4 Reasons Why Integration Should be at the Heart of Media Planning
More than ever campaign planning has become increasingly complex. Higher education marketers must grapple with a greater spectrum of touchpoints — with algorithms determining an increased amount of production to incur any significant reach. Beyond a production strain, higher education is a high-involvement category, where a multitude of service-like interactions occur over extended customer journeys.
What this means is that the spaces where most prospective student interactions occur can described as fragmented, disconnected and decentralized. Attention is divided and interactions with brands extend beyond any brand manager’s control. What’s more, marketing activities are often planned across areas and often with even external partners.
Yet, the largest study into brand building showed that the average media plan could be approximately 2.6x more effective with a different media mix. Interestedly, the study showed that there wasn’t a single optimal plan. Different outcomes required different plans. What’s clear was that the more each channel was working in lockstep to achieve the business goal, the stronger the outcome. The sum always being more than its parts.
We know — and the writing is on the wall — when investing time and resources into any comprehensive campaign, integrated must be a priority. The customer journey is too “messy” to not consider the entirety of the prospective student experience. Below are four reasons we believe integration should be at the heart of media planning.
Fun.
Integrated Campaigns Tend to Outperform Single Media Campaigns
From Kantar to Ehrenberg-Bass, studies continue to show that the addition of one new media channel tends to improve the return of the campaign. When it comes long-term, highly considered purchased (i.e. college), waiting to “scale” a campaign may dull the intended effect. When planning, consider how multiple channels may create synergy to achieve the intended goal.
Paid Helps Owned Work Harder
In similar categories, owned channels tend to have a higher impact on brand metrics like consideration. In the context of similar industries, it makes sense considering the number of channels and time spent information seeking prior to a decision. This is important when it comes to planning integrated campaigns because it gives marketers a sense of how paid media can be a key driver of awareness and interest as well as a reinforcement of a positive experience with an owned channel (think application portal or admissions event). Message congruency and channel experience are antecedents to improving the likelihood that a prospective student will retain information.
Integration Strengthens First-Party Data Collection
Marketers are becoming increasingly reliant on first-party data which makes the collection of prospective student information critical. Considering how prospective students move from channel to channel should open up opportunities throughout the campaign’s ecosystem to seamlessly impact opportunities for data collection. For example, connected television tends to have the most impact on search behavior. Ensure pages that may rank when a viewer searches your brand or subsequent searches provides quick and easy opportunities to opt-in.
Owned Supports Likely Consumer Behavior
When you consider average click-through rates and conversion rates across any industry — the likely behavior most of our audience will take place beyond paid media. In a recent study on banking, more than half of all consumer touchpoints were representative of owned experiences. As institution’s online presences continues to extend, owned media becomes the cornerstone of reinforcing your position; most often promoted via paid media.
The disconnect customer journey our industry faces are both a result of media fragmentation and consumer behavior. Each new media innovation adds more layers of brand experiences, media channels to manage and the need to ensure prospective student experiences are seamless, meaning institutions are only as good as their weakest touchpoint. Integration must be part of the media planning process to account for these new realities.
