What Is Content Integration In Digital Marketing?

If you’re like most small and mid-sized business owners, the coronavirus has you re-evaluating how you do business and especially how you do business online. At this time, no one knows how long we’ll be practicing social distancing. However, we do know that the easier we make it for our customers to find and interact with us online the better. That’s why understanding content integration in digital marketing is so important.

Digital marketing is all about reaching your current and potential customers online. You want to build a relationship with them that fosters brand recognition, brand appreciation and brand trust. It’s when your they know, like and trust your brand that your business has the best chance of making a sale.

But none of that mentions content integration in your digital marketing.

Content integration is about making sure you have consistent messaging across all your digital marketing efforts. It’s also about making sure the content you produce is customer-focused and takes them on the buying journey appropriate for your business.

I like to think of digital marketing from the website up. For many businesses, the website is the first and most basic digital marketing asset. It’s what all the rest of the digital marketing and content creation rests upon. 

If you have a website for your business, everything about it should focus on your customer. The design should be pleasing. Your website should be fast, responsive and secure. The information on your website should be just what your customers want and expect from your business. In other words, your website should speak to your customer in the best way possible.

The next level up is Google My Business (GMB). GMB is a free business listing from Google that lets you easily connect with your customers across Google Search and Google Maps. It also lets you link to your website. Make sure your GMB listing is integrated and consistent with the content on your website.

Next comes search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). The keywords and phrases you use in your SEO and SEM efforts should align with the language your customers use and that are representative of the content on your business website and GMB listing.

Content marketing involves creating anything from blog posts to videos to memes to everything in between. The messages in each of your content marketing campaigns need to integrate with the messaging throughout all your digital marketing efforts.

Of course, you’ll want to share the content you’ve created on your social media channels. For many small to mid-size businesses, social media is a great way to stay in touch with customers.

Next on the pyramid is email marketing. Do you have a newsletter you send to your past, current and potential customers? If not you may want to consider starting one. Newsletters and email marketing is another great way to stay top-of-mind. You’ll just want to make sure what you send is genuinely valuable to the recipient. But, then again, all the content you produce is customer-focused, so of course, it’s valuable!

Content integration in digital marketing also includes keeping up with your local listings on other websites. At least once a year, you’ll want to Google your brand and discover all the places the business is listed. Then, you’ll want to verify the information and submit any necessary corrections. Imagine the frustration a buying customer would feel if they found your listing on another website and the phone number or address listed was incorrect? What do you think the odds of them actually becoming a customer are after an experience like that?

At the top of the pyramid is PPC or buying ads online. It’s important that every ad you buy is consistent with the messages your business presents in every other place online.

Your business may not make use of all the digital marketing platforms listed here or it may take advantage others not listed. Regardless of which your business uses, the key is to make sure the messaging is consistent in look and feel across every single one.

And now that our world has gone virtual, it is the ideal time to evaluate your content integration across all your digital marketing platforms.

Need a little help making sure your messaging is consistent? Schedule a free consultation with us we’d be happy to help.