Category Archives: Integrated Marketing

Are You Where Your Customers Are?

Posted on May 2, 2012 by
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We have reached one of the best times to be in the marketing and advertising field ever.  Ok maybe it would have been kind of cool to be an Ad Man in the 60′s drinking and smoking all day, with what seems on Mad Men, little to no work ever getting done.  Back to reality, we have reached a time when the consumer is pretty much connected to some form of media the entire time they are awake.  It used to be the only time to reach a customer was in the morning when they read the paper, in their car to and from work, and while watching television at night.  Now with smartphones, tablets, laptop computers, and gaming consoles, we are seem to be always connected to some form of media.   So the question becomes, how do you reach your customer throughout their day?

I-Media Connection  had a great video on 3 reason TV and Digital need each other.  This is an interview with Kristian Magel, EVP, director national broadcast, at Initiative U.S., talks about video relying on digital marketing.  Kristian is talking about working with large companies, but it is very easy to take it down to a small business level.  Some of the great tips that can be received from this video is that it is not a immediate solution, it takes time to figure out exactly how your content is going to be consumed by the customer.  It is very important to watch what is going on with your social channels, see how your customers are understanding your message and how they are transferring it from one medium to the other.  It is all about extending the conversation that you are having with your customers.  Let your customer be the guide.  Another really good point in this video is that there needs to be an integration of digital and traditional with in your company.  For too long they have existed in separate silo’s.  These two departments need to be working together for the same goal and on the same strategic plan.  There are so many new techniques and tools out there, what an exciting time to be in this industry.  Please share your experience with integrating digital and traditional marketing or hurdles that you are hitting in trying to integrate the two.

 

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Categories: Integrated Marketing | Tags: , ,

Online Spend Increases Past Print

Posted on April 17, 2012 by
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For the first time, online ad spend has increased over print ad spend.  This is the true measurement that it is time that marketing activities must become integrated.  The trouble that most marketers are having with the integration of online and offline is that these two industries view what their roles are as completely separate, and that separation can be quite large at times.  For the sake of the client, this gap has to narrow and it has to do so quickly.  There is no one channel that fits for everything that is needed to mount successful campaigns.

The key to marketing is getting your message in front of the right person (your customer profile) at the right time (where they are at in the buying cycle) and since we never know where they are (seeing a billboard, reading a magazine, on a search engine, reading a blog, etc) it is foolish at best, negligent at worst to not begin strategically looking at your marketing efforts across all of the channels that are available to your customer.

You can bet your competition is!

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Categories: Integrated Marketing, Marketing

Warm up your leads

Posted on April 4, 2012 by
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I am not going to lie or sugar coat this statement; I HATE MAKING COLD CALLS! To me cold calls are a necessary evil.  I can’t do my job with out sales leads, I depend on them to get me in front of potential customers.  There are a few ways to cultivate a sales lead.  First a referral from someone you know or are doing business with.  Second is meet a potential client at a network event, strike up a conversation and see if there are any ways you can help them.  Third is to look on the internet, phone book (old way but does work), or any other way to find a company or person you think your product or service can help and cold call them.  The first two would be considered warm leads, since there is a common interest, common person, or something that you already have in common.  Mainly you don’t have to start with a sales pitch.

Read more …

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Categories: Integrated Marketing, Marketing | Tags: , ,

Great Headlines, How Much Are They Worth?

Posted on March 21, 2012 by
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I am sucker for a good headline.  When it peaks my interest I will click on it in a second.  I have had an interesting experience over that past few days.  One of the accounts that I recently started following on Twitter has some of the most attention getting tweets.  They are really good at getting me to read their tweet and act upon it.  The problem is that no matter what their headline all their tweets go to either their Facebook page or the process page on their website.  Neither page has anything to do with what any the headline were all about.  I end up leaving the page with in two seconds and did not go back.  After being duped four or five time, I stopped reading their tweets.  Having a great headline will get people to your door, but if there is nothing to back it up, they will turn around and may never come back.

As we talked about yesterday in our blog Email One Step At a Time, the headline needs to sell the reader on opening the message.  The saying “you can give a man a fish and he will eat for day or you can teach a man to fish and he will eat forever” comes to mind.  Headlines can bring people to your business, but if you want to convert them to a customer, then you need to give them good quality content that is what they are looking for.

As for the company that I was following on twitter, my advice would be to put together a plan of what you want to talk about on twitter, and then match your headlines with article, blog post, or white papers that back up your headlines.  In the world of internet marketing content will always be king.

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Categories: Integrated Marketing, Online Marketing Strategy, Web Strategy | Tags: ,

VW Uses Online To Assist Brand Growth

Posted on December 9, 2011 by
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As the story goes at last years auto show in Detroit the President of VW America predicted that VW sales would double by 2013.  A bold prediction in any industry, let lone the auto industry that has been rocked by poor performance in the recent economy.

Apparently, VW knew exactly what they were talking about.  For the first 10 months of this year sales are up over 24%.  So what does that have to do with online marketing?  Much of the credit for this growth is given to the Darth Vader campaign.  And the success of the Darth Vader campaign’s success is attributed to the online channel.  VW decided to air the Darth Vader commercial on the Super Bowl but couldn’t get a full :60 second spot so they trimmed the commercial in half to fit the Super Bowl, but the overall impact of the spot wasn’t as powerful so VW put the full :60 second spot on the Internet and as they say the rest is history.

The :60 second spot is the spot that is most remembered when customers are surveyed.  A last minute idea to fix the limited time available through the traditional channel attributed to the us chess of a campaign.  In fact the Darth Vader spot has had more than 43 million vies on YouTube.  The perfect integration of online and offline.

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Categories: Integrated Marketing, Online Advertising

Every Agency Needs To Look At Earned Media

Posted on November 28, 2011 by
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Integrating Online and Offline

Marketing Integration

An article in a recent Ad Age talked about the need for every Agency to hire an Earned Media Director.  It’s a bit easier said than done if your not a global agency billing out millions of dollars!  However, the point that they were trying to make is that the integration of online and offline is alive and well and integrating earned media into your offline campaigns will bring a nice opportunity for your agency.

Your client’s will be asking for this service, if their not already, and they need the service if they are going to stay in front of their competition.  If you don’t offer it they will have to go somewhere else!  What a shame that would be.

There is a better option than hiring yet another person, with all of the ancillary costs that people bring, Partnering with a full-service online marketing agency gives you the ability to offer earned media services, helping your client stay in the lead in their marketing, while not incurring any additional overhead to provide that service.  Self-Serving Plug

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Categories: Integrated Marketing