Hungry?

Call it a club sandwich if you want, just don’t call it a wagon wheel.

For years now, fellow marketeers and I have been filling whiteboards with visual representations of the ever-important integrated marketing plan. Our intentions were good and straightforward – show our clients all the necessary elements of their strategy and how we can provide every element of that cohesive plan. And how did we “show” this? Well, we drew a circle in the middle and a bunch of circles around it with lines connecting those outer circles to the center one. A wagon wheel.

The wagon wheel had a good run. It properly demonstrated that all elements of an integrated marketing plan have to be connected to a central theme or campaign or set of goals. And those elements – print, web site, social networking, webinars, e-blasts, video, viral, etc. – must all be developed and managed proactively in order to measure and achieve desired results. However …

The flaw surfaces in that those outer circles can look a lot like silos, especially when multiple partners, teams or even clients start to “own” various elements. And pretty quickly the wheel begins to wobble, execution suffers and that integrated plan stops short of having the desired impact on the audience.

So what’s the answer? Layers. Layers and layers of rich marketing elements. Layers of content, communication vehicles and interaction combined in a way that delivers the campaign with texture, discovery and repetition to the audience. Only by envisioning the marketing plan in this way, can you engage and envelop your audience creating lasting impact and measurable results.

This marketing layers approach really forces an audience point of view: Picture a woman walking down a city street. On her way to the subway she passes a sign for an exhibit at a museum. Interested in the exhibit she uses her smart-phone to visit the web site and signs up for alerts. Seconds later she receives a welcome e-mail with links to join the facebook community and to order tickets. She forwards the e-mail to her friend who texts back “yes.” She purchases tickets just as she pays for her stacked deli sandwich while passing a life-sized replica of one of the exhibit pieces. Her purchase is confirmed by text message just as she steps onto the subway.

Let’s recap – print, web, e-blast, social networking, viral, e-commerce, environmental, text. Sounds like a good number of our usual elements, yes? And there are about eight opportunities for messaging in the time it takes to walk to the subway which means repetition. But not boring poster-only repetition, no. Layers of texture and content and call to action and community. In just a city block, this woman became a campaign result.

So the next time you’re faced with creating another integrated marketing plan, get yourself a club sandwich and see if you can’t reinvent the wheel.