The concept of synergy goes all the way back to Aristotle, who taught us that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. While that sounds like a great piece of philosophy, exactly how does that apply to today’s digital marketing world?

The sheer volume of marketing channel options all competing for a piece of the marketing budget can overwhelm even an experienced marketer when it comes to choosing which strategies should be added to the marketing mix. Some of the most widely-used channels include:

• Search engine marketing
• Search engine optimization
• Social media marketing
• Content marketing
• Email marketing
• E-commerce marketing
• Online banner ads and retargeting

Each of the above marketing channels has been proven effective time and time again, yet they require the synergy of being integrated with one another in order to deliver optimum results. It’s like running a marketing campaign without having a salesperson to close the leads generated. Or hiring a salesperson without running a marketing campaign to generate leads. You need both parts to make the marketing equation really work.

When your marketing message is delivered with one consistent voice across all marketing channels, you create a more effective whole that has greater impact and more influence on your target audience than any single channel strategy working on its own.

Why Social Media Should be Part of Your Integrated Marketing Strategy
The more marketing channels you attempt to engage prospective customers with, the greater the need for integrating a consistent message into your marketing strategy that supports and reinforces your efforts. Consumers typically require seven to ten exposures to a given sales message before they respond favorably – and an integrated marketing approach helps build the awareness and trust over a series of engagements that is necessary for your brand to stand out.

One of the greatest strengths of social media lies in its ability to build a rapport with prospective customers that in turn creates a sense of trust and loyalty for your brand. Given a choice, consumers generally prefer to do business with companies that they like and trust – and there is simply no better forum for creating that trust than social media.

Social Media Helps Make Your Marketing More Effective
When social media is correctly aligned with your overall marketing strategy, your efforts in each marketing channel will be enhanced by the power of social media’s ability to engage and build relationships. Instead of creating a separate social media campaign, you are in effect making all of your marketing campaigns social – and bringing social media’s proven ability to build a following of loyal customers to bear across all of your marketing channels.

Social Media Helps Build Trust for Your Brand
Because social media is essentially a social activity as opposed to just another hard-core sales blast, it’s one of the best ways to build trust with potential customers. When you offer genuinely useful or entertaining content that has some relevancy to your brand, you encourage engagement as well as build trust – both of which lead to increased awareness and loyalty. When social media is integrated with your overall marketing strategy, your messages in other marketing channels will benefit from increased trust simply by association with your social media campaigns.

Social Media Brings More Efficiency to Your Marketing Campaigns
Messages shared across different marketing channels generate increased levels of brand awareness and conversions at a lower cost because shared costs are spread out over multiple channels. Working with a common goal not only allows you to reach prospects more effectively with a single consistent voice, it reduces the need for creating separate campaigns for each marketing channel.