For most brands, at least some benefit can be found in every marketing channel. This is especially true of interactive marketing, where the channels represent every possible demographic and interest. The vast majority of marketers have realized that interactive is an essential component of their marketing strategy, but finding the right channels is still challenging for many.

There are two issues I have noticed that are typically responsible for this challenge:

1. Interactive channels are always changing

With the rapid change in interactive technologies, it’s no surprise that anyone not solely focused on interactive marketing has trouble keeping up. Even for those who do have a focus, it is simply not possible for one person to keep up with the changes in all interactive channels.

2. Channels are looked at independently

When brands fail to integrate their interactive marketing channels (with both online and offline efforts) they lose a significant amount of value. Interactive channels enhance each other, providing greater efficiency, awareness, and conversion. A significant online presence can also ensure the greatest return from awareness created offline.

For both of these challenges there is a simple solution: engage your interactive agency earlier in the process. While we are happy to execute a specific campaign or implement a single program for our clients, we can provide the greatest value when our expertise is brought in during the strategy and planning phases.

As brands develop strategies for their 2009 marketing budgets, determining the correct mix of traditional and interactive is often a challenging task. The following steps can help you ensure you identify the best mix for your brand.

First, step back and take a look at the big picture. You should address key questions regarding marketing for your brand, including:

• What are your goals – are you seeking to develop your brand, generate leads, increase online and/or offline sales, or increase customer retention?
• What are your expectations – how can you apply metrics to your goals and what accomplishment equals success?
• Who is your target audience, and where have you historically reached that audience?

The answers to the above questions will help you determine potential channels (online and offline) for your marketing efforts.

Once you have determined the potential channels, you should prioritize those channels to emphasize as part of your strategy. Look at the results from previous marketing programs; some channels may be able to reach your customers but perhaps are providing diminishing returns while others are providing a consistent or increasing return on investment. There may be benefits to maintaining a presence in those channels that are not providing the highest return, but those channels should not be a heavy focus of your budget. Keep in mind that return does not always mean direct revenue – your goals determine the best metric for ROI.

Depending upon the level of experience your brand has in interactive, you may not know the answers to all the questions above. Once you have considered the questions, and answered what you can, discuss your goals with your interactive agency partner. Tell them what you have observed and what you would like to do. Your agency can provide additional insight based on its own experience, including information on the latest trends in online behavior for your target audience, what interactive channels can best help you reach your goals, and how to interpret results from previous marketing efforts. Together you can determine the right mix of your budget to commit to interactive.

This quarter we are covering the topic of social media marketing and I wanted to take some time to discuss social search, which is the integration of search engine marketing with social media marketing.

There are a couple of necessary steps to consider before launching a social search campaign:

• Make sure you have done the research on which social media communities are relevant to your product and/or service. For social search you will want to ensure that the content on those sites are relevant to the key terms you are focusing on for your search engine optimization efforts. Sites that appeal to your target audience which do not have relevant content may be extremely beneficial from a social media marketing standpoint, but will provide limited benefit in terms of SEO. Make a prioritized list of sites that you will target. Your highest priority site will be both relevant in content and relevant to your audience.
• Create a list of topics that you want to discuss on your targeted sites. The topics you choose should be prioritized as well. The highest priority topics will be those that focus on your SEO targeted key terms and relate your brand to your audience appropriately.

Once you have determined the most appropriate sites and topics for your social search efforts you can begin working on content for your posts. To achieve the SEO benefits from your posts on social media communities, keep the following in mind:

• When using targeted key terms from your search engine optimization campaign, use them as anchor text links so you get the value of that keyword pointing to your site. In addition to getting the anchored key term, you also get a very valuable backlink to your site, a major factor in the algorithm that determines your organic rank.
• If you are unfamiliar with the rules on social media sites about followed links, do some research on your targeted social sites. If your links are not followed by the search engines, you will not get a backlink for that post.

Always remember that your brand is being represented in the community when you engage in a social media campaign, including campaigns focusing on social search. While you are engaging in efforts to increase your search rankings, you will need to ensure that your brand integrity remains intact throughout the process.

Join Michael Wunsch and Scott Million as they discuss Social Media Marketing and where it fits in a complete interactive marketing strategy.

 LeapCast - LFI Tips and Trends: 04.24.08 - Where SMM Fits: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This month we have been talking about online contests, but what happens after you choose your contest idea and logistics? Promoting and marketing your promotion can sometimes be as confusing as the legal rules and regulations regarding your contest, but I would like to give you one oftentimes forgotten piece of the puzzle when marketing your online promotion: pay per click.

The traditional means of marketing, including banner advertising or television advertising, only market to users by trying to gain their attention while they are doing other, sometimes related things. What if you could market to your users as they were searching for promotions of your kind? Pay per click is a means of being found not only for search traffic in general, but also for a specific purpose. There are thousands of searches performed each month for contests and promotions related to video, writing, and photo, to name a few. Why not have your promotion front and center in the pay for placement listings in Google, Yahoo and other search engines? Cutting through the clutter in banner advertising, for example, becomes more difficult than a pay per click ad because users are on that site for another purpose. When a user types in “online promotions” as a search query you know they are looking for promotions and are ready to click.

Pay per click offers something other advertising avenues do not and that is instant traffic. Not only that but you can track your traffic more effectively online than traditional advertising methods.

Join Mike and Katina as they take an honest and realistic look at why brands are hesitating and holding back on committing to digital advertising and interactive marketing, and the recent developments that might address those concerns.

 Realizing the Potential of Digital: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Our focus in Client Services is providing a great service experience.  We accomplish that partly through following a solid process, and partly through maintaining a steady flow of communication between our internal teams and the client. 

Every agency wants the client to have a great service experience.  Ultimately, it’s the success of the projects assigned to us, and how well we fulfill their expectations that determine client satisfaction.  With that in mind, we do our best to set high goals for ourselves, while setting realistic, achievable expectations for our clients.  However, as a brand marketer or marketing director, there are three key things you can do to set yourself up for a better agency service experience.

1. Set clear and specific goals.  Interactive agencies, in particular, are used to having to demonstrate Return on Investment (ROI) for our work.  However, to do that effectively, we need to know what benchmarks we are measuring, what your business goals are for any project or campaign, and what constitutes “success” for you.  The more clear and specific you can be in the beginning, the higher the likelihood that the end result will hit that target.
2. Ask questions.  Marketers hire interactive agencies for our depth of knowledge, because they understand that interactive is a complicated discipline.  A good agency educates their clients on the value of their interactive marketing.  The more questions you ask, the more you help your agency empower you to make good decisions about how your company will leverage interactive. 
3. Let your agency know when they are missing the mark.  No one bats 1000. If the creative doesn’t quite capture your brand, or there are additional features that need to be scoped out before the project moves any further, or if your business goals and strategy have changed unexpectedly and those changes need to be reflected in the project, the sooner you let your agency know, the better.  An agency can’t fix a situation till they’re aware of it. 

Obviously, we hope that you’ll choose us as your interactive agency.  Clearly, the agency’s own commitment to service has a huge impact on the service experience you’ll receive.  But simply by making a conscious effort to address these three key issues, you can make sure that on your end, you’re setting yourself up for success. 

Join Mike and Katina as they talk about the latest trends in Interactive Marketing. From Google to Facebook and back again, the team covers topics such as behavioral targeting and moms using the internet as their primary purchasing platform.

 LeapCast - LFI Trends: 8.29.07 - Interactive Trends: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Mike and Ryan discuss Google’s recent DoubleClick move as well some recent bid preference changes in AdWords.

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Join Mike and Ryan today as they discuss Google’s new Pay-Per-Action platform, click fraud and Second Life.

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