The SIM era of marketing and what it means for your integrated strategy

The dawn of the customer-centric age has undoubtedly arrived. Consumers now dictate where, when, and how information is created, spread, and consumed. In fact, 85% of people say that mobile devices are a central part of everyday life, and without a strong mobile presence, companies sacrifice brand loyalty and sales.

Savvy marketers can no longer churn out product messages and expect them to resonate or even reach the right audience. They need to get in touch with the people calling the shots.

To create an integrated marketing campaign that piques the interest of today’s hyper-connected consumers, marketers need to combine three key areas to discover who their customers are, where they go, and how they consume information.

Enter the SIM Era of Marketing

Uniting your overall sales, IT, and marketing efforts will help strengthen communications, accelerate the sales cycle, and drive business success. Your strategy and advanced IT tools can also aid in the profiling process to create a more seamless, interactive brand experience.

Strategy is a core aspect of the SIM approach. Once a strategy is in place, sales become your “boots on the ground,” meeting with clients and prospects, closing deals, and expanding business. The sales leaders and employees must communicate what they need, such as information from marketing and IT, to help them close with their target audience.

Marketing and communications have become increasingly automated processes. In fact, nearly 70% of businesses use a marketing automation platform or are currently implementing one. This trend — combined with the ubiquity of cell phones and apps — makes it essential for marketing departments to access cutting-edge IT tools.

In today’s data-driven workplace, marketers are also capitalising on advancements in computing power to collect, analyse, and synthesise data and act on these findings. By integrating the power of a well-defined strategy, advanced tech solutions, and savvy marketing practices, you can tap into your audience like never before.

Putting SIM Thinking Into Action

To begin applying SIM thinking to your integrated marketing campaigns, start with these four steps.

1. Profile your customers

To create relevant, coherent audience segments, you need to collect and analyse data and find fresh ways to connect and communicate with them. Then, partner with your sales colleagues to make sure they buy in to your conclusions and high-priority targets.

2. Design a comprehensive campaign

Many marketing campaigns cross platforms and devices, from email, text, social, and mobile. Think about how these devices carry the campaign forward for your customers. You should create a seamless brand experience at every audience touchpoint.

3. Analyse, compare, correct, and continue

Before collecting data, you need to identify your specific goals and audience so you can tweak the campaign accordingly. Whether you place ads on LinkedIn and Facebook or conduct A/B testing in emails, use actionable data to make well-informed improvements.

4. Create content to leverage across various platforms

Content can take many forms, including blog posts, infographics, videos, and more. Make sure you capture as much content as possible and repurpose it to reinforce the campaign’s messages and extend its lifetime.

To put the SIM approach in perspective, let’s take a look at Bud Light’s “Up For Whatever” campaign. The company profiled the right persona in its initial Super Bowl launch — Millennials — and tied each of its marketing efforts back to the initial strategy. Budweiser extended its presence across ads, social media, and mobile, culminating in a complete Bud Light-branded town called “Whatever, USA,” where it invited fans for a weekend of all-out branded partying.

The campaign reached approximately 50% of 21- to 27-year-olds every week via Facebook and won a gold Lion in Film Craft at Cannes in 2014. This campaign engaged a massive audience using a SIM-based approach to marketing; as a result, it connected with this influential demographic on an entirely new level.

By failing to incorporate the SIM-era approach to integrated marketing, you risk irrelevance — particularly among tech-savvy Millennials. This demographic checks its smartphones 43 times a day on average and is 56 percent more likely to discover brand content on social networks. If your mobile efforts aren’t updated, streamlined, and user-friendly, competitors applying SIM principles will quickly snatch the loyalty of this coveted demographic.

Looking at the numbers and data points isn’t enough. Connect in a meaningful way by homing in on your audience through a critical lens to determine the right strategy, mediums, and message