Blog

Successfully integrating online and offline marketing

Written by Mike Thursday, 01 April 2010 18:50

Thoughtful integration of all of your marketing efforts – both online and off - will produce better communications and deliver better results.

You can greatly enhance your marketing success by effectively integrating all of your marketing communications efforts – including both online and offline activities. Integrating traditional tactics in a marketing program has long been recognized as important if not critical. Today, the array of tactical choices continues to grow as online and interactive communications continue to expand and evolve. Carefully crafting and coupling your offline tactics with your online elements, can significantly enhance your results.

The key starting point is an encompassing strategic approach that is the basis for all of your selected activities, with a clear focus on your target customer. It’s critical to dig in and dig deep to understand your customer, and from a marketing point of view, their communications vehicles and channels of choice – what they like, use, accept, trust and respond to. Where and how do they get information? What do they read, what events do they participate in, what Internet sources do they value? What do they believe in? By gaining this understanding you’ll be able to select the combination of online and offline vehicles that will broadly and effectively reach your target.

This understanding will also help you put together messages that will resonate with your customer audience. Most marketers have a handful of core messages that are essential to get across – by coordinating them within and across multiple delivery mechanisms you create a coordinated, unified “voice”. Keep in mind that with the hundreds of messages that your customer sees every day, you compete for attention in a very noisy environment. Coordinating your messages increases the chance for your customer to connect the dots and remember yours. You do have to make your messages creative and attention grabbing to stand out, but also quickly and easily grasped and believed. Recognize that your customers are all individuals and that what is effective with some won’t necessarily be effective with all. Therefore you need to make your tactical mix as broad as you can to get the greatest reach. And don’t forget that communication is a two-way street – sending and receiving – so build response opportunities and mechanisms in as you put your messaging in together.

Online efforts such as e-marketing, digital advertising, search engine marketing and social media can be seamlessly integrated with traditional offline efforts such as print and broadcast advertising, direct marketing and event marketing. The key is to take full advantage of what each tactic uniquely offers, so that the messages and concepts are not simply mirror images that repeat the same things in different deliveries, but rather unique deliveries that embellish the central theme and expand the messaging. A couple examples: effective print ads deliver tightly focused but 2-dimensional messages – the more concise the better – but can also steer readers to websites and landing pages where the core message is expanded with additional detail, as well as digital and interactive imagery; social media provides a great platform to communicate, position and promote events and related activities, and can be easily fed by other advertising, promotion and publicity efforts. Online activities offer additional opportunities to enhance messaging through interactivity and the ease of connecting to additional online vehicles, through embedded images, videos and links. Events and trade shows offer a wealth of pre-show, at-show and post-show integration opportunities, by utilizing and integrating nearly every other tactical element in your mix.

The benefits of integration remain essentially unchanged: better and more coordinated delivery, greater reach and more memorable messaging, greater ultimate connection with your customer base. And the new, evolving tactics provide more effective ways to dramatically bring your messages to life. Taking advantage of the interactivity afforded by new technologies and delivery mechanisms - along with the traditional – combined with thoughtful and creative integration can help you get the most out of your marketing efforts.

Why chose a small agency?

Written by Judy · Wednesday, 03 March 2010 16:54

It’s really important for clients and agencies to find the right fit. (I know, I’m preaching to the choir.) Clients are looking for marketing solutions, creativity and the best value for their money. Agencies of any size, large or small, are looking for relationships where the chemistry is right to be a marketing partner.

That said, why choose a small agency?

I like to think of the small agency as similar to a small, hip, non-chain restaurant. It’s usually the chef’s talent and passion that’s drawn the customers there. The staff is there because of the one-of-a-kind bistro environment, versus the often-impersonal chain approach. An intimate experience, tables are few and close together. A special night out…not everything for everybody.

This is pretty much the same for a small agency. The talent that founded the agency has a passion, just like the chef. This passion attracts and fuels the other talent. The small agency folks are averse to the large agency "system". They take pride in being more personal, nimble and responsive. A non-chain restaurant.

This culture means that the small agency prides itself and feeds its ego by becoming an extension of the client. To work best, they like to assume a role as your business partner, not just a vendor.

The biggest failure

Written by Jason · Wednesday, 17 February 2010 10:15

I was watching a lecture by Sir Ken Robinson on TED (click here to view, it is pretty interesting) on how our education systems kill our creativity. He made a statement that has been a recurring theme in my creative life, "If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with something original."

In this world of tight deadlines, client demands, pressures of faster, quicker, cheaper, and just the fact that this is a business first and foremost, we creatives from time to time find ourselves playing the safe card just to get through. It is a sin we all commit. Unless we are diligent we will take the path of least resistance. We have to make conscious decision to push our ideas away from the typical.

So today I'm just reminding you all. The biggest failure is never failing.

It’s going to take some guts

Written by Judy · Wednesday, 14 October 2009 16:23

tactic

To do their jobs and conscience right, marketing folks are going to have to dig deep and push back to their corporate rule that now more than ever is the time to focus on strategy. The marketing plan and strategy with measurable goals should be the all time priority right now during this doom and gloom. Not the low hanging fruit tactics which folks quickly and easily latch on to. It’s going to take some backbone. Marketers like everybody else, are in fear of losing their jobs. So saying “Why do we do it this way…” is going to take some guts. But in the end it will benefit their company and their careers.

jaiin's first crush

Written by Jason · Friday, 09 October 2009 14:13

I've been making wine at home for a little over a year, up to this point only kits and fruit wines. This year I've taken the plunge and ordered 200 lbs of Cabernet Sauvignon, from the Central Valley California. Enlisting my friends and family as low cost labor, we've crushed, fermented, and pressed them into 13 gallons of wine. With a little more work, a lot of patience, and the willingness of the wine gods, we'll have wonderful wine for a 2011 release.

Gettin’ jiggy

Written by MAG · Thursday, 01 October 2009 00:00

Workamajig – what a great name (and logo)! And what a great platform. We’ve been busy learning and applying the Workamajig ‘web-based project management software’ system designed for agencies. And it’s really a whole lot more than a project management system – it’s really an ERP system for an agency. It encompasses everything we do on a daily basis in doing creative work for our clients – from project start to finish – literally everything we do and all of our processes and activities.

MAG attends HD EXPO 2009

Written by MAG · Tuesday, 29 September 2009 00:00

The IFAI Expo is the premier hospitality market industry event with exhibitors showcasing their innovative products and services. Our client was attending. We walked the show to see trade show booths and promotional approaches to further develop a strategy for this market and next year’s show. There’s nothing like really being there. Oh by the way, we don’t charge our clients for this kind of activity. It’s part of doing our job.

Sally likes to think of herself as semi-retired – not laid off

Written by Bob · Tuesday, 22 September 2009 00:00

sally

When Sally was laid off from work last March she took it pretty hard. Didn’t know why she wasn’t headed out to the car every day. But after a while she’s started getting not only used to it, but really seems to like it. Trades off her time chasing the cat, going to doggie day care, playing with Budda the boxer next door, and generally harassing all furry or feathered creatures. She’s thinking of it more now as semi-retirement. When the car pulls out, back to bed.

Mike in Hoboken and NYC

Written by Mike · Wednesday, 02 September 2009 00:00

Long weekend with Todd and Kim in Hoboken and time in the city – always fun, interesting, amazing and exhausting. And as always, unique ad and marketing vehicles were in abundance. NY aquarium, SoHo shopping, Hoboken history museum (small but very interesting), sushi and pomegranate dragons in Hoboken’s Sushi Lounge, Peruvian dinner in the East Village, Belgian beer bars, all terrific. We had brunch in Hoboken with a great view across the Hudson at the city – ironically just a week before the tragic helicopter and small plane crash over the river.

Groundhog week

Written by Judy · Tuesday, 18 August 2009 00:00

groundhog

The gardens at Bob’s house are a lot happier now that ground hogs are getting caught in Bob’s humane trap. In one week he’s caught 3 of them (and by the way released each of them humanely at the city park). Even two of them in one morning. Heard the trap snap once. Removed the ground hog over to the city park. And then re-loaded and “snap” again. Must have been the one looking for the other. They’re long gone now.