Want to improve your marketing efforts? Here are five steps to help you integrate email with your brand's website, TV and print marketing efforts.

Of all the words in the lexicon of marketing, few approach the stature of "integration." Case study after case study, trade article after trade article, marketers blather on about how television spots, magazine ads, websites and direct mail all integrate together like Lego bricks. In practice, however, integration can mean anything from a singularly-conceived and disciplined marketing approach across all channels to just putting the same tagline on every communication. Regardless of what the crowd thinks integration means, email marketers should take it to mean intelligent, timely support and extension of other marketing communications.

What integration should mean to email marketers
Marketers need not think of integration as an abstract concept; it has a very real meaning. Integration involves reinforcing a well-defined marketing message through multiple channels. More to the point, it means making sure that all of a marketer's messages make sense in the context of one another. The consumer considers every branded communication an ad, whether it comes through TV, print, the internet, direct mail or even our humble email.

Specifically to email marketers, integration means contributing to overarching brand goals in alignment with individual email goals. Typically, helping the larger marketing organization meet its goals translates into supporting other marketing communications. However, sometimes email can take a lead role in integration, such as when a marketer with a loyalty program uses email as the main channel in describing benefits, account statements and other program elements. Most importantly, email integration should mean that email acts as part of a cohesive strategy, not as a stand-alone tactic.

Why integrate email?
Email ranks among the most effective, most measurable and easiest to implement marketing channels of all time, and marketers have never forgiven email for it. Because it works so well and because marketers can measure it easily and because it requires relatively little attention, email tends to come towards the tail end of marketing organizations' priorities. Just as a driver trusts his brakes, marketers tend to trust that email will always be there.

The channel's reliability not only spares the email marketer from horror stories, it also gives him or her a chance to see where email fits in to the greater marketing plan. More to the point, email can act as a kind of glue to hold an organization's other marketing communications together.

As with the loyalty example above, email can represent a palpable element of a brand promise. Email can also augment other planned communications from catalog drops to broadcast TV flights to in-store events. Finally, email can augment efforts to reach consumer or customer segments that demonstrate substantially different interests from the ones addressed in other channels. In all of these cases, email helps reinforce major brand themes in a complementary fashion.

Begin at the beginning
Marketers should not require a reminder to square communications with the overall brand marketing strategy, but drivers should not need reminders to buckle their seatbelts, either. While almost all marketers understand the importance of aligning with the grand marketing strategy, many simply fail to do so out of a concern for expedience.

However, email marketers should take a moment when planning an email campaign to ask how it will help further the organization's overall marketing goals. At the very least, an email should not contradict a brand's goals. For instance, a brand trying to establish itself as a luxury brand should not be sending out emails with a call-to-action of "Get 50% off ACT NOW" or "Buy one, get one free." Instead, the email should directly support an established brand goal.

Integration from the inside out
While email should integrate with as many other communication vehicles as possible, it makes the most sense to start with the channels that most closely relate to email and then move towards the channels with a less direct relationship.

1.) Start with the website. Almost all emails drive users to a website. Therefore, the email should bear more than a passing resemblance to the linked website. Most importantly, this linkage means using some of the key design elements, especially the header or primary navigation. In a typical email with a website-like header, 20-30 percent of all clicks come from links in the header. This phenomenon speaks to the reminder effect of emails. Even if the consumer cannot find an interesting offer in the email, he or she may simply be reminded of something brand-related and click through anyway.

The email header need not replicate the site header. In fact, if the site header has too many links, it may overburden the email. However, the email header should include several top-level links.

Beyond the header, the email should also comply with the site's style guide to ensure a fluid transfer from email to site. The site itself should also help out the email marketer by collecting addresses with links posted in prominent positions.

2.) Work with direct mail and catalogs. From the consumer's perspective, email and direct mail are similar in that both channels present specific calls-to-action. However, some companies completely separate DM and email by having the former in the marketing department and the latter in the information technology department, reporting to the website team. Whatever the case, DM and email should coordinate offers to prevent confusion or, even worse, the situation where one channel offers a substantially better deal than the other.

Marketers can use the precise timing of email to support direct mail offers and catalogs. Using email to alert customers of impending DM pieces or catalogs can prime them with excitement. Marketers who are unsure of the value of email alerts for DM can easily test the value of email by sending email and DM to one cell of customers and DM only to another. We've always seen email drive incremental response in the direct channel.

3.) Create message streams around events. Email marketers may have to go further afield to work with the event marketers in their organizations, but if they do so, they can substantially improve the brand's event experience. Email can help drive value from event marketing both before and after the event. Before, marketers can use email not just to tell consumers about an event, but also to set up specific appointments, to highlight special features or to tease key content. Marketers with sufficient lead times can even develop a cadence that increases frequency of emails as the event date draws near.

After the event, email offers an easy and personal way to thank those who attended and to drive them towards purchase. The event itself, by the way, is another great opportunity to gather email addresses. New opt-ins to the email should receive a welcome email that specifically mentions their event attendance.

4.) Time email to mass media. Organizations that place ads on TV or in print media spend many, many more times on those channels than they do with email. Thus, email marketers should happily freeload off the added brand awareness provided by these media. Mass communications exposure means faster recognition of the email's sender in the inbox. Test different approaches to timing (e.g. at the beginning of a TV flight, halfway through, just after, etc.) to see which one drives the most interaction.

5.) Maximize public relations exposure. Finally, email marketers should keep an eye on the PR front for opportunities to let consumers know about a brand's successes. For instance, if a major newspaper writes a glowing review of a company's product, the email marketer at that company should consider sending out an email to a relevant audience, such as people who live in the newspaper's market or those with an interest in the product. That said, the email marketer need not promote every PR placement. Similarly, the email marketer should use discretion to separate exposures that interests the email audience from exposures that are too self-serving.

Clearly, email can benefit the brand by integrating with several types of communication. The email marketer should definitely take the marketing organization's overall plans into account while developing his or her own. While it is easy to fall into the trap of doing nothing but supporting other communications, a clear opportunity exists to use email to extend and develop the power of a company's integrated marketing efforts.

Ben Rothfeld is director of marketing strategy at Acxiom Digital. Read full bio.