Integrated marketing is a term that most people in the advertising business are familiar with by now. Loosely, this means a marketing campaign that encompasses multiple types of media that are tied together with a uniting message or theme. Media types can include direct mail, email blasts, billboards, banner ads and direct response television – just to name a few.

Looking at the performance of each individual piece of an integrated campaign is important. Knowing cost, ROI, average gift, response rate, etc… can help determine efficacy and direct strategy for future campaigns. However, measuring the effectiveness of components such as billboards or social media strategies is a little more complicated than direct mail or DRTV. We can use the assumption that one-to-many vs. one-to-one marketing impressions are often more cost effective, but it is still more difficult to show results.

For example, if a direct mail donor receives a mailing, sees your billboard and notices that one of her Facebook friends is now a fan of your organization, and then decides to make a gift on your website – was she more likely to donate due to the confluence of all of the media impressions? Anecdotally, the answer is yes, but quantifying that information and putting it into an easy-to-comprehend chart or graph is challenging.

Even as we move towards this smaller, more connected and integrated world, one of the common questions I get as an analyst is, “Can we just look at direct mail giving? That’s all that we’re responsible for.” The answer is usually, “We can isolate those gifts, but you’re excluding the value of your integrated marketing efforts.”

That’s one of the reasons why we recommend looking holistically at your donor file – and not slicing it up into discrete pieces. This allows you to see the impact of a truly integrated marketing plan. If direct mail revenue drops 5% one month, but unsolicited online giving increases 30%, you aren’t necessarily losing any money – the donor is simply shifting her preferred giving channel.

Looking at revenue from white mail and unsolicited online giving received during integrated media campaigns is often a good barometer for their effectiveness. We recently completed an analysis for a client showing that while direct mail revenue was down 6% YOY, overall revenue was up 5% YOY – fueled partially by an increase in online and white mail giving.

Looking at individual pieces of an integrating marketing campaign will always be an important part of direct response analysis and strategy. But, focusing too narrowly on any one aspect of an integrated campaign will only give you tunnel vision.

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Tags: Alexa Langford, holistic view, Integrated Marketing, measuring integrated marketing