Many companies are aware of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), but few use all the tools at their disposal to drive qualified traffic from offline channels.

Wikipedia defines Integrated Marketing Communications as the coordination and integration of all marketing communication tools, avenues, functions and sources within a company into a seamless program that maximizes the impact on consumers and other end users at a minimal cost.

Additionally, Clow defines IMC as a “process for managing customer relationships that drive brand value primarily through communication efforts.    

However, if IMC is a such a sound process for communicating messaging to consumers using all the tools within a marketers’ tool kit, why are so few companies integrating it with their offline marketing?
 
Focusing on Keyword Engagement

Successful offline marketing focuses on specific keyword insertion to help consumers easily find online content on their brand sites. Additionally, talented offline marketers create specific branded site pages for these marketing campaigns.


The key to this strategy is understanding how consumers engage with the specified marketing messages and tailor those communications to find qualified site traffic. Consumers use search engines to locate brand names and product keywords to find more information on the product or service they saw on a billboard, poster, magazine or piece of mail. Understanding how to tailor the messaging in these ads to drive specific search behavior gives brands more qualified traffic.
 
Keyword Engagement is Everywhere


Remember when AOL told you to use a certain keyword to find content on their site? This was the first usage of keyword engagement. Since then, more offline channels have adopted this method to drive engaged consumers to their online content. Radio stations give listeners keywords to locate information on their site. TV announcers give viewers keywords as a means to watch unseen clips online. Outdoor marketing uses keywords and QR codes, a new scan tag technology, to drive viewers to online content, reinforcing their marketing message.

This behavior begs the question, why aren’t more marketers focusing on specific keyword integration in offline channels to drive qualified traffic to their online content?
 
Missed Messaging

Without keyword integration in offline channels you’re only showing blank “billboards” outside of the brand messaging. Most consumers know your brand and know what your brand means. However, they don’t always know about your specific products or service offerings or the new “thing” your company is advertising. Consumers might not have any idea how to find more information online unless you directly show them.



Consumers don’t want to work to find information. Give the consumers a specific keyword or set of keywords to find your content. Make it unique and customized to your brand while making sure the backend of the landing page is highly optimized for those keywords in order to win the SERP ranking battle. Keyword search marketing within the IMC can greatly improve the user experience and enhance the quality of your site traffic. Adding keyword integration in offline channels within the IMC will improve consumers’ engagement with your brand.

With an infiltration of marketing messages thrown at consumers, brands must work smarter to cut through the message clutter. Brands need to utilize keyword insertion and scan tag technology to help consumers easily find your content when they are activity engaged in offline marketing. Including keyword integration into the IMC process will go a long way to improving both consumer usability and qualified, engaged site traffic.

Do more within the IMC process and get more out of your offline marketing!


 

1.   Clow, Kenneth E.; Baack, Donald (2007). Integrated Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing Communications 3rd edition. Pearson Education. pp. 9–10. ISBN 9780131866225.

2.  Clow, pp.8 (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_marketing_communications#cite_note-0 )

 

As digital interface design evolves, users are more aware of good and bad design.

Users’ vocabulary and understanding of interface elements is increasing. They care about intuitive and smart design, because they know it impacts them. Firefox's recent v4 update tutorial exemplifies this point.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/4.0.1/whatsnew/

This small, but significant example shows the maturity and confidence of interaction design as well as its more educated users.

After the months of planning, weeks of anticipation, and hours of nail biting over my speech, the HXD Conference went off without a hitch. As the days have gone by, I’ve been wondering how to sum up so much rich content and experience in a single blog post. And, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t.

Fortunately, many attendees live-blogged, tweeted, and sketched during the conference. And others have posted conference recaps since the 11th. Put them all together and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what went down at the conference. 

Dental floss, bloody zombies, Richard Nixon, and chocolate chip cookies

If the overarching theme of this inaugural conference was “first steps,” then BJ Fogg got us all off to a great start with his opening keynote. He introduced us to the concepts of “dots and paths” and “tiny steps,” and got an entire roomful of people to floss one tooth simultaneously and then cheer, “Victory!”

The rest of the day passed in a blur of brilliant ideas, shared laughs, and “aha moments.” Some of the highlights sound like they’d be the perfect slogan to put on an HXD conference t-shirt:

1.    Floss one tooth! (BJ Fogg)
2.    Serving trumps selling. (Vincent Matyi)
3.    Be a Contagious Vector of Awesome! (Trapper Markelz)
4.    The UX Party: Lie. Cheat. Steal: (Art Swanson)
5.    Medicine is the ability to predict the future so you can beat it. (Jamie Heywood)

Lots of people I talked to expressed the fervent desire to be able to be in two places at once so they wouldn’t have to choose between, say, Jen McCabe and Sutha Kamal. Fortunately, many of the speakers have been posting slides from their presentations, and we’ll be putting up videos of some of the presentations as well. If you go to the conference website , you’ll be able to see what’s available.

The next best thing to being there:

Stephanie Aaron’s Conference Recap:
http://interactiondesign.sva.edu/blog/entry/make_a_tiny_change/

Matthew Grocki’s Conference Recap:
http://www.grassfedcontent.com/blog/

Jason Robb’s Conference Sketchnotes:
http://vizthink.com/blog/2011/04/13/sketchnotes-healthcare-experience-design/

Until next year – keep the conversation going!

Twitter:
#hxdconf

Linked In:
Healthcare UX Group

And a heartfelt “thank you” to everyone who made this conference such a huge success – on every level.
Together, I believe we can help shape more positive healthcare experiences and be the conduit, the advocates, the instigators for the changes that need to happen.

I hope to see you all again next year. If you have any thoughts, ideas or would like to participate in next year’s conference, please drop us an email.