is paid distribution?

Paid distribution involves hiring platforms to promote your content across a variety of well-known websites. You can have paid distribution on both social media as well as on standard participating websites.

The value of paid distribution lies in its ability to help you find an audience for your content. This system has largely been called upon to replace older, flashy forms of advertising, such as banner ads. The goal is to make the promoted content seem natural on the websites to encourage people to click on the links and get exposed to your brand and what you have to offer. It allows you to engage with people, even when they are on other sites.

What are the types of paid distribution?

There are three main types of paid distribution

Social media

The social media platforms, including Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, have a means for users to promote sponsored content. The content appears on the selected users’ newsfeeds, with a ‘promoted’ or ‘sponsored’ tag to distinguish it from organic posts.

Native placement

Platforms like Nativo take content and promote it on sites that are supposed to be similar to the style and content of your piece. The sponsored content is designed to look just like the natural content on the page and appears within the list of other available to stories for readers to explore. Once again, these pieces have a ‘promoted’ or ‘sponsored’ tag.

Recommendations

Outbrain and Taboola are two of the most popular recommendations-based platforms. These systems promote content at the bottom of articles on participating websites, offering further reading recommendations.

How do I use paid distribution to grow my audience?

1. Begin by developing content that is worth promoting-- know exactly who the audience is and create content that they will appreciate.
2. Select a paid distribution system based upon that intended audience.
3. Use A/B tests to measure the impact of modifications to your headline, images and other key factors and make adjustments as needed.
4. Track the attributions and ROI from your efforts by looking at results such as bounce rates, click-through rates and the number of leads you get through this system. Find potential areas for improvement, such as the type of content you promote or your selected platform.

Paid distribution can be a valuable means of getting your content in front of fresh eyes and spreading the word about your brand. While it can be helpful, it is important to optimize your use through the careful selection of content and platform.

The canonical tag helps Google and other search engines understand which pages have original content and which pages are duplicates. This establishes the proper authority and ranking of the original content, without penalizing it for having a duplicate page elsewhere.

The canonical is placed in the <head> section of the original page as well as on the page with the duplicate content. It will look like:

Why are canonical tags important?

Although you should avoid duplicate content as a general rule, there are some instances where it can actually be useful. Typically, this involves content syndication, where you promote parts of your published content on other pages to help bring more readers back to your original site. The canonical can be an important part of letting Google know that the second page is a duplicate and that the first page is an original. Without the tag, Google might penalized one or both sites for duplicate content. The search engine wants to provide its users with the optimal user experience, and it knows that duplicate content detract from that experience.

Learn How BrightEdge Can Help Your Website

What do canonical tags do?

Kirill Kronrod, along with BrightEdge technology, did a case study of a small site that began with improperly configured tags and examined what happened when the tags were fixed. The site saw improvements in the impressions, the number of ranked keywords, the rank of those keywords and your traffic rates. The results happened quickly and were immediately obvious, indicating the importance of the tag to tell Google which pages have the original content.

The canonical tag is an important part of letting Google know which site is original and should be ranked as such and which pages should be disregarded. Without this tag, Google is left guessing, which lowers the rankings of your site. If you have any duplicate content on the web, make sure to use the canonical to avoid hits to your ranking.

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What is the process to mature content?

Maturing content is a process that brands go through as they progress from early content development efforts to becoming industry leaders capable of engaging customers across the different channels. Brands are divided into five groups along the path. As brands mature in their processes, they enter the next stage.

The content maturation model offers brands insight about where they need to improve and the steps they need to take to bring their organizations forward.

5 Steps To Become A Thought Leader

How do brands mature content?

• Stage 1-2: Emerging and foundational stages. Brands here are just beginning their content efforts. You are randomly optimizing and perhaps testing paid search. You have limited social media efforts and most of your content is written by one person. You use little technology and have little integration.
• Stage 3: Scaling stage. You are beginning to use organic and paid search strategies. You are testing your efforts and making adjustments as needed. Social media is recognized as a valuable means of distributing and amplifying your content. Since you know how your customers respond to your content, you are able to adjust as needed. You will also see early signs of cooperation among different marketing teams beginning to take place. Your technology stack begins to form and you start to identify the tools you will need to grow your brand.
• Stage 4: High performing stage. Digital marketing is becoming more central to your organization and organic is the keystone of your efforts. You are taking advantage of a variety of tools, including competitor monitoring, digital trends and social media. Silos are breaking down in your organization.
• Stage 5: Innovation stage. These brands are at the forefront of the digital industry. You use search to drive everything from PR to digital strategies. Your technology stack has grown and silos are nonexistent.

How do I mature my organization to become a strong content marketer?

1. Identify where you are on the curve for mature content.
2. Focus on training employees about the process of maturing content so they know what they will be expected to achieve in the near future.
3. Build strong buyer personas so that everyone in the organization knows exactly who they will be marketing to.
4. Invest in training your marketers in analytics so they begin using data to guide the content creation process.
5. Develop in-house processes dedicated to stretching marketers beyond their silos to create more hybrid teams.
6. Set goals for reaching the different stages of the maturing content process.

Mature content is important for all brands to go through as they bring their organizations from digital infancy to adulthood and leadership. By identifying where you are on the path and understanding where you need to go, you will be able to guide your team towards the top and transform your organization.

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A meta description is the information about your page that appears in the search engine results below the title / URL of your page. The description does not directly factor into your search engine results page (SERP) rank but influences whether a user clicks on the link to your page. Descriptions are limited to about 155 characters for desktop search and 120 characters for mobile search. 

Learn more about meta descriptions.

A title tag is what appears above the URL on the search engine results page. It is one of the factors that influences whether a user will click on the link. For example, the title tag: <title>Content Performance Marketing and SEO Blog | BrightEdge</title> will appear as:

What makes a good title tag?

There is some disagreement over the importance of the title tag. A page with poor-quality content can stamp an awesome tag on their content and see little to no impact, and high-quality pages can be ranked well even without one that stands out. Search engines rely on title tags to understand the content that appears but it's also imporant for your customers to easily understand title tags as well. You'll want to use title tags as a sort of selling point to click on your link. Include words that draw attention to what your content is offering. Be sure to include a high ranking keyword in your title tag to ensure visibility through search engines. Note that they should appear to the left of your company's name.

While some argue that title tags have little significance, the value of them come in its ability to draw clicks and entice people to learn more about your site. A good title tag tells users that this is an article that will answer their question and encourage them to click. Thus, good title tags can help increase your traffic and engagement rates, improving your ranking.

How do you write a title tag?

1. Use keywords that help accurately capture the value and content of your page.
2. Be brief but effective. Keep title tags under 55 characters. You do not want your title to get truncated, and there is limited space available for the tag.
3. Create a tag that captures the eye and engages people immediately.
4. Create a unique tag for every page. This will keep you from being penalized for duplicate content.
5. Always review your title tags after you have finalized your content to make sure it is still a good fit.
6. Monitor your page traffic, such as with the BrightEdge Page Reporting tool, to see how it is performing.
7. Make adjustments when necessary.

Title tags can influence how many people click on your link and engage with your brand. Drive plenty of traffic to your site by optimizing and creating title tags that viewers want to see. Draw attention with the basics of SEO. Keep these guidelines in mind and create tags that people are inclined to click to maximize your SERP visibility.

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What is a thumbnail in a video?

A video thumbnail is like a preview of the video a user will see. It is the single frame that appears with the title of the video, encouraging them to click on a particular option. Since it is such a prominent image, it is an important factor for users when determining whether or not to click on a particular link. Taking the time to select the thumbnail that will best capture your audience will help to increase your views and engagement.

What is the purpose of a thumbnail?

The purpose of a thumbnail is a smaller image of a larger image. When selecting the right thumbnail, it is important to remember the value of emotion. Customers can be heavily persuaded by how they feel. Although we like to think of ourselves as rational beings, emotion can play a big role in the decisions we make. Selecting a frame, therefore, that uses a human subject portraying a positive feeling can be very powerful.

This frame should also convey something about the content and help the user feel drawn to this particular link. Eye contact can be a great way to convey emotion and build relationships, so a frame when the subject makes eye contact with the audience can be helpful.

How do thumbnails work?

You will need to look at the metrics provided for you. If this video is on YouTube, you will be able to access numerous different analytics that will tell you how often your video was seen, watched and enjoyed all the way through. You can also collect information about the traffic sources, demographics and devices used by your viewers. This will give you considerable insight into what your users were looking for and how you measured up. Low click-throughs but high watch times may indicate that your thumbnail is poor-quality, causing many people to skip your content, but the video itself is engaging, for example. This can inspire you to adjust your thumbnail.

Your thumbnail is a valuable means of persuading customers to click on your link and watch your video. Selecting one that conveys emotion and builds the relationship between company and customer can help you maximize your video presence.

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What should you consider when choosing blog images?

Images offer users a number of advantages when they are added to content. The increased engagement is an important one for many brands. People enjoy looking at images, which might be why Tweets with images receive 5x the engagement of those that do not. Images help to promote everything from Facebook posts to blog posts. They help readers connect with the content by making the entire post or piece more personal.

Image can also be useful for Google rankings. When you optimize your images with Alt text and tags, then your image can rank for related queries on Google images. This can help you boost traffic and brand awareness as well.

How do I choose blog images for my site?

It is important to first note that the right images will rarely be a stock image. Stock images are impersonal, and they can be seen on nearly any site on the web - and customers know that. They recognize the image you have of a woman using a computer is the same one they saw on a different website last week. Even if people understand intellectually why you use stock images, they can still damage your credibility.

If you are trying to obtain Google rankings or Google Quick Answers, it is also important to note that Google generally does not rank stock images in Google Images. Using private photos is the best way to earn that extra search engine boost.

You want to create a personal image. Find something that reflects the emotions and message that you are trying to communicate with your audience. Make sure that the image is clear and engaging, and not something that was just taken with a camera phone.

What are the steps to using blog images effectively?

1. Review your content and think about the images that come to mind when visualizing your material through the eyes of the customer. Think about the emotions you want to illicit and the message you want to send.
2. Create a custom image that fits with your brand and introduces your customers those behind the company. It might be pictures of you and your employees, real past customers, products, your offices or anything else applicable.
3. Optimize your image for Google with Alt text and titles to help them attract any potential attention on image searches.
4. Measure your engagement rates of the content with these images and use the information to adjust future strategies.

Images are valuable tools for brands looking to build engagement with their content and entice more customers to learn about their organization. Using images correctly is important for brand success, so keep these guidelines in mind.

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Why is scaling content important?

The content marketing industry today has become increasingly saturated. Eighty percent of B2B brands and 81 percent of B2C brands say that they have some type of content marketing strategy. To compete in this field, therefore, brands must be able to produce content that adds value and grabs the attention of their audience.

The best way to accomplish this goal is with an efficient workflow that allows brands to call upon the skills of everyone on their team.

This workflow will start with a SEO researcher who use data to uncover high-value keywords. Then the writers develop the content, which is passed to content strategists and marketing managers to refine to fit the precise role of the piece. When this process runs efficiently, the brand is able to meet their content demands and provide customers with the material they seek.

Why is it important to use a workflow?

In the early stages of content marketing maturation (link to piece on content marketing maturation process), it is common for brands to rely just on one or two people to produce their content. The problem with this approach is that it neglects the expertise of countless other team members. It is not efficient to have one person handle all the work that goes into content development. Instead, having multiple people work together to produce the content that the brand needs in a collaborative atmosphere allows everyone’s expertise to shine while producing content to scale to meet modern demand.

How do I create a workflow to scale content for my business?

1. Outline objectives that the brand will have for a particular marketing campaign.
2. Determine metrics that can be used to measure content performance.
3. Outline the steps in a content creation workflow.
   1. Determine keywords, target and content type
   2. Develop the content
   3. Distribute and promote the content
   4. Analyze the content and compare to original goals
4. Bring team members together to help them establish a collaborative effort for the content.

Scaling in research is the key for brands who now need to produce high-quality content in larger numbers to meet the demands of modern customers. Establishing an efficient workflow is the cornerstone of accomplishing these goals and moving your content production process forward.

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