Integrated Marketing

I just had a rather shocking phone call.

I accepted a cold call from a possible service provider that eventually requested my email address to send his promotional materials. While I wasn’t looking for his services at this time, I liked what he said and I thought I might have need for his services in the future and so I agreed that he could send me his info. Congratulations, he got to first base.

I did not however want to give out my email, as I have been overwhelmed with too many unwanted solicitations. Instead I requested that he mail me his material so that I could keep it on file. (Yes, some of us do still use paper from time to time, and I find it easier for this sort of thing). His response completely floored me! “Well, if you can’t provide me with your email, then your not the kind of client we want”, he said very abruptly.

What could possibly have been a new client for this vendor, resulted in a dead end and bad feelings about his company. While marketers cannot possibly customize their delivery vehicle for each and every customer, you cannot expect everyone to be open to just one method of communication.

Just as children learn in different ways, people vary in how receptive they are to new ideas from different media sources and marketers need to realize this. Some consumers see a commercial on TV, research it online and then buy in a brick and mortar store. Others will zap all commercials, but will rip ads from magazines that they read while relaxing and then buy online. Still others rely solely on social and digital media.

Each consumer has their own buying process and that same consumer usually doesn’t shop the same way all of the time. Most marketers know how important it is to reach customers repetitively to truly be effective. What is often missed is that within one demographic there are many shopping types. Cross marketing with a variety of media provides opportunities for marketers to reach their audience in a way that is most comfortable for the audience, not the marketer.

By integrating online, print, collateral, experiential and brand marketing, you can reach each consumer in a way that they are most receptive and allows them to respond in a way that is most comfortable for them.

Many companies thought they were proactive by moving their advertising budgets away from traditional marketing to online. While we all know that there are many advantages to online marketing, it has several short falls as well.

In the last few years, while technology and the online commercial environment have been moving at hyper speed, there has been a shift in the way businesses interact with their market. Not only have the number of marketing channels expanded at a record pace, but the ways that companies use these channels to interact with their customers has changed as well.

Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Youtube and blogs are just some of the places companies go to interact with their audience. The cost is low and the reach is great, but the content and recall are both highly limited and unpredictable.

While the internet allows for a more customized, interactive, targeted and measurable marketing approach, it does not offer the concise brand building experience consumers have stated they relate to. The convenience of having a well thought out message delivered in 30 seconds, complete with a tag line to sum it all up, does not exist in the online world. The nature of internet usage requires far more of the users’ time and patience to understand and absorb the marketer’s message.

Most consumers live in both the online and offline worlds, switching back and forth for their own convenience. Having a separate and well-coordinated presence in each marketing environment will reinforce the message, address the interests of the consumer at that moment, and still provide lots of metrics to measure.