The digital marketing mix is top of mind for the obvious reasons of targeting and efficiency of spend.  A couple of traditional mix elements have recently caught my attention for innovation that seeks to achieve the same benefits of digital marketing in the offline mix.  Traditional direct mail is under attack not only from the efficiency angle, but also the environmental perspective.  I recently attended a very interesting presentation from the US Postal Service www.usps.com  which focused on driving efficiency into traditional direct mail.  A movement is under foot to convert the traditional direct mail model from pay per unit sent to pay per unit converted.  In other words, an advertiser doesn’t pay for postage unless the direct mail piece results in a conversion.  A less measurable perspective from a likely biased presenter:  direct mail is now exceptionally effective with millenials as a direct result of their living in a digital world; since they don’t get very much mail in the mailbox anymore, they are more likely to pay attention.  Also, a sound byte on the environmental impact of catalogs and direct mail: less than 2% ends up in landfills.

I heard an interesting opinion recently that in general, search engine optimization is more effective in reaching customers and prospects during the awareness stage of the purchase lifecycle and that paid search is more effective during the acquisition stage.  The implication being the message and context which accompanies the search result can be optimized to best anticipate the desire of the customer.  It will be interesting to see more research supporting this premise as I find myself negatively inclined to click on paid search banners as I find them generally more contrived and too direct in their engagement.  I react in this manner with full knowledge that the activities impacting natural search rankings make the result rankings no coincidence.  Maybe the ongoing evolution of the search algorithms provides a comfort level that I am not missing a better deal by clicking on the first banner I see-one that is an obvious advertisement.  On the other hand, if the paid search banner is a trusted source, I will readily click through and accelerate the sales cycle while avoiding potential competitive links.  There must be precedent from traditional advertising.  Judging from the stacks of car ads in the newspaper and the apparent continued effectiveness of inflatable guerillas on car lots, an in your face approach must be generating significant ROI.   The research and results will be interesting.

I recently viewed research data from leading search engine marketing agency which stated that over 70% of click throughs are driven by the first five results in an organic search listing, with paid search banner results for the same search ranking a distant third in overall click through rates.  An overwhelming case for an effective search engine optimization strategy to create and maintain effective organic search optimization.  The big question remains at what point does paid search need to play a role in the search marketing activities.  Does the ROMI play out to invest to own keywords beyond the optimization investment required to own and maintain first and second organic search listings?   The one thing paid search does deliver is certainty.  The third most effective search position can always be owned regardless of competitive activity or change in search engine algorithms.    The elasticity between paid search investment and investment and maintenance of organic search strategies to influence click through rates leading to more financially salient results is now a critical equation

With a barrage of web 2.0 options entering the digital marketing toolkit, it’s been challenging to sort out the relative impact of platforms like communities, social networking, blogs, wikis etc.  I’ve been trying to better understand the trade offs on blogs as a component of the marketing mix and now after months having passed since establishing a blog, I can provide a personal testament to what seems to be an underestimated investment of resource to create topical and relevant content in a timely enough manner to keep an audience engaged in dialogue.  A situation I see mirrored in the corporate blogosphere.  Without a ghost writer, it’s pretty challenging to populate, much less maintain, a blog as a part time pursuit. 

The successful blogs I’ve observed serve a very specific purpose to a very specific audience.  Rudimentary marketing, perhaps, but often overlooked as a tactics are deployed without strategy.  The siren song of new ways of reaching customers and prospects has created a web 2.0 checklist, now standard issue in an agency pitch.  A recent study from Forrester www.forrester.com entitled “B2B marketers fail the community marketing test” highlighted that only a fairly significant percentage of B2B marketers are using blogs.  What specific strategy to move prospects along the purchase cycle is enabled by a blog and how effective and measurable the result.     I also observe successful blogs are often times fueled by personal passion.  A function of staying disciplined in scope and focus and ensuring whoever is writing understands the unique vernacular of the target.  Passion and discipline attainable without dedicated focus?  I’ll test it for myself trying to keep up with what’s purported to be a key currency in the digital marketing toolkit as a side-exploit.

I've ended up in an interesting and unique position in the Marketing discipline.  I've had the opportunity to experience a multitude of Marketing functions firsthand.  Experience not broad and shallow from a consultant's perspective, but broad and deep from the perspective of the guy who owns the P&L, carries the sales quota, manages the budget, owes the channel partner a call back or needs to meet the publication's delivery deadline.  I've worked across the traditional functions of product development and management, promotion marketing and channel marketing. Marketing in the U.S., internationally and globally.  Across, B2B and B2C in one-step and multi-level distribution models.  Seasoned by dialog with interesting Marketing minds across client-side, agency- side and academia.

I have some ideas about Marketing, and specifically applying the power of a truly integrated marketing approach and am embracing new media to share those ideas and create interesting connections, evolutions and dialog.