INTEGRATED MARKETING
Is your business ready? Is your agency?
Businesses increasingly are embracing integrated marketing. A recent study by the Association of National Advertisers reports that integrated marketing communications is one of the most significant issues affecting business marketing decisions and planning today. At the same time, however, some marketing professionals admit that their own organizational structures haven't evolved enough to fully embrace integrated ideas throughout their companies and this appears to be true for their client counterparts, as well.
For both businesses and their marketing agencies, structural alignment is the key to developing smart, effective, integrated marketing campaigns.
What exactly is an integrated marketing campaign? Well, it starts with challenging the assumption that traditional marketing disciplines — such as print and TV ads, magazine and broadcast media buys — are the de facto foundation for a communications campaign. Instead, an integrated marketing campaign requires developing a media neutral or media agnostic approach. And, for best results, this change must take place across the company.
This means you — and your agency — must research and strategize creative ideas and solutions that best target your customers and align with their goals. The most effective solution may not include such old standbys as a TV spot or a direct mail card. Instead, you may consider a product extension idea, create a fresh approach to grow sales in a mature product category or stage an attention-getting event at a trade show. It's not just about print ads or press releases anymore.
Many businesses still don't have the internal structure necessary to leverage an integrated program and some advertising agencies offer a dated approach, as well. Here are some surprising stats from a 2006 Association of National Advertisers survey:
- Sixty-three percent of business marketers ranked organizational issues as the greatest challenge to successfully integrating their marketing efforts.
- Seventy-two percent felt the development of the big creative idea can be leveraged across all marketing channels and that this is one of the most important contributions an agency can make toward an integrated marketing campaign for its clients.
- Almost half of the businesses surveyed wanted their agencies to be media neutral when developing a marketing program.
- Sales data and return on investment analysis were seen as the most important measures of the effectiveness of an integrated marketing campaign.
The integration evolution has begun. Will you be part of it?
