Why Integration Marketing

Introduction

What is integration marketing?

Integration marketing (IM) is akin to the proverb from the Bible: “The spider takes hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces.” The spider has integrated itself into someone else’s world, in this case, the king’s palace, benefiting from the position without paying a dime for it. This illustrates the basic principle of integration marketing.

For practical purposes, let’s define integration marketing from a dictionary. Webster defines integration as “the act of making entire or complete,” while Thesaurus.com defines it as “unification.” These definitions are powerful when considering what integration marketing means in the business world, especially online.

In the offline world, companies often piggyback on one another within marketing campaigns. For example, Nike might offer 25% off a pair of sneakers when you buy an Izod shirt at full price. Both companies have merged, or integrated, for a particular marketing campaign. You might not want the sneakers, but there’s a good chance someone else will, and both parties will financially benefit from the collaboration.

“Integration internet marketing is the unification of marketing processes, sometimes called distribution channels, for a common or related purpose.”

The Essence of Integration Marketing

All you need to do now is understand how the spider, in this case, Nike, is taking hold with her hands. How many other marketing campaigns is Nike involved with that help them market their 25% off sneaker sale? This is exponential expansion at its best.

Online Integration Marketing vs. JV Partnerships

The online world operates, or should, in much the same way as the offline world. Companies like Google, Adobe, Alexa, and Ask all engage in online integration marketing. For instance, when you download Adobe Acrobat, you might be given the option to install the Alexa toolbar unless you uncheck the option. Each of these companies gains online real estate presence by piggybacking on other marketing campaigns that are congruent with their own.

Major online companies that unify their marketing efforts with those of other companies make their missions entire or complete, as the definition above states. They understand the value of this concept to their business. The question is, does the solo online entrepreneur know? Observing most marketing efforts today, the answer would likely be NO.

Joint-Venture (JV) Partnerships differ from the completeness of integration marketing. They represent a taste of IM but not the true essence because JV Partnerships can end as quickly as they start and are not always constructed to be long-term like IM.

How Entrepreneurs Use Online Integration Marketing

The answer to this question isn’t as simple as saying, “One, two, and three.” Online IM is used in various places:

• Opt-in pages – Bonuses are often offered here and may be from other marketers.
• Email – This usually comes from someone’s marketing funnel you have subscribed to. Here you can see the upsells after your initial purchase.
• Thank-you pages after a purchase – These can and should contain more relevant information for the consumer, either for free or for sale.
• Blogs – Many entrepreneurs form affiliate partnerships with others, providing them HTML code to add in a blog post or sidebar in the form of a widget. The image with a link stays indefinitely, adding exposure to the original marketer as long as the website owner blogs regularly and continues to engage with their target audience.

Once you truly understand the concept behind online IM, you will find yourself immersed in research and development. Perform due diligence in the creation of your content, its marketing, and launch because other experienced marketers will not host you in their campaigns if they think you are a charlatan. R&D involves your product or service and those who will want to integrate with it, leading us to our final point in this introduction.

Integration marketing creates a “win-win” situation

The name of this game is value. No one wins if everyone is a charlatan. The internet is as real a world as the offline world. The web hosts billions of real people who are looking for real answers from real entrepreneurs who have their act together.

Integration marketing unifies experts by creating a situation where superior products and services come together in marketing to a specified target audience. The benefits experienced by all are:

• Brand Exposure
• Relationship Building with other list customers
• Credibility & Trust
• Monetary Gains

Chapter 1: How Integration Marketing Can Increase Your Profits Faster & Easier

The classic lemonade stand is a great example of how you can increase your profits faster and easier with integration marketing. Keep in mind the spider mentioned above. Lemonade stands are also about real estate if you look at it from a Robert Kiyosaki point of view. He would say, “Why own only one lemonade stand when you could be making money from a hundred of them?”

Let’s say you have the best lemonade stand in your neighborhood and the most profitable. The only problem is there is only one you and one lemonade stand. Suddenly, you remember some customers that came by who were eating cookies they got from a cookie stand down the street and how they raved about them. So, you get on your bicycle and ride down to investigate.

You soon discover that the owner not only had the best cookies around but also has 100 stands all over the neighborhood selling her cookies. Immediately, your entrepreneurial mind goes to work. She has the best cookies, and you have the best lemonade. Everyone that buys your lemonade mostly comes from or goes to her stand. Because these two products go together, you are able to negotiate, if you’re smart, with the young girl who owns the cookie stands.

Bingo, integration marketing is born, and it’s a win-win situation.

Let’s say he sells his 8-ounce cup of lemonade for just $1.00. On average, the youngster sells 25 cups a day, not bad for a kid. Now he has the potential of making a hundred times more if he is able to establish an IM relationship with the girl. Maybe this is exaggerated a little, as far as what kids may actually do, but I think you see the concept.

The young entrepreneur has the potential of making $2500.00/day minus the cut for the little girl who doesn’t do anything but serve a product already made for her. He will not make $2500 because there’s a good chance at least fifty percent of cookie buyers will not want lemonade with their cookie. For the young entrepreneur, it makes no difference as long as he has increased his profit margin and his exposure.

If he sells ten cups per day per location, the profit is still great at almost a thousand dollars. He pays the girl a quarter for every cup sold, leaving him a profit of $750.00—not bad for two little kids. Take this example and apply it to what you are doing or want to do online.

The Concept of Exponential Expansion

The example above represents exponential expansion or rapid growth through integration marketing, in this case, the unification of two or more marketing efforts. Growth accelerates in the form of customer acquisition and sales based on exposure shared by each party. The numbers can increase rapidly: 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, and so forth.

To scale it back, exponential expansion will not happen as evenly as the numbers above suggest. Rapid growth can still occur in a great way when your product hits the other partner’s marketing funnel. People talk and share things that bring them results.

Integration marketing is not limited to the number of IM partners because things can go viral on the internet. Viral marketing is just as powerful as integration marketing when you think about it. View things going viral as your marketing efforts gone wild and breaking outside the structure of any campaign you or your partners planned.

Free giveaways are a great way to create a viral event among other things. Exponential growth can be triggered by just a few excited customers who are getting results with your product or service. Everybody knows somebody, and when word can spread beyond the borders of a typical email list, things grow quickly. Nothing beats an ecstatic testimonial.

Video Genesis – A Real Online Example of Integration Marketing

You can read a book all day long and get some good out of it, but there is nothing like a real-life example of integration marketing. As a reminder, IM is different from one-time gigs on the internet. Long-term relationships are the key to experiencing exponential expansion, as you just read, because it takes time to reach those phenomenal numbers.

Mike Filsaime and Andy Jenkins are two guys who have been around the internet for a long time. Each has their own expertise. Mike is an awesome online internet marketing guru, to put it honestly, and Andy is a video marketing expert from Hollywood. Put these two together, and you have a solid, experienced team and a one-of-a-kind product, Video Genesis—both keys for successful IM.

Obviously, Mike and Andy are not the only two entrepreneurs out there doing what they do. These guys know people who know people who, well, you know. Marry you-know-who with their product training, and you will see online integration marketing at its best, with potential million-dollar launches, seriously.

Enter screen left, Mike Koenigs and Pam Hendrickson of Make Market Launch IT, another highly successful training program from two of the internet’s top product creators and marketers. They join efforts with Mike and Andy of Video Genesis for an immediate JV project by marketing the opportunity to access Video Genesis to their member list for a special price, plus gain access to other bonuses from them exclusive to Mike and Andy’s launch.

If Mike and Andy have multiple business partners adding their product somewhere in their marketing funnel, I think you can see the leveraging power inside integration marketing. Sometimes these pacts are not long-term, and that is okay. Exposure can lead to other connections where long-term “piggybacks” can be created.

Google and Alexa Toolbars

Perhaps you have downloaded free software for your web browser or another program such as Adobe Acrobat. You will notice that during the installation process, you will have the option of installing the Alexa, Ask, or Google toolbar for your web browser. Ask, for example, is riding the Java market. Whenever someone installs or updates Java, they are prompted to obtain the Ask toolbar and default their browser to Ask’s website. Uncheck if you do not want to install them.

There are multitudes of IM campaigns going on today, especially in the tech industry. This arena would be a great place to study strategies of companies who understand the field where they do business. Those who find a way to integrate a relative product or service into an existing marketing stream are well on their way to winning the game of exponential expansion and increased profits inside their businesses.

Study the tactics of companies like Google, Ask, and Alexa, even if they appear sleazy. You may get some useful, honest ideas while discovering what works and what does not. One other thing to pay close attention to is the way customers react to certain sales tactics. Research on Google will call up some rather interesting customer responses to companies that annoy with offerings that end up making lives miserable.

Chapter 2: Integration Internet Marketing Strategy

Before we get into some great information, let’s define the word strategy by way of Webster’s dictionary, Thesaurus.com, and the internet. When you talk strategy in relation to marketing, you will find that the word itself is overused and underdefined. The deeds of many online marketers prove this to be true.

Thesaurus.com says, “Strategy is a plan of action.” Webster says, “Strategy is a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal, usually over a long period of time. The skill of making or carrying out plans to achieve a goal.”

These are good definitions, just not “great” definitions, because there is more to internet marketing strategy than just the definition of a plan of action. Plans are only good if they are worked. You cannot work a plan without knowing these three things:

• Who the plan is for
• Where these people live online
• How to reach them

The point being, strategy is more than just a plan, although you need one. Great plans are born out of thorough research, not by surfing the web for only ten minutes. Strategy takes study and requires understanding before you implement your plan.

The very first strategy is to prepare the guy or gal in the mirror. Yes, the first line of business is getting you ready for integration internet marketing. Too many want-to-be entrepreneurs have zero patience and a zero-quality product or service. There’s no way a successful online entrepreneur is going to offer you a spot on their blog or the thank-you page of one of their products if they do not know and trust you.

Trust, quality, and credibility all take time—time that you are going to have to allow before you can execute a results-driven strategy for success. The first thing for you to do is:

• Create a business plan – This involves your mission statement, goals, product creation layout, website registration, hosting, content creation, content packaging, content promotion, profiles established in key social networks like Facebook and Twitter, etc.

The internet world is changing rapidly, and you must too if your strategies are going to win the battle. Avoid going the long way around in your endeavors, but don’t choose the easiest road either. Do things the right way, and you will have many opportunities for involvement in integration marketing.

The second strategy comes from your plan, which is to know your target audience. This is one of the biggest mistakes most online marketers make—trying to market your product or service to everyone. This strategy never works. Did I say never? Good, because I meant it! Research your ideal client’s demographics and psychographics first before you launch your marketing strategy. Get to know them. How will you connect with the other businesses you want to integrate with if you do not know who your audience is?

Identifying your ideal avatar will determine who you merge your marketing efforts with. This is why it is important to know them before you waste your time shooting in the dark with a less-than-luster marketing plan. Go to Facebook, and you will see what I mean.

The third and most important strategy for a successful integration marketing plan is to get mentored by an industry professional. As you roll your impatient eyes at me, let me explain why and hopefully save you a ton of time and money in the process.

1. They have ploughed a marketing path you can walk down.
2. They have made many mistakes you can learn from.
3. They can train you to become an expert.
4. You build a trusted relationship with an industry expert.

The most valuable part of being mentored, other than the experience and relationship, is you will glean from their already established marketing funnel. What teacher doesn’t show off their students? By being mentored, you can have access to one of your first integration internet marketing campaigns as long as your content is good.

Every business avenue on the internet has an expert you can connect with:

• Facebook – Amy Porterfield & Mari Smith
• LinkedIn – Kevin Knebl
• Product Creation and Launch – Mike Koenigs & Pam Hendrickson
• Video – Andy Jenkins & Mike Filsaime
• Twitter – Michael Hyatt

GoDaddy’s Internal Integration Marketing Strategy

Another great unification strategy is internal integration marketing. This form of integration is where you would introduce new products or services to your existing list. Some refer to this as upselling. The benefit of doing this is you are keeping your marketing communication fresh with existing customers.

GoDaddy is really good and annoying when it comes to upselling or even introducing someone else’s product. Go to GoDaddy.com and try to register a domain. You will soon discover the many upsells that await you before you can simply check out.

Even though it is annoying, GoDaddy makes money from thousands upon thousands of customers. The company doesn’t let the experience end at buying a domain; this is why you can get hosting, software to build your site, and extra security for your domain. These extra items add up and make a ton of profit for the company.

Learn from businesses like GoDaddy. You may not have as many products and services as they do, but have something in your marketing funnel at all times, even if it comes from another marketer. Just verify that the product is congruent to your target audience.

Finally, investigate companies like GoDaddy and see if you can build a relationship with them that can lead to an opportunity to integrate your marketing process into theirs. Anything is possible. Rule nothing out!

Chapter 3: Clever Integration Marketing Tactics

The words “clever” and “tactics” can sound mischievous, so we will explain their meanings with regard to their use on the internet. The word “tactics” is defined as a strategy. Synonyms for tactics are words like maneuver, stratagem or trick, and campaign.

From a military perspective, according to Webster’s dictionary, tactics represent “the science and art of disposing military and naval forces in order for battle and performing military and naval evolutions. In the most extensive sense, tactics, la grande tactique of the French, comprehends everything that relates to the order, formation, and disposition of armies, their encampments.”

The latter meaning has a better feel to it, right? There is a big difference between being clever and tactical versus deceitful and misleading. To be clever means you are being ingenious. Marry the two words together, and you have this meaning: “An ingenious order or placement of one’s product and/or service inside the marketing stream of another entrepreneur’s system.” Multiply the meaning by many partners, and you have a win-win situation.

The complete definition of Clever Integration Marketing Tactics is:

“The ingenious merger of information systems strategically positioned for success.”

The mobile apps industry is a great example of clever tactics. Think about it for a moment: the mobile phone created a platform for mobile app developers to create products that they could sell using a device created by another business. The mobile app industry is a billion-dollar industry and an example of integration marketing.

Look at how easy it is to create an app for your website. You can even install a plugin and check off a few settings in the admin area of your website so that your site is visible to mobile app devices. Integration marketing is not always about a direct relationship with an IM partner; it can be indirect.

A mobile application (app) developer creates a snazzy app that does something cool, like allowing a user to pay for their food through the drive-through at Starbucks. The cashier scans the app on their smartphone, gives them their food and receipt, and off they go. But how is this called integration marketing?

The customer is happy, but so is the app developer because he makes around 70% of the sale. The mobile app distribution center, like Apple’s iTunes, is happy too because they make the remaining 30%. Now, multiply this by the millions and millions of downloads occurring each year, and you will have a large, profitable integration marketing campaign.

Kind of makes you want to develop an app, doesn’t it?

Building Value Builds Relationship

Never build junk, even if you are good at selling junk. No one wants to buy junk. If you sell this sort of stuff, you will hurt your brand and credibility, and it is just not worth doing. Again, a reminder from Proverbs: “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold.”

Build value, think value, and, above all, be value.

The word “value” is popular among internet marketing leadership. When you think of words like importance, worth, and priceless, you are exploring the meaning of value. Your