Online Marketing Is for Everybody!
Budget Strategy and ROI (Part 5 of 6)
This series asks the tough questions about evolving marketing strategies and the benefits and returns you should expect and plan for.
Who’s in charge here?
When I speak to potential clients about how to craft a comprehensive online marketing strategy, I’m usually talking to a CMO, VP of Marketing, or someone else within the company’s marketing department.
The result is that their strategic vision for the company’s online spend is usually focused on selling the product or service. And while sales are indeed the goal of any business, this thinking misses the purpose and value of participation in the online world.
Invite everyone to the table
Marketing strategy can’t be the sole informer of online strategy. Remember, you should be building a reputation online, and a reputation includes an overall view of your business.
Online messaging should involve all aspects of your business: marketing, corporate communications, operations, sales, customer support (especially them), HR, and everyone else.
Companies that make an effort to share the many facets of their business within influential communities online succeed in building their brand and reputation.
All the things you never knew you wanted to know
Try to think of the multitude of discussions going on online not as a bazaar, but as one big networking event. People want to get to know you and your business if you speak openly to them.
Southwest Airlines has seen great success with a very comprehensive online strategy that includes a corporate blog, Twitter account, Facebook fan page, and several other channels. Their blog in particular, Nuts About Southwest, puts a very personal face on the company.
All areas of the enterprise are represented in blog posts from flight crews, to pilots, to desk workers. The blog allows the unique Southwest corporate culture to shine through, and they’ve grown a strong following through their comprehensive and very transparent online strategy.
Loyalty can only be earned and cultivated if all aspects of the subject in question are revealed and trusted.
The takeaway
A good corporate strategy online is more focused on relationship-building than selling stuff. Marketing is just one piece of an integrated online presence. Successful online strategies involve everyone.
My question to you
Who controls the online marketing strategy at your company? Is it inter-departmental?
About the author
Andrew Davis -
In 2002, Andrew founded Tippingpoint Labs with journalist James Cosco. Since then, he's spent countless hours exploring the online universe and building a methodological approach to developing digital strategies that drive revenue or reduce costs.
Andrew's always asking big questions and analyzing data to understand markets, online forces and even business models. Andrew's research has resulted in the creation of innovative online metrics including Online Brand Value and Category Brand Value, eye-opening graphical representations of website evolution through the New Media Life Cycle and even using online data to predict offline revenue.
When he's not surfing the web, Andrew's traveling the globe speaking to a wide-variety of audiences about everything from social media to the future of print. Andrew is a frequent contributor to the Tippingpoint Labs website and has been creating valuable content since the early 1990s for The Jim Henson Company, CNN, The Today Show and MTV.
He's contributed to a book of short stories, called The Way Things Were and produced and co-wrote Roadside Ambition a documentary film about one small town with two huge balls.
"In a world where content is consumed as rapidly as it's created, companies need to develop a sound strategy to creating valuable online experiences that can, and should, be leveraged enterprise-wide. There is a content solution to every business challenge."Popular Posts
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I talk to CMO’s in a similar way and I see the same challenges as you. I call it people thinking. What do people want and need to know about your company, the relationship is now about your companies people, not your brand. Still, it seems very hard for people to shift away from the product / brand mentality.
Julian,
Thanks so much for engaging on our blog. I’ll check out CCC to learn more about what you do and read some of your content. It is very hard to get clients to shift their thinking, but one way we’ve been successful is helping them understand how the world wide web view is changing. Here’s a quick video of what we often describe. Let me know what you think:
http://vimeo.com/5382543
Thanks again!
I am interested in your comment that marketing can’t be the sole informer of online strategy, as online needs to take into account all aspects of the business – operations, sales, support, HR…
Surely each of these functions is actually part of the marketing of the business – Every touch point, every communication driver and deliverer should be informed by (though not exclusively) the marketing strategy – which in turn should direct the choice of branding, positioning, messages and tactics.
I don’t talk to CMOs, VPs, etc., of major corporates – but the business owners of small biz. In some cases a fear of the ‘new’, their mistaken belief that having invested in traditional marketing they now need to shift focus and speed, is enough to put them off addressing the issue. Reinforcing that it is still marketing, that it still leads to sales, it is just that we have some new tools at our disposal to increase, hopefully, the effectiveness of what they do, can provide some comfort.
The biggest step, as it is with any other marketing activity, is to ensure that the business owner goes in with realistic objectives for what each tactic can achieve, and how that achievement is only part of the journey towards the ultimate business aim: sales.
Bambi,
Thanks for taking the time to write such a great comment! You are absolutely right! There is a lot of focus today on how to measure online success. We try to focus on only two ultimate measures for our client: increased sales or lower costs.
Starting with our clients goals, we have been much more successful in ensuring that whatever strategy we implement we actually know what they consider successful.
There is a lot of ‘fear’ on the part of many of the executives we talk to – in that they are concerned they are missing the boat. You’re right – these are just new tools to aid in the marketing process. As soon as we see our clients grasp hold of the new world view we have a much easier time helping them succeed online.
Thanks again for taking the time to write such a thoughtful comment. It’s really appreciated.
You are focusing on the only two measures that business owners and leaders really care about – increased sales or lower costs.
The great thing about the interdepartmental approach is that online messaging enables everyone in the company to more directly own those two key goals as well. Great post.
Mary Ann,
Thanks so much for commenting!
Glad you liked the post.
We’ve seen organizations embrace online strategies across departments as soon as they see the power they can wield online.
It’s been really fun!
Thanks,
Drew