What Integrated Marketing Means to Me -- Roger Hiyama
	Posted by at Feb 24, 2012 07:00 AM CST

I was intrigued when invited to be a member of the Integrated Marketing Advisory Board because most people define “integrated marketing” so differently. It reminds me of other terms like “CRM” or “modeling” -- ask 10 people and you’ll arguably get about 15 different opinions.

I believe integrated marketing has become the expected norm of the marketing industry without truly having defined what it is.  It’s what we’re all expected to be doing -- but, with everyone having their own opinion on what’s truly integrated and what’s truly marketing, is anyone really using “integrated marketing”?  

I could easily define integrated marketing as the use of multiple media in expressing a marketing message -- for example, the use of email and direct mail or any other crazy combination of two different outbound media. But that would be a cop-out, because to me, integrated marketing is more than just the use of multiple media.

Rather than outlining a definition, I’ll describe “integrated marketing” as the purposeful and orchestrated combining of three different marketing dimensions with a common goal of ultimately increasing customer value. The first dimension is the audience dimension or Who. The second dimension is the messaging dimension or the What. And the third dimension is the media dimension or the How.

For nonprofits, the audience dimension includes all of the people who make up all of the various sources of revenue or potential revenue within the organization. These audiences include direct mail donors, online donors, major donors, planned gift donors, members, event participants, volunteers, board members, catalog purchasers, and the larger pool of prospective donors. The Who also includes the silo-ed departments within an organization and the people they serve.

The messaging dimension is what we are trying to convey to the audience. It’s the offer, the copy, and the call to action. Messaging can come from leadership, marketing, development or public relations.

The media dimension is the How of delivering the messaging to the audience. This is how we disseminate information -- not how we receive the response. Media includes, but is not limited to, all of the various methods of reaching our audience, including TV, radio, print, direct mail, email, organic search, paid search, telemarketing, public relations, and face-to-face.

The key to truly integrated marketing is to have a purposeful and orchestrated plan. And most marketers don’t. There tend to be a lot of instruments being played, but it neither looks nor sounds anything like an orchestra -- it looks a lot like a bunch of instruments being played at the same time and doesn’t necessarily sound like music.

How intently did you look at all the possibilities and intersections of audience, messaging and media? Did you review a single marketing effort? Did you review the entire calendar of campaigns for each audience? Did you ask yourself “what’s in the best interest of the customer”? Did you ask “what’s in the best interest of my entire organization”?  Or, did you focus only on “what’s best for my department”? Did you discuss the plan with the leaders of other revenue sources? Could you have done more to coordinate keeping all stakeholders’ interests in mind? Did you review all of the various media possibilities to see what would get you the greatest outcome with the most efficient spend?  Did you walk down the hall to discuss with the other “silos” within your organization?

I believe that a simple way of describing integrated marketing is “the purposeful and orchestrated deployment of Audience + Messaging + Media in ultimately maximizing customer value." But, the key is that it must be “purposeful and orchestrated"!