The online marketing survival guide is a fun, helpful tool to keep you informed of the latest trends, tools and techniques in the online marketing space.
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Most Recent Blog Entries:
1 Going from C to A
2 The Question of Integration 3 Is Social Media Right for You?
Going from C to A
Search Engine Marketing, blogs, pop-ups, pop-unders, linking strategy, permission marketing, deep linking, email marketing... Know a lot? Know a little? Don't know what you don't know? You're not alone. A recent USA Today/Responsys interactive poll finds that most marketing professionals gave themselves a grade of "C" when asked about their understanding of e-marketing. With all the information about all of the ways to market your brand online, just the thought of thinking about it can be overwhelming. We're going to change that and help you give yourself a better grade.
This is the first installment of the Online Marketing Survival Guide a true guide to finding your online direction, developed by marketing professionals for marketing professionals. With an eye on what's new and what it means to you, we'll give you the 411 on what's hot and what's not, and our opinion on why it's relevant to you. In order to make this the most useful to you, we'll also ask your opinion and share thoughts and questions from other marketing professionals.
We'll be sending a new chapter every month, so keep an eye out for the next installment. And in good marketing practice, let us know if you don't want to receive the Survival Guide in the future but remember we'll do the homework for you. Getting an "A" in online marketing couldn't be easier.
The Question of Integration
It occurred to us that a lot of marketers (including us) use the "I" word but often in very different ways. We use the word so often that sometimes we don't realize we are using it. We asked around for a definition of Integration and heard the following: "It's all marketing functions working together"; "It's a communication that works across all channels" and perhaps our favorite "I know it when I see it". Let's have some integration and everyone will be happy...YES!....integration.
We don't claim to be THE integration experts, but we feel we can share some observations and try to develop a single vernacular. In our humble opinion, it all boils down to two areas.
1) To produce integrated work, you need to integrate how you work. (Integration begins internally between your Marketing team, your Information Technology team, and your business managers.)
Today, consumers are determining HOW and WHEN they want communication. One click and you're gone. Marketers are, and should be, demanding the following abilities from their internal IT teams, partners, and vendors:
Ensure that your brand is represented consistently across all touch points ("your brand" is any experience a consumer has with it)
Measure and report on ROI
Modify campaigns "on the fly"
Provide a 360-degree view of your customer
Segment and adapt messaging to your targets to make things more relevant to them.
Make better, faster, and more targeted decisions
Have relationships with customers
It is virtually impossible to do smart, sophisticated marketing without a strong technology support system in place (another topic for another day!).
2) Get to the idea and get there together. (Integration begins by developing the marketing idea with all marketing disciplines at the table.)
Whether you do your marketing in-house or partner with one or more agencies, the process to bring your big idea to bear should be the same. Don't send each discipline off into a silo and expect them to come back with anything breakthrough. Once in a while you might get lucky, but it won't hold up over time. To put a positive spin on this, select one strong leader to be your conductor," and, much like an orchestra leader, he or she should make sure that your media planner, your business strategist, your PR representative, your e-marketing strategist, your creative partner, and, finally, your interactive production team are all involved at the outset. We have seen this approach work time and time again.
