Commentary

Why An Integrated Strategy Will Always Outperform

In last week's column, I discussed a challenge that had been laid down before me, to pit social media against AdWords in a battle to the death. Commenter Michael Olson made the following astute observation: "I see SEM and social media as complementary strategies, and think organizations can have the most success by employing both in concert."

Complementary, indeed. In fact, the more holistic you can make your marketing efforts -- obviously, without spreading them too thin -- the better off you'll be. We all remember that old saying about advertising, that it takes 12 exposures to result in action; well, it still takes multiple exposures. Even with word of mouth, we often have to hear a message from multiple sources before we decide to try or buy. But with each successive exposure, our interest grows, until finally even the most hard-core laggard among us will give in and create a Twitter account or virtual farm.

advertisement

advertisement

This past week, I experienced an incredible phenomenon with a different customer, this one a values-based virtual world for children whose marketing is conducted entirely through social media. With a solid membership that had grown through word of mouth and a core of passionate, early-adopter evangelists, the company caught the attention of national television in New Zealand (where I'm based) -- and memberships tripled within a week.

A PR person might point to this with glee: "Old fashioned media relations FTW!" And, sure, that's the reductionist view. The systems view, however, is that without the social media, there would be no story for traditional media to sink its teeth into. Further, without social media -- and its accompanying facilitation of long-term customer engagement and relationships -- there would be no chance of turning those traditional media fly-by-nighters into a new wave of passionate evangelists.

My friend Richard Cardran is one of those people whose insights are like a mini-MBA every few minutes. Twitter's fine, says Richard, as is Facebook, YouTube, and all the rest of them. Where they really start to get exciting, though, is where you interconnect everything, where you start to leverage the network effects made possible by having access to so many different channels for relatively little cost.

This is a concept I hammer again and again with my social media clients. Forget about just trying to drive traffic to the destination site. We need to reframe our definition of success, so that instead of a destination site we have an online brand ecosystem, and wherever a customer or potential customer comes into contact with our brand, they're treated to the totality of the brand experience.

And just as the social media foundation paved the way for the traditional media coverage, and just as the results of the traditional media coverage were then embraced and supported by the social media infrastructure, search is supported by all your other marketing activities.

The last click is not the only click. It's often not the first click. It's the culmination of whatever brand impressions your customer has received all down the funnel. If you can tie social, traditional, SEO and SEM together, I'm willing to bet your results will outperform the same dollars thrown into just one of those channels.

What has your experience been implementing integrated, holistic marketing campaigns? Have you struggled with a dilution of resources or have you witnessed the power of network effects? Let me know, here or @kcolbin!

5 comments about "Why An Integrated Strategy Will Always Outperform".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Thomas Pick from Webbiquity LLC, March 2, 2010 at 10:41 a.m.

    Outstanding post Kaila, you echo the concepts I share with clients as well. Solid SEO and SEM will get a company two links on the front page of Google. However, an integrated strategy involving online PR, blogs, social bookmarketing and social networking, online profile sites and other tools can provide links beyond those two. Not just using these tools, but interconnecting them is what makes them powerful. I've written about the concept here, if you're interested: http://webbiquity.com/web-presence-optimization/what-is-webbiquity-how-to-be-everywhere-online/

  2. Douglas Cleek from Magnitude 9.6, March 2, 2010 at 11:41 a.m.

    Great article and insight.

    Seeing the exact same results with an integrated approach as you have indicated with clients. In fact it is full circle. We're also using analytics and SEM to inform some of the Social Media efforts. The end result: lift in search metrics, traffic and leads.

  3. Adam Gordon from The Oya Group, March 2, 2010 at 11:47 a.m.

    I think that it is great that the SM and SEO gangs are coming to the realization that many of us in the branding world have realized for a long time; multiple media, correctly used, will drive more awareness and action than any individual media on its own. 9-12 impressions before anyone will take action on your behalf; maybe 1/3 of your outreach efforts actually reach the target market individuals. Thus, the math is easy (even us marketers can do it!); 27-36 outreach efforts to hit the 9-12 mark. But, if some of those aren't branded well, then they don't count towards the total. Yes, marketing is more effective with solid branding across multiple media and, guess what? All of these new channels will be, once the fan-froth dies down a bit, simply more channels for smart marketers to make use of. All with their own values, impacts, and benefits for our clients.

  4. Adam Gordon from The Oya Group, March 2, 2010 at noon

    It's great to see that you SM and SEO gangs are coming to see what we brand marketers have been saying for a long time. Multiple media, used correctly, will outperform any single media every time. Jay Levinson (the guy who invented the Marlboro man) has said for years that it takes 9-12 touches before anyone will act on your behalf; and that any one particular target market member might see 1/3 of your outreach attempts. So, the math is easy (even for us marketers!); it takes 27-36 outreaches before you touch anyone 9-12 times. Doing over multiple channels works better, IF the touches are branded strongly enough that each one is recognizable as coming from the advertiser--poorly branded touches don't count. Now the the fan frenzy over SEM and SM seems to be dying down, we'll see that these are simply new channels to be added to the other marketing tools in the toolkit; each tool has its appropriate uses, benefits, values, proper uses, etc.

  5. Mark Powers from 118id, March 5, 2010 at 12:48 p.m.

    Great article. @Douglas: you nailed it. For the past 2 years we've led with our Digital Optimized Targeting Strategy™ which integrates SEM, Metrics and Social Media. It's nice to finally see the rest of the world starting to catch up.

Next story loading loading..