convergence

7 Daunting Challenges Facing Marketers

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Marketing today remains a great challenge, in large part because of the consistently changing technology and media landscape. Informational sources (conferences, blogs, etc.) consistently address these challenges yet the issues persist.

It may be time to take a step back on a macro level and look at how education and information sources are meeting these challenges.

Here are the seven daunting difficulties for today’s communicators, each followed by an idea or three on how to address them. Please add your own thoughts.

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4 Reasons to Integrate Marketing Now

Two rivers converge
Image by Chiri_dr

Marketers need to harness media convergence and integrate to maximize the impact of their various communications, on and offline.

Convergence has been brought about by the arrival of mobile and social media. The combination has empowered customers to access the Internet anywhere and discuss it.

The resulting anytime anywhere access to the Internet breaks the isolation of any one type of media form, including radio ads in the car and newspapers in a local subway.

Convergence creates the need to integrate, the process in which all communications from a company or organization — regardless of form — work together to present a unified brand experience for a customer. Integration yields more leads, creating better ROI for marketers. It includes cross promotion of ideas, themes, and calls to action, including participation in social media.

A recent CMO Council study showed that only 9% of respondents believe their interactive marketing efforts are highly evolved and integrated. This online integration issue doesn’t even consider integrating marketers’ efforts in the traditional advertising, public relations and direct marketing disciplines.
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The Advertising vs. PR Debate Won’t Exist in 30 Years

Scott Blackmun, Katie Ledecky, Missy Franklin, Heather O'Reilly, Christine Brennan
USOC Chair and Olympic Gold Medal Winners Scott Blackmun, Katie Ledecky, Missy Franklin and Heather O’Reilly are interviewed by Christine Brennan.

Last Thursday night, USA Today celebrated its 30th birthday in grand fashion at the National Portrait Gallery. Media and Washington luminaries gathered to witness the introduction of the new multimedia USA Today, and discuss the future of media 30 years from now.

Olympians, politicians and even a budding rock star took the stage and weighed in from each of their profession’s perspective. Many focused on how technology was blurring the lines between in home and mobile, between small and large screen, and print and multimedia.

The conversation continued in a special section called USA Tomorrow with luminaries like Twitter and Square Founder Jack Dorsey discussing convergence of media and technology.

That was the big take-away for me, how convergence will force more fluid communication between people through media, even in politics. As this great discussion continued, I could not help but think about our side of the business, the dark side. Marketing.
Read More »The Advertising vs. PR Debate Won’t Exist in 30 Years