Planning an integrated marketing campaign does not mean you have to figure out a way to use all communication channels available to you. Just as the Game of Thrones marketers chose a few well-placed locations to unveil the dragon, pinpoint only the channels that make sense for your goals and your audience and focus on them.

For example, perhaps after seeing that 82 percent of small business owners say referrals from happy customers are their main source of new business, you decide to run a campaign aimed at increasing word-of-mouth. After crafting a coupon offering 30 percent off the next purchase for customers that share it with friends, the next step would be to figure out where it makes the most sense to promote it.

Since the target audience is loyal customers, you can disregard channels primarily designed at attracting new customers, such as advertising or online listings. Instead, invest fully in areas where you engage with your regular customers, such as social media channels, email marketing and your website. This ensures that you're using your resources only in the areas in which your integrated campaign will be most effective.

While the image itself remained the same, the Game of Thrones dragon shadow appeared differently based on where it was viewed. It was stretched and shrunk, it came in different colors, it was transposed on top of different surfaces.

The same thing should happen to the main messages of your integrated campaign. They will take on different forms. The language may be tweaked depending on where the audience is reading it, and certain images may work well on some formats and not on others. It is important to learn these differences during the planning phase of your campaign.

Going back to our referral campaign, let’s say you have decided to name the entire campaign “Ron’s Rockin’ Referral Reward!” While you should plan on prominently displaying that copy on your Facebook page and website, it might not make sense to make it the subject line of your next customer email.

First, there are probably clearer and quicker ways to entice subscribers to open your email, such as “For our loyal customers…” And, explicitly promotional words like “Rewards” may end up triggering spam filters. However, the title of the campaign should be placed somewhere within the content of the email itself.

You need to take similar considerations with images. Just because an image looks great on the front page of your website doesn’t mean it will translate properly elsewhere. You can have a large banner display on your website that takes up the entire width of the screen, but you notice problems when you try to make it your Facebook cover photo, as they are only 851 pixels in width. Images in email, especially those viewed on a mobile device, need to be even smaller. Edit your images so that their power remains intact, regardless of where customers see them.

The Game of Thrones marketers had one goal in mind: use an awesome image to drive public awareness of their third-season debut. Never straying from that one objective, they chose their spots carefully: a widely read national daily newspaper, a building in a high-traffic location ripe for viral social sharing, and a complementing movie trailer poster that could be easily inserted into any article or blog post about the other two.

When executing integrated marketing campaigns, it can be tempting to set superfluous goals that don’t align with your original intent, adversely affecting the overall campaign.

As in our customer referral example, because you're targeting a relatively small audience (loyal customers only), you might get worried about low email click-throughs compared to previous campaigns and convince yourself that it would be OK to send the email to people who aren't loyal customers. Doing so can confuse one-time customers not inclined to recommend your business in the first place. Or you could end up attracting the wrong type of referral — the one who comes only for the good deal, not the great business.

Marketing campaigns integrated over many channels guarantee that you hit your target audiences — often in multiple places — consistently raising awareness of your key marketing message and keeping your brand top-of-mind. By knowing where your audience is and how to best communicate to them across different platforms, you don't need a shadowed dragon to reap the rewards of a well-executed campaign.

Here is the marketing campaign for Season 3

The big theme for the season premiere this year was a subtle, yet mysterious shadow of a dragon. The beauty behind this campaign was that it was extremely consistent and its subtlety did a lot to build momentum to the premiere. First came the poster and magazine covers:

Then suddenly the dragon dominated the New York Times:

Faux Articles from the paper:

• "Lost Film Returns": An unreleased filmed titled "A Darkening Shore" finally hits the screens. It's a tale of forbidden, passionate love. Maybe this is a nod to the relationship between celibacy-sworn Jon Snow and the beautiful wildling Ygritte?
• "Teaching an App a New Trick at the Easthelmstead Dog Show": A dog show's organizers use an app to drum up interest. While "Game of Thrones" needs no such help, the HBO show has been at the forefront of using social media to engage its fans.
• "The Lion of the Desert": A billionaire constructs a city in the middle of a desert. Sounds a lot like Daenerys' trying to build an army of her own to take across the Narrow Sea
• "La Cienega Ballet's 'Gazelle'": A beautiful woman falls for an unavailable, already engaged man. Totally Robb Stark and Talisa.
• "Fashion's New Talent": A designer outlines her time-consuming method of work, saying "Sometimes that is what it takes to make magic." This could point to sorceress Melisandre, or perhaps one of the new characters we will meet in Season 3.
• "In the Balance": The first line reads "Brilliant direction and a strong cast come together for this operatic masterpiece." What, is this a review of "Game of Thrones"?
• "Medea Resurrects at the Abuelitas": A defiant star stages a comeback performance. Tyrion, you may be down, but you are not out by any means!

And you could even see the dragon on buildings, like the HBO building in LA:

And of course buses and billboards, all with the same image. I love this campaign because of its simplicity. HBO didn’t have to go overboard to make a statement and get me excited for the premiere.

Free Media Exposure

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/game-of-thrones-season-3-ad-campaign_n_2769946.html
• http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinlarosa/mind-blowing-game-of-thrones-ad-in-the-new-york-times
• https://www.yahoo.com/tv/s/-game-of-thrones--dragon-ad-flies-across-the-new-york-times-062740428.html
• http://adage.com/article/creativity-pick-of-the-day/dragon-flies-overhead-game-thrones-print-ad/240015/