• by mackenzie , Ted Shergalis , July 7, 2009

As consumers' time and attention gets divided and sub-divided across an expanding array of digital channels -- everything from "traditional" content sites and email, to social networks and comparison shopping engines -- marketers must find new ways of reaching their target audience across a sea of unprecedented fragmentation.

Brands can start the process by reexamining the consumer purchase funnel. Just a few years ago, that funnel had a fairly clear path: consumers were exposed to an array of advertising messages via various media, and advertisers bought those media using some variation of the battle-tested reach/frequency equation. Consumers were first made "aware" of your product and service, and then "converted" to purchase, all through your marketing efforts.

Anyone who sells a consumer product today, though, knows that the purchase funnel has been transformed by Internet search. An investigative period instigated by consumers themselves has become a key part of the new purchase cycle. This consumer search now both drives awareness and leads to conversion and purchase. The current economy has helped speed up this major behavioral shift, as consumers undertake even more research to make sure they get the best value for their dollar.

And search itself has changed. Your potential customers now search through entire product categories not only through search engines like Google, but also via comparison shopping sites like PriceGrabber, review sites like Yelp!, and social tools like Twitter and Facebook. Where the marketing process was once controlled by the seller (advertiser), it has been taken over by the buyer (consumer). And now that consumers have created this new search-centric, investigative cycle, in effect requiring all marketing to turn into direct response marketing, it's time for brands to adjust to the new reality.

As consumers conduct their investigative searches, they rank, adjust and refine their potential purchase options on the go. Real-time research can determine consumer motivations not only through which Internet channels they use, but also in what order they use them. For example, does a search precede clicking on a banner, or follow it? By examining such search patterns and other Internet behavior in combination with user demographics, marketers have the opportunity to reassemble their fragmented consumers into a coherent whole - while at the same time targeting each individual consumer's own interests. When they understand each potential customer's true intent and engagement level, they can start to predict which websites and applications will truly result in increased awareness, consideration and, yes, actual purchase.

Of course, building awareness and changing attitudes are admirable brand goals, but in order to drive the ultimate goal -- purchase of your product or service -- those steps must result in measurable action. By monitoring consumer behavior metrics on a real-time basis, you can construct a campaign that provides maximum ROI. But these days, we really should call it ROB -- Return on Behavior. Such performance marketing works by actively predicting future behavior, rather than just relying on past patterns.

For example, Kraft conducted research into recipe "clippers," who the brand found to be consumers who saved printed recipes, tried those recipes, and then used some of them on a regular basis. The recipe clippers, happily, also bought more Kraft products.

Kraft then calibrated a value for each downloaded recipe and optimized a campaign around recipe downloading based on "cost per recipe." The result was millions of downloaded recipes and measurable increases in sales of Kraft products used in those recipes.

The brand then extended the campaign to shopping lists, email registrations and magazine sign-ups.

This new marketing model requires a major mind shift in the media buying community -- precisely because it's so much more than just media buying.

So here's a roadmap for reaching today's shopper:
• Integrate your brand's direct marketing, brand marketing and digital skills.
• Get your arms around the implications of the new purchase cycle.
• Create simple, trackable metrics and a discipline for continuous optimization -- not only for the Internet, but for traditional media like TV and print.
• And, most of all -- break down the silos! Stop thinking of direct marketing, advertising, digital, promotion, web development, ecommerce, Web analytics, search, marketing communications and so on as separate disciplines. Today, all parts of the marketing mix must work together to impact each and every stage of the new purchase cycle.

Yes, your target audience is more fragmented than ever. And that's precisely why your marketing efforts can't afford to be the same way.