The web challenges conventional thinking on marketing and communication. It doesn’t make any sense to separate communication disciplines with PR, PA, corporate communication, advertising etc. One day your chairman talks about your annual report, then a product is launched and then crisis hits and the products is pulled. This all happens in the same place: the web.

Insight

The one shot piece of communication is over. The media landscape it too noisy, too cluttered. There are too many channels, too many choices and too much span.

How to apply

The Internet has brought marketing and sales closer together. You should no longer divorce sales, marketing, PR, advertising as separate discipline. eMarketing requires an understanding of these different fields and how they all lead to a business result.
- You need an integrated strategy where all the players in your organization (even the guys incharge of TV or print or Public Affairs) have the same overall measurable objectives – defined by business goals.
- Make the web a mandatory strategic hub of your marketing plan. Ok, this is a tough one but it is the only way to start pulling together the different threads of your communication activties into a focused a highly effective effort.
- Make sure everyone is on board for this. PR, sales, marketing, IT and product development; they should all feel that the site is the voice of your company – a voice that never stops talking, but does so in a human language not like a corporate clone.
- Never approve an advertising brief without having thought of how it was integrated in the web strategy.
- Make sure all your online and offline communication have an memorable URL on them.
- Think your communication and your customer interaction as dialog with a start, a continuous exchange, different cycles and different stories.
- When your customers follow a campaign URL, they should see the relevant content first. They must not get lost corporate information. A good standard practice is to create specific ‘landing pages’ for each campaign.
- When you create your next campaign

1. Think of the business objectives you want to achieve, write them down and share them with the whole team (from designers, to programmers, and all the relevant players internally)
2. Examine all the existing communication efforts that you are planning (brochures, flyers, site, e-mail, tv) - and make sure they are seamlessly connected to a business goal (with a URL visible on each piece of communication which drives traffic to your site)
3. Create a team of people from the different departments so that they can all help contribute to the campaign
4. Set clear and measurable objectives that you will be able to track (number of visits, registrations, sales leads, etc)
5. Make sure the whole team has regular access to information on the campaign progress – give them a digest of key information so people can react and adapt to change and opportunities
6. Encourage everyone to share new ideas of things they seen online that could be used for your campaign – on the web the true secret of success is learning by imitation

Sources & References

Want to raise landing page conversions by up to 40%? Here are step-by-step instruction
http://www.sherpastore.com/Landing-Page-Handbook-Raise-Conversions.html?8930
Cross media research
http://www.eiaa.net/research/cross-media.asp
The future for Agencies – Brand Republic, September 2006
http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/br/article/590547/the-future-agencies/
7 Ways to integrate online with TV
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/10908.asp
eBook from Brian J. Carroll : Start with a lead, eight critical success factors for lead generation
http://blogstartwithalead.com
“Attracting More Customers, how to create an irresistible “elevator speech” that attracts clients to you” from Jill Konrath
http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com/
RainToday.com. Online source for insight, advice, and tools for service business rainmakers, marketers, and leaders.
http://www.raintoday.com/
Free prize: The one peace of advice you can’t sell without This ebook gather views from 11 experts including Seth Godin
http://www.raintoday.com/pages/1562_download_the_one_piece_of_advice_you_can_t_sell_without.cfm?redirect=yes
Excellent white papers and articles on marketing and leadership.
http://www.whillsgroup.com/
eMarketing forum on business networking site OpenBChttps://www.openbc.com/net/emarketing2/

ZN eMarketing Agency can help you with your strategy and the integration of all your communication efforts
http://www.zn.be

Insight 5

Insight 7