articles
25th September 2007
Online Marketing 3.0
Online Marketing Integration
By Pete Wailes, Adams CreativeRocking the boat
"The eMarketer report also forecast a rise in online advertising investment in 2008 of 22 per cent to $24 billion and a further boom in spending by 2011 to bring total online ad spend to $36.5 billion...." ¹
Like it or not, online marketing is here to stay, and it’s transforming the way we do business online. From search optimisation and Pay-Per-Click, to email marketing, whole industries have sprung up over the last ten years that we’ve never seen before, and marketing has undergone a revolution.
To succeed today, we must understand two things, and hold fast to them:
- All marketing affects all other marketing
- Consumers are more brand-loyal, but less retailer-loyal.
So how does this affect you? Put simply, a revolution is coming again, that will shake the marketing world as much as the advent of online marketing. However, whereas the last shift was like an earthquake, this one will be far more subtle.
At the moment, we have online marketing and offline marketing, PR, email marketing and direct mailing and so on. But to classify them in this way, to separate them into different groups is incorrect.
We need to start seeing all these activities as one single unit. It’s not online marketing, it’s marketing online. It’s not email marketing, it’s marketing through email. In this new light, something very interesting becomes apparent: everything that we do in our online marketing efforts affects everything else we do online.
Hitting the Mark
So what you really need to know is, how will this change things? Why is this change important?
Well, the first thing this means is that you need to check who’s doing your marketing, and who they’re talking to. If you’ve got poor communications, you’re being hamstrung, and badly. You need to look at marketing as one collective unit. It just makes sense to keep it all in one place, so if you’re using two or three or four agencies to manage your marketing activities, it may be time to take another look at what you’re doing.
Start out by trying to analyse what you really need. What marketing methods are current working for you? Where’s your industry headed? Where will you need to be in five years?
When you’ve got the answers, take your marketing efforts in that direction. If you need PR and online services, then go to an agency that does them both, and use them. If you’re doing a lot of media buying and television advertising, go with someone who can do both of those. The more things you can keep in one place, the better the results you’re going to get.
A whole new world
Harris Interactive and Tealeaf recently released the results of their annual survey of online consumer behaviour and transaction experiences. They found that 90% of consumers experience problems when conducting online transactions. Even more damning though was the fact that this figure has not improved in three years.
Further to that, more than two thirds (42%) abandon their transactions and in many cases, go to a competitor’s site instead. And the final nail in the coffin? The majority who called the customer services numbers to get their problems sorted found the agents didn’t understand their own sites, or how to solve the problem.
We have to lay the blame for much of this at the feet of communications breakdown across multiple agencies. Rather than using one company to design the site, one company do the search marketing, one handling email marketing and one for online PR, you need to start getting what you really need: solid, reliable, integrated solutions, tailored to your needs. The alternative is losing 90% of your customers.
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About Adams
Creative
Adams Creative is one of the South East’s leading online and offline marketing agencies. With a strong
London client base and offices in Maidstone, Ashford and Hastings, the agency manages online and
offline marketing campaigns. Specialist in-house teams provide expertise in digital media, online
marketing, search marketing, advertising, print design, media buying, public relations, direct mail,
event and exhibition management, for many leading Blue Chip companies.
Adams Creative works with clients in both the consumer and business-to business sectors, creating bespoke campaigns to suit each client’s specific objectives. Clients include Eurotunnel, ING, United Trust Bank, Balfour Beatty, Hilton Hotels, Novotel and The Kings Ferry Travel Group.
Call us on 01622 687729 to see how we can add value to your campaign.
1 – DirectTraffic.org - http://www.directtraffic.org/OnlineNews/Online_advertising_growth_
continues_to_dominate_18075428.html