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If marketing were as simple as creating a great social media post and publishing it, every brand in the world would be successful. Unfortunately, we all know marketing is a lot more complex than creating great content and posting it on a single channel.
Great marketing involves making a cohesive representation of your brand across all channels, and prioritizing everything from social media and influencer campaigns to public relations, events, and paid media.
In this article, we’ll talk about integrated campaign managers (especially as they relate to influencer marketing campaigns) and how they work to juggle all of these moving pieces to create a campaign that has a real impact on your audience.
What Is an Integrated Campaign Manager?
In the world of marketing, an integrated campaign manager is either an in-house or third-party marketing professional that helps manage all the different parts of a campaign. There are so many variables to consider when launching a campaign of any kind, whether it be digital marketing, influencer marketing, or (often) a mix of both.
An integrated campaign manager takes all of these variables into account to create a cohesive and effective campaign across multiple marketing channels, giving you the best chance of reaching your brand visibility, product promotion, or sales goals.
In the simplest of terms, they’re a pro at organization, collaboration, and strategy. They help with idea development, campaign execution, and optimization of marketing campaigns to get results while staying true to everybody at the table.
What It Actually Looks Like to Have an Integrated Campaign Manager
We’ll use Markerly as an example of fully integrated campaign management. This means our team manages the entire campaign process from the idea stage to execution and tracking and reporting. Having an integrated campaign manager for influencer marketing campaigns ensures that the best possible partnerships are made for the good of your audience, your brand, and the influencer or influencers involved.
Imagine this: You want to get in on the rapidly growing opportunity that is influencer marketing, but you don’t know where to start. An integrated campaign manager helps develop a winning strategy by collaborating with you and identifying influencer partners that are aligned with your brand, share your values, and have the reach to make an impact. We work with your team (and with the influencer partner) to build a campaign that helps you forge stronger and more genuine connections with your target audience.
Of course, working with others to market your brand more effectively is not a new strategy. Businesses work with one another, manufacturers grow their reach by working with private resellers and companies with household names, brands work with influencers, etc. Integrated campaign managers can help these partnerships thrive. Here are three specifics as to how.
1. Prioritizing Collaboration for the Best Possible Result
In many cases when working with partners for a marketing campaign, it can be difficult to frame the partnership as a truly collaborative effort as opposed to just a transactional relationship. It’s no surprise that a distanced and/or transactional relationship doesn’t always lead to the most harmonious or effective campaigns.
An integrated campaign manager can help bring two agencies or separate entities (such as a brand and an influencer) together in a more cohesive way. The meshing of existing teams greatly contributes to the success of an integrated marketing campaign.
2. Developing More Comprehensive and Achievable Goals
Due to the focus put on collaboration, clear and achievable goals can be created more easily. Think of it this way: An integrated campaign manager is akin to a discussion moderator when two experts are talking about their respective fields. The moderator guides the discussion and ties together information from both parties to create a single valuable takeaway.
Much like a productive discussion between two experts, integrated campaigns involve recognizing all of the moving parts and seeing how they can be combined to create something great. Part of an integrated campaign manager’s job is to see these moving parts and then create realistic goals and solutions.
3. Taking Work Off Your Team’s Plate
Every marketing campaign takes a lot of work, especially those that involve integrating partners with your own team or communicating with them often. When you hire someone that specializes in the kind of partnership you’re looking for, you save your own team’s time in addition to gaining the advantage of knowledge and experience.
The Bottom Line
Integrated campaign managers can be the link between your various internal marketing teams and sales teams and the outside agencies, brands, or influencers you partner with for marketing campaigns.
Whether your priority is demand generation, product marketing, or increased brand awareness, an integrated campaign manager is there for the plan and execution stages to make sure you see the results you want.
Industry expertise and dedication to collaboration and start-to-finish strategizing can make your partnerships more effective and marketing campaigns more successful. If you want to create more successful campaigns or dip your toe into an unknown industry, consider hiring experts in integrated campaign management. And if you’re at all interested in the amazing things that can be accomplished with integrated influencer marketing campaigns, reach out to us!
