The customer lifecycle begins when they respond to a marketing activity. To get to this point, they have to go through the following process: 1) become aware of your company, 2) form a positive impression, 3) understand how your company can benefit them, and 4) have an easy way to interact with you. Integrated campaigns, and the infrastructure that supports them, accelerate prospects through these four steps.

Repetition, consistency, repetition, consistency, repetition. Some people read trade pubs and don't respond to email offers. Others opt-in to email lists or newsletters as their primary source for information and never pick up a publication. Then you'll find a large number of people who visit certain portals over and over again. And what about people who prefer to get their information through the mail, at a trade show or over the phone? Obviously, customers can become aware of your company from a variety of channels, and you'll reach the largest number of them the more channels you use. But if marketing dollars are scarce, depth is more important than breadth. It can take from 5-10 "touches" before a prospect will become aware of your company. You'll pay more, and reach more people if you accomplish your 5+ touches through various channels. You'll pay less and reach fewer people overall, but still build solid awareness if you touch prospects through 1 or 2 channels. Whichever way you go, your messaging, brand and creative need to be consistent. Or you'll spend a lot more money on additional touches and they may never know who you are.

As soon as your company is recognized, your customer will start to form an impression. From then on, each time your company is noticed, this impression is reinforced. To be sure the impression is positive, you have to start by acknowledging that audiences today are sophisticated - in that they've seen a lot of ads & promotions and know what's good and what's trash. To rise above all the noise and clutter and communicate enough to make a positive impression in an instant, you have to:
- Look like a company your customers can relate to
- Be clear on your core corporate vision
- Don't try to portray your company as something it isn't
- Do it by consistently using tags, memorable graphics and key words/phrases

Features close deals, but benefits open the door. If your potential customer is in pain, and you can relieve it, they will respond. Drilling down through all possible benefits, to find the one most likely to resonate with your audience, can be a challenge. You can simplify it by clearly differentiating features from benefits, then doing the research to determine what gives your audience the most pain. When you match this pain to the corresponding benefit, you've laid the foundation for a successful integrated campaign.

It's one thing to get a response, and another to convert them into a potential customer. You can significantly improve the success of an integrated campaign by how you manage customer response. First, you actually have to get them to fill out the response form once they get there. How the form is structured, what information and incentives appear, layout and more contribute to boosting conversion rates. It has to be easy to complete and submit, and must clearly reinforce the primary benefit. Second, the information captured must enable customers to be qualified, and to reveal their particular pain point. Finally, results must be tracked, reported and analyzed, so you know which elements of your integrated campaign performed better - and at what ROI. Now, once you have a potential customer, the next step is to manage the following interactions to move them toward a sale, which you can do using marketing automation. (See customer interactions).

An integrated campaign is the best way to maximize marketing dollars. Your initial investment in strategy, planning and creative greatly reduces the cost of individual campaign elements. For example, an isolated HTML email will cost significantly more than one produced as part of an integrated campaign, since there is no existing strategy, plan or creative to build on.

Integrated campaigns have been shown to reduce the number of "touches" needed to build awareness and generate a response. Industry experience suggests it takes 5-10 touches to get a response. If you touch a potential customer 10 times through print advertising, the expense is huge. It's less, but still substantial, if you touch them through emails. But if they've seen your ad, formed a positive impression, had it reinforced in a newsletter, then received an email…they are more likely to pay attention to it. The expense of reaching your audience in various channels is balanced by being able to get their attention sooner, with fewer touches.

At the heart of an integrated campaign is consistent messaging and creative. The same is true for building a strong worldwide brand. Using integrated campaigns as a key element of your branding strategy pays long-term dividends. You get the best of both worlds - immediate revenue while you build a base of receptive future customers.

Here are the major components of a successful integrated campaign.
- Initial planning
- Strategic
- Tactical
- Media
- Develop campaign platform
- Get internal (international) platform approval
- Coordinate with PR
- Determine all international ramifications
- Identify all relevant brand guidelines
- Develop creative concepts
- Review concepts for international appropriateness
- Choose final creative
- Develop creative briefs for additional channels
- Apply creative to all channels
- Translate as necessary
- Execute per original plan
- Monitor worldwide application
- Track & analyze results