What Does “Integrated Marketing” Mean?

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

The Business Dictonairy provides a pretty good summary definition of Integrated Marketing as “Strategy aimed at unifying different marketing methods such as mass marketing, one-to-one marketing, and direct marketing. Its objective is to complement and reinforce the market impact of each method, and to employ the market data generated by these efforts in product development, pricing, distribution, customer service, etc”

Although fairly comprehensive in scope, that definition lacks one key component of Integrated Marketing that really brings home the ROI.  Not only should it employ the market data generated by efforts for the benefit of sales, pricing, etc – the data should funnel back into the overall campaign elements to better inform targeting efforts overall – creating a continuous cycle of campaign improvement and a very long run-on sentence.

Integrated Marketing is about better leveraging your Marketing budget investment for improved results across the communication channels and beyond.  It’s a single message broadcast in many channels – online and offline – in the social, sales, marketing and PR spaces.  It requires customizing that message to suit the medium – and it requires intelligent design to incorporate measurement throughout.  It’s often complicated – and it’s always worth the effort.

Marketing Budget Metrics

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

You Get What You Give when it comes to allocating funds to the Marketing budget.

Many companies wonder what percentage of revenue should be allocated to fund Marketing efforts – and that answer is rarely straightforward or simple to answer. Research suggests an inverse relationship between company size and marketing allocation, with the variable for a proper marketing budget between 2% and 10% of sales.

As this is an important subject and clients are keen to get a concise, easily digestable answer, my pat response is this: the correct percentage (or amount) should correspond with what you’re looking to accomplish as a company. Big, hairy growth goals require adequate Marketing dollars to achieve – flat or declining sales require less.

In the final analysis, there is no magic number that will ensure adequate Marketing support and product sales success for your firm – that percentage is unique and will require some test-and-learn efforts to arrive at over time.

Closing the CMO/Agency Gap

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Gerson Lehman Group just published their Councils Report on Closing the CMO / Agency Gap: How Agencies Can Win Business and Build Stronger Client Relationships. The answer in a sentence: agencies should invest more in winning business – more time – more resources – more capital. The challenge of course for agencies is to do so in the most brutal marketing services environment in 100 years. Every CMO has the right to expect an agency to understand their business model, industry and related challenges before stepping into the ring to battle for their marketing budget. Every agency has the right to expect a fair, transparent and timely contest and opportunity to be judged on the value of their thinking, experience and execution. And then there is the real world where decisions are made based on relationships, based on political structures and based on the lowest bid. In the new business economy of 2010 – so many things are changing, they almost look the same – !

Is Video Replacing Facetime With Clients?

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

Advances made in technology, particularly over the past decade, have no doubt revolutionized much of the way we do business. It’s now so easy to handle most tasks from behind a computer that it almost seems as if there’s no point wasting energy on “face time.”

However, business at its heart is all about relationships, and there’s still no substitute for face-to-face contact when it comes to building those ties. Not only are you missing out on potential revenue by staying behind the desk, you’re also robbing yourself of continuing education, moral support, industry intelligence, personal fulfillment, and the serendipitous business opportunities that only arise when you take a few moments to meet someone new.

I’ll be curious to see how many business exchanges take place via the new iPhone 4 Facetime video feature – will that become the new ‘commonplace’ occurance in every Starbucks? Video in any form is a great supplement to personal meetings – but for my relationship dollar, you just can’t beat being there.