Integrated Marketing: What Does That Really Mean? #SESLON
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Integrated Marketing: What Does That Really Mean? #SESLON

21st February 2013

Speakers: Lee Odden (moderator), Ammon Johns, Norm Johnston, Judith Lewis, Andy Mihalop

This session was a panel discussion focused on defining integrating marketing.

With the surge of new terminology, such as inbound marketing, SEM, content strategy, content marketing etc, it’s causing a lot of ambiguity with SEO – what is SEO and where does it fit in these days? Is the term now integrated marketing?

Question: Content marketing and SEO are very different things, but if people are trying to rename is SEO, does that mean it’s dead or has it just evolved?

Answer: The major thing that has changed is that before you could be an SEO and just do SEO, whereas now you need to be looking at quality metrics, content, CRO and the whole picture. However, Ammom will not be changing his job title – he considers himself an internet marketing consultant.

Answer 2: Ultimately, Google is trying to deliver the best possible results, so it’s important for us to evolve. Part of the evolution is a cultural shift, Moneysupermarket have an integrated department called organic performance, which brings together content, SEO, technical SEO, PR, online PR etc. Integrating the different departments has helped people to think in a different way and achieve things by working together.

Answer 3: Renaming can act as a catalyst – people can use the new terms to generate excitement. Mindshare are both offline and online, so they have a different operational view. It’s key to try to configure the talent and integrate the tools and principles into a one stop shop. For Mindshare it’s become a broader landscape and the key is how can you bring everything together.

Answer 4: Beyond was formed with the intention of integrating everything from UX and design to offline marketing and they’re now referring to her interally as online acquisition – however she still considers herself as a search professional.

If Judith isn’t working across all channels, her search performance is suffering – so integration has to be at the core of their ethos.

Question: What causes the need for integration? What’s driving integration?

Answer 1: The consumer is driving the need for integration, the landscape has changed and the consumer is now using their smartphone whilst watching TV. Treating user behavior in siloes is not taking the full opportunity.

Answer 2: The integration is wisdom-lead, people have found that an integrated approach works. These days all kinds of promotional activity are affecting online marketing, if you’re not integrating online with offline you’re missing a big opportunity.

Answer 3: Getting offline advertising to have online call to actions is becoming more common, and the key is tracking how people are interacting. People are also using data from online channels to identify what people are interested in and then using it to optimize offline marketing too.

Answer 4: Customer behavior is changing and the way people navigate around the internet is changing – harnessing and leveraging data is key. If you have amazing data and insight, it will start to drive efficiency.

Leo Odden (moderator): When people make the connection between the data and how it can help search, they’re achieving much better results.

Question: Have you seen any exceptional integrated campaigns that have achieved great results?

Answer 1: Nike has been revolutionary – the work they did around the Olympics was exceptional, they did a great job of wrapping their content around the Olympics and they did well integrating real time data online and then using it offline.

Answer 2: Mercedes are doing a great job of linking TV with social – they’ve had some great ad campaigns that has lead people to Twitter.

Answer 3: Red Bull have also done a great job.

Answer 4: There are lots of great examples of people who are using hashtags to generate Twitter coverage and then channeling people from Twitter onto their website.

Question: Do you think QR codes will be further integrated in the future?

Answer 1: There have been some great examples, however it’s not clear whether it’ll grow. The penetration isn’t there yet and it’s hard to get people to action.

Question: What challenges have you found in getting teams to work together and buy-in to the bigger picture?

Answer 1: It’s not easy, it takes time and there’s definitely not a silver bullet solution. Moneysupermarket have really changed the structure of their organization and the key was getting senior management to buy-in to the changes. They also started out with some integrated campaigns before they became one integrated team. The process has taken around one year to complete and be able to work together as well team. The structure of the team has changed as to how they initially thought it would be.

There are multiple levels in the team as people still need to be accountable for campaigns and projects. The biggest thing was around change management.

Answer 2: Having someone who is responsible for planning has helped to integrate the teams. One of the biggest issues was that some of the teams are very different people, not everyone wants to work with huge amounts of data. It’s important that people recognize that the other teams or people can help to improve their output.

Answer 3: There’s an old phrase; it’s amazing how much good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit. People want the credit and that’s something that needs to be addressed. It’s important to understand the value that people within your company have – everyone can blog and everyone can share content.

Answer 4: It can take up to three years, however you learn a lot from the integration. It’s important to make everyone else look awesome, otherwise you won’t get the buy-in.

Question: Do you have examples where personalization has been key for clients?

Answer: It’s difficult to personise content in a cost-effective way. For most of the agencies in London it’s difficult to scale quality content production as it becomes too expensive.

Question: Are there situations where it makes sense to be more channel specific?

Answer: There’s a place for an integrated approach and taking a very specific approach, specialists still have their role. It’s important to step back and ask the question: what matters for our business?

As search marketers it’s important that we understand the value of integration, however sometimes, especially within some verticals, it’s important to work alongside people who have a better understanding of the landscape. We need to step back and examine the requirements before we jump into things.

Question: How can you attribute the value to both PR and search marketing? What experience do you have of integrated attribution?

Answer: PR professionals have a great skill for building relationships, we can rely on them to pick out a great headline / angle and they can get the content out there. PRs have skills that can support SEOs and there is an opportunity to work together.

Answer 2: In the past, you’d always hire different agencies and now you’re looking for a team. PR people need to have KPIs which are based on a target and there is room for both SEOs and PRs to add value and gain attribution.

Answer 3: It’s important to have a good measuring framework and also understand the role that both parties are playing. Everyone needs to be clear on the framework that’s being used – it’s also important to measure different channels in different ways as they play different roles.

NB: Read Lee Odden’s book, Optimize, it covers this topic in detail.

Question: Is there anything to replace a QR code as a call to action for offline content?

Answer 1: It’ll be interesting to see how FourSquare can evolve and play a part in geo-targeting.

Answer 2: One of the challenges with new technologies is that a lot of people don’t adopt it, however there’s an appeal to go with it before it goes mainstream.

Answer 3: Smartphones have become the norm and they’ve changed how conventional marketing works.

Answer 4: NFC steps outside of advertising, however it could be integrated within the landscape. One of Judith’s clients (travel) see NFC being a big thing for travel.

Question: Is there still a role to create something amazing that makes people adapt? Or should we be adapting to consumer behavior?

Answer: There’s an opportunity to adapt with social data, as we can understand what people want, think etc. A lot of people are using social data to predict trends and also tailor products and services.

All of the data-driven principles that have been a big part of SEO for years are now becoming big in other forms of media.

Answer: Data-driven marketing is spreading and it’s a huge shift for marketing. It’s important to think about skills and structure within organisations to ensure that you’re able to adapt to data. Understanding consumer behavior is fundamental for marketing, interpreting data is important.

Question: Do you think TV advertising will become more integrated with digital?

Answer: The reality is that TV is not declining like everyone says, the Nielsen data available illustrates that people are watching more TV than ever before.

Answer: There is room for someone to innovate in that space, there has been technology which has failed but there are opportunities with different devices.

Answer: The way that we use our TV has changed massively, the TV experience will be fully adopted in terms of using different internet-driven features.

One actionable tip from each of the speakers:

Judith – Tip on planning: Don’t be afraid of stepping on people’s toes, you need to step back and look at the big picture otherwise you won’t be able to plant something big.

Ammon – Tip on creation: User generated content is a great resource if it’s managed correctly. People need to be rewarded for outputting good content, it will help your community to grow.

Andy – Tip on execution and attribution: It’s important that there’s someone that owns the project to ensure that execution is optimal. It’s also important to centralize data and look at automation. Think about how you can use technology to improve your output.

Norm – Tip on measurement: It’s really important to draw things together to generate the patterns that you can’t see.

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Written By
Paul Rogers currently works as the Organic Performance Manager for Buyagift PLC. Before joining Buyagift in June 2013, Paul spent three years working for GPMD (a London-based ecommerce agency) as Head of Digital Marketing.
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