marketing in the round

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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Why Marketing in the Round, Anyway?

Gini and Geoff Social Life Pic

It is the final day to enter and win one of 10 free autographed copies of Marketing in the Round on Goodreads! As a special treat, co-author Gini Dietrich will autograph the books, too! So what are you waiting for? In addition, Gini will be our guest hostess for this post, and moderate all comments. Enjoy your time with one of the social web’s best!

One of the most common questions Gini and I got during our book tour last Spring was why did you call the book “in the Round?”

We needed to figure out a way to convey the of a convening of the marketing function. The collective meeting unites disparate departments and silos in and out of the marketing function to integrate multichannel strategies.

So we took a card out of the theatre world, and dubbed the meeting, “Marketing in the Round.”
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Break Open and Dominate Your Market

Congratulations to Michael Phelps

Win one of 10 free autographed copies of Marketing in the Round on Goodreads!

Brands often falter after they achieve success and notoriety.

This represents a classic strategic error. Once a market breaks open, a brand should push through, separate from the pack, and absolutely dominate its marketplace.

That’s what makes for a company that becomes a permanent force in its market.

First place is the envy of all competitors in business.
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Big Dreams and SMART Goals

Above the Clouds

Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) differentiate stellar companies, says Jim Collins in his timeless classic, Good to Great. They’re also the things that drive business marketers nuts.

How can a big dream become attainable and time bound?

In Welcome to the Fifth Estate we talk about SMART goals (chapter authored by Kami Huyse), and in Marketing in the Round we add the ER (evaluate and reevaluate) to discuss SMARTER goals (brought to the conversation by co-author Gini Dietrich). SMART/ER Goals focus on Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound objectives.

BHAGs and SMART goals don’t have to conflict with each other. From the strategist’s perspective, far from it.
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Marketing Fundamentals: Blocking and Tackling

Tackle
Image by Infadelic

People want to win marketing and PR accolades, but they don’t even know how to communicate on a basic level.

It’s a failure to block and tackle.

That’s the problem with today’s marketing discussion, and why so many CMOs struggle to integrate new digital media tactics into the larger communications mix: We have many practitioners and thought leaders who talk well about one tactic like inbound marketing, but are clueless when it comes to the dozens of other marketing tactics at a CMO’s disposal.
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What CMOs Want: Better Social Integration & Analytics

The CMO Survey Reveals the Social Media Integration Gap

A few recent studies opened the CMO kimono, offering a glimpse into the top concerns on lead marketers’ minds. Not surprisingly, two primary issues are integrating social in a meaningful way into the larger marketing suite of tools (less than 10% in two studies think they’ve done it), and finding better analytics for measurement.
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My 40th Birthday

I turn 40 years old tomorrow.

Before I begin, in some ways this post discusses second chances. If you want to do something for my 40th, please donate $40 to DC Central Kitchen. Give someone an opportunity to get off the ground with a new job and life.

Frankly, it’s been a neurotic odyssey getting to my 40th birthday over the past three months. I’ve had a real hard time with this one, in large part because I don’t think I should be here.
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Death by Silo

Mad Men has to be my favorite TV show of the past decade, paying homing to the ad agency business in its formative years. It highlights the importance of great creative, ideas and writing that speak to customers while giving… Read More »Death by Silo