Agencies Slow to Harness Social Media For New Business Prospecting

According to a recent article written by Andrew McMains of Adweek, most agencies have a presence on social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, but infrequently use them to market themselves or pursue client prospects, notwithstanding the fact that the more traditional approaches are not working.

A recent survey from RSW/US and Second Wind, found that nearly three-quarters of the 212 agency leaders polled in the online survey are connected to LinkedIn, 66 percent to Facebook and 56 percent to Twitter. But when asked how frequently they use each, the majority said no more than once a month. For example, 47 percent conceded that they never tweet, 7 percent said they tweet less than once a month and 4 percent tweet just once monthly.

The findings were similar for blogs, with 56 percent of the respondents saying that their agencies have blogs, but only 6 percent use them daily. A whopping 66 percent indicated that they blog no more than once a month.
And while 58 percent of the agency leaders pointed to LinkedIn as the social media tool they employ most often in account prospecting, only 4 percent use any type of social media “often” in this context, compared to 22 percent who “never” do.

The survey, which was conducted last month, provides yet another illustration of agencies not practicing what they preach to clients for the marketing of their brands.  This  “cobbler’s son” syndrome is also evident in everything from Flash-heavy, information-poor agency Web sites to shops neglecting to buy sponsored links to their names on Google.

Interesatingly, these findings are consistent with the online survey I conducted in July of this year.

Nearly two thirds of agencies said that they do not have a documented and active social media strategy. This confirmed just how poorly prepared agencies are from a digital perspective.  While most are actively out in the market trying to convince clients that they are indeed social media experts, they themselves have not embraced it as a critical component of their own marketing communications mix. Notwithstanding the fact that the more traditional approaches are not working.

On a side note, even more surprising was the fact that of the agencies who responded, well over half admitted to not having a documented and active SEO/M strategy. A receipe for disaster when you consider that in a recent survey of C-Suite executives, 74% of the respondents rated the internet as a very important source of business information and the fact that 100% of clients researched online 100% of the agencies that it intended to invite to a pitch.  Search engine marketing is a fundamental component of internet marketing and even today, still garners the bulk of a clients interactive marketing dollars. Many ad agencies are missing a critical part of the communications puzzle in this instance.  

It has never been more important for agencies to introduce innovation into their agency marketing initiatives. Building a following, creating dialog and listening to customers through social media techniques, are crucial to ongoing agency success.

Ad Agencies Need To Learn To Say, “That’s Not What We Do”

In a recent post on Seth Godin’s Blog, he suggests that successful organizations spend a lot of time saying, “that’s not what we do”. He believes it’s a requirement, because if you do everything, in every way, you’re sunk, and I agree.

 He goes on to say that these companies achieved their success by standing for something, by approaching markets and situations in a certain way. Sure, Nike could make money in the short run by licensing their name to a line of wines and spirits, but that’s not what they do.

 “That’s not what we do,” is the backbone of strategy, it determines who you are and where you’re going.

 Too many agencies put themselves in a position where they chase every new business opportunity that comes along, even when they know that they do not have the required capabilities to be successful. Just because you claim to be a full service, 360 Degree agency, does not make your agency competent, let alone an expert in every discipline.

 Ideally, you should ask yourselves if you really have the experience and expertise to address the RFP without reverting to smoke and mirrors?  Even more importantly, ask yourselves if you are really able to deliver the quality of work and results required in order to help the client be successful. If the answer is no, then take a pass and wait for something more suitable.

 The Why imperative:

On the other hand, never use “that’s not what we do” as an excuse not to adapt to change when opportunities come along. In this instance, people in the organization should not forget to ask: “Why?” If the only reason you don’t do something is because you never did, that’s not a good reason. If the environment has changed dramatically and you are feeling pain because of it, this is a great reason to question yourself, to ask why.

 Seth goes on to say that the why factor is really clear online. Simon and Schuster or the Encyclopedia Britannica could have become Google (organizing the world’s information) but they didn’t build a search engine because that’s not what they do. Struggling newspapers could have become thriving networks of long tail content, but they chose not to, because that’s not what they do.

 Maybe Cliff Freeman & Partners could have averted their recent demise if only they had embraced the “Why Imperative”.  They missed the opportunity to leverage their rich creative history and reputation while morphing themselves into a leading edge person2person agency.

Effective Ad Agency New Business Prospecting In A Conversation Economy

 

The new era of social networking has created what has been described as a “conversation economy”. Agency new business professionals need to change from trying to sell agency capabilities and start marketing conversations. To do this effectively your agency needs a conversation strategy.

Marketers are starved for time and already engaged in many and varied conversations. With over 200,000,000 blogs out there, jump-starting new and meaningful conversations with targeted prospective clients is the big challenge for agencies today. Just building a website, writing a blog, being on Twitter or posting videos on YouTube, doesn’t mean sufficient prospects will find you organically, much less take the time and energy to converse with you.

Having the right conversation strategy addresses two key issues: What meaningful content will attract sufficient conversations with the right people? And, how will you jump-start conversations and keep them alive?

According to Marsha Lindsay, the CEO of Lindsay, Stone & Briggs:  “Even if people know there’s an opportunity to have a conversation with you on Twitter or your blog for instance, you can’t expect them to engage given all the other demands on their time. You’ll need a strategy that both gets them to know you exist and care so much that you exist, they’ll become intrigued about conversing with you. This requires a strategy that integrates search optimization, media, message and contributions of content from the marketers themselves”.

“The right strategy begins with the end in mind: What message can work across multiple platforms and be scaled so quickly and broadly it can drive sufficient interactions to support your business model?”

A multimedia mix framed to spark conversations requires a compelling message concept that can work across a multimedia platform. Its foundation has to be far more than a one-time new business outreach; it must be a message strategy that connects the agency’s brand meaning with search habits and accommodates ongoing contributions that can range from casual conversations to marketer-generated content.

This is a tall order, but not impossible. That’s because the solution can be found in the motivations of the conversationalists themselves. After all, conversation is mankind’s natural search engine.

The question then becomes – how do you keep the conversation going? You’ll constantly be competing with other conversations for your target’s time and attention. So, spark and fuel conversations with surveys, forums and invitations for contributions that pertain to the incremental value that your agency can bring to their brand/product. Keeping ongoing conversations fresh is where contextual research and newsletters, blogs, websites, videos and social media shine.

For those agencies who get their conversation strategy right, marketers will take over the conversation for you, making your new business development more efficient, and making you a genius in your new role as chief conversation officer.

Stop Blowing Your New Business Opportunities and Win More Now!

How many races does a second place horse win in their careers? The answer is none! If you want to win, you have to have to have a winning strategy and be prepared to put in the required pre-race preparation. Successful ad agency new business development is no different.

 These guidelines are simple but effective. In fact, I guarantee you that if you follow these recommendations, you will improve your new business success rate significantly.

 

 

As you read what I have to say below, you may find yourself saying – “I know that”, and you probably do. However, the question is – are you putting it into practice? Based on my recent experience with a number of agencies, my guess is that you are not. If you were, you would not be having issues with delivering adequate new business leads for your agency and winning new business pitches.

• Make sure that you have a targeted list of strategic new business target companies. While chasing ambulances (chasing after opportunities that just happen to pop up) is an accepted tactic of agency new business development, it cannot deliver consistent and sustained growth. You have to take the time to identify what categories make sense for your agency and then which specific companies you want to go after.
• Do your homework and invest in research.  Having identified your targets, do not just start picking up the phone or sending them credentials documents. No client is sitting there every day just waiting for another agency credentials mailing. Do your homework on the category, the company, the competition, the consumer or customer and the industry trends and forecasts. Make sure that you know what you are talking about and actually have an informed point of view and insights/information, that would be both interesting and of value to the target prospect.
• Throw away your “capabilities presentation deck”. Can you imagine me arranging a meeting with you at your office and then coming in, sitting down and talking about myself for an hour while you listened? How long do you think it would be before I lost you? Create your deck around them and their business and use your case studies to highlight how your capabilities and experience are relevant to them. Engage them and get them talking about their business. Its not supposed to be a lecture, but rather a discussion.
• Create an ongoing communication plan. It is seldom that you will be given an assignment during your first meeting. Make sure that you create an ongoing communications plan that is effective but not intrusive. The key element for success will be relevance, simplicity and added value.
• When you finally get an opportunity be sure to assign the team designed to win, and not the team that’s available at the time. When you get that long awaited opportunity, make the most of it. I don’t believe that you have any idea how often the agency assigns “the team available” due to existing client demands and pressures. If you are going to do this, don’t pitch!!! You are just setting yourself up for failure. If the opportunity was important enough to chase after and you feel it is the right opportunity for your agency, play to win. Assign the best team you have in the agency to pitch it. If you don’t you will ultimately only disappoint yourself and increase your new business strain.
• Rehearse, Rehearse and Rehearse. Too often the pitch team is still trying to pull the deck together in the late hours the night before the presentation. No time to check for spelling and other mistakes. No time to make sure that it flows, sounds like one voice and tells a story, and most importantly no time to rehearse. Do yourselves a favor and never make this mistake again. Set your timeline and have a pitch coordinator ensure you adhere to it. Make sure you give yourselves enough time to do at least 2 run throughs, preferably three. The first just helps you work out the major issues and gaping holes. The second allows you to think more about the presentation and how you deliver it versus fixing the deck. By the third time you are starting to get comfortable with your content and your delivery.
•  Never go over time. Always leave 20-30 minutes for questions and make sure that every presenter (not too many of them though) engages the audience and gets them involved. If you finish the presentation at the end of your allotted time and there was no interaction during the presentation and no questions after it…you have just lost the business.
• Close your presentation with a succinct hard-hitting summary and ask for the business. Show your enthusiasm and passion and demonstrate how much you want it, however, avoid preaching, groveling and begging. It’s tends to be unbecoming, ineffective, annoying and embarrassing to both sides. Send your thank you note within 24 hours and take that opportunity to succinctly reinforce why your agency is the right choice.

Agency new business does not need to be as hard as it often is. As I said at the beginning of this post, if you follow these simple guidelines I guarantee you will significantly improve your success rate with new business development.

 

Coca Cola’s Carol Kruse Shares Her Perspectives About Their Interactive Marketing Experiences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every marketer and agency alike are asking the same question right now. How effective are these new media channels and how can we measure that effectiveness and the associated ROI? Carol’s perspective is quite simply – “If you are going to shift money from one pot to the other, you certainly want to make sure it’s going to be equally effective.”

In a recently published interview with Carol Kruse on eMarketer Carol shared some great insights that can be effectively leveraged by agencies looking for new business opportunities:

“I think before you have ROI you have to really understand how social media is driving your business”

Traditional sales funnel types of companies find it easier to directly attribute incremental sales to each initiative. However, for companies like Coke, she suggests focusing on measuring the business value of the different types of media/channels. Coke considers aspects like brand health or brand love and its affect on overall purchase intent.

“Measurement around mobile is difficult right now, and social media measurement is even more difficult.”

There are currently lots of engagement metrics like how many participated, time spent etc. Coke is looking to take those metrics to the next level, which for them is all about driving brand value. It’s about bringing incremental increases in brand love, purchase intent and actual purchase. Carol pints out that there is not one pat answer of what they are looking to measure because it depends on the brand and the business objectives.

“You have to be careful how you go about the measurement because you might undo all the goodwill you have built.”

Carol points out that while measurement is important, for mobile and social media marketing you have to do it in a way that is acceptable to consumers. The last thing you want to do is disrupt the consumer experience, when your overall objective is to enhance it.

The final question posed to Carol was – “What do you see as the most pressing issue for digital marketing?” Her response was that search marketing is underutilized by both packaged goods and other brand companies, and that search should not be relegated to direct marketers.

Social CRM Is The New Driver For Ad Agency New Business!

Social CRM is the new currency in ad agency new business. Influential clients are forcing a convergence between CRM and PR, making tracking what is being said and by who a vital component of your new business strategy.

In a recent survey conducted by Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law, marketers were asked the question, “For what reason do you use social media”. While 82% of respondents said that brand building was there number one reason, 60% indicated that personal networking was the second most important reason, with customer service a distant third at 32%.

 

The very marketers that we agencies target are telling us that personal social networking is an extremely important activity for them. Why then do so many agencies ignore social networking when it comes to their own new business prospecting?

Ad agencies should be out there listening to marketers, using the available tools to track all relevant conversations, identifying who the influencers are and starting to build a dialog and ultimately a relationship development program. Many prospective and existing agency clients are active right now sharing their opinions with others through social networking channels. Some of the more enthusiastic individuals have become evangelists, establishing a significant sphere of influence in the market place. Barry Judge, the CMO of Best Buy would be a perfect example of such a marketer.

According to Susan Scrupski of ITSinsider, seeing results depends heavily on how you organize your business and equip the people who are part of it. As you enable the conversation between you and your prospective customers, you enter into collaborative design. Picking up information and passing it into an organization that knows what to do with it is the inflection point between social business strategy and actual business success. Taking the time to measure it in the fundamental currency of business — which as Susan says is “currency” — is the final step in putting all pieces in place to win in the marketplace.

This convergence between PrR and CRM makes tracking who is saying what and developing an ability to respond directly a must have skill. By efficiently organizing and strategizing your responses, you can use this information to guide your social web program and the evolution of your business itself.

That’s powerful!

 

 

Rx for Ad Agencies Suffering From Direct, Digital and Social Media Confusion or Disorientation

The opportunity is clear. Forget about continuing to structure your agency in silos like brand, direct, digital and social marketing, and start to think about People2People marketing. qIf you can integrate your marketing efforts and succeed in motivating customers not only to interact with you, but to share their personal networks with you, you will have created a powerful channel for your brand in the marketplace.

Rx for Ad Agencies Suffering From Direct, Digital and Social Media Confusion or Disorientation

View more presentations from Clive Maclean.

Mobile Marketing. The Ad Agency New Business Goldmine

Mobile marketing has an additive effect on other advertising and marketing efforts and can bridge the gap between digital and traditional campaigns. It is also flexible, lending itself to both direct response and brand reinforcement campaigns. (Source: eMarketer, June, 2009)

Despite the rising number of mobile users and their increasingly sophisticated habits and mobile devices, currently advertising and marketing dollars flowing to mobile lag behind consumer usage of the channel. This however is about to change and the change is going to be significant. According to eMarketer, mobile advertising spending is going to increase from a mere $416 million in 2009 to $1.560 billion in 2013.

 

This increased growth will ultimately create a need for better creative. Up until now, marketers and their agencies have done a tremendous job of recycling and repurposing creative assets from other media and channels, in an attempt to make sure that as much of the budget as possible goes into working media.

This is an opportunity for agencies to step up to the plate and deliver a better quality product while demanding more fully funded mobile production budgets.  While most creative types currently believe that mobile environments have significant creative limitations, the reality is that this is indeed not the case. The problem is that most creatives are not aware of the technologies currently available and hence what is actually possible.

While there are currently some notable agencies out there leading the charge and creating excellent work, most seem to be overlooking the opportunity.

 

 

Social Media Fuels Land Grab Within Client Marketing Departments!

The exponential growth in social networking and popularity of social media, has created an incredible land grab within many internal client marketing departments. This can be both an opportunity and threat as it relates to the agency world.

In a June, 2009 survey by Zoomerang/StrongMail, marketers were asked the question, “Which marketing function owns social media within your organization?” The survey revealed that 29% of respondents said that it is shared by multiple functions. The majority of respondents however (36%) reported that direct marketing owns social media with only 9% saying that is was owned by PR and just 5% claiming to have a dedicated internal social media department.

A deeper look into what may be driving this revealed some very interesting facts. According to a recent eMarketer article, when marketing executives were asked what they perceived the benefits to be of social media, their responses were as follows:

 

 81% of respondents stated that the major benefits were both brand building and CRM. 69% also believed that it was a viable recruitment tool too, with customer service close behind it at 64%.

Looking even deeper, here is how this same group of marketers answered the question, “For what reasons do you use social media?”

 

                                               

For those respondents who claimed not to be using social media, here are the responses as to their reasons why not to.

 

 It’s no wonder that social media responsibility is shared between departments for nearly a third of marketers and very clear to see what exactly is stopping the majority of the non-users from leveraging it. Depending on how you look at it, this can either be an opportunity or a threat, whether you are an incumbent agency or a competitive agency trying to win some new business.

Goodbye Brand, Direct and Digital…Hello People to People Marketing!

 

 

 

Marketing communication has evolved from the early one-way media (TV, print, radio) to two-way media (Internet) and now multi-way media (social, mobile). As the lines between these channels and media are blurring so quickly, it has created an identity crisis among many agencies.

Can a direct marketing agency be effective without digital and social media skills? Can a digital agency deliver the best work without direct marketing skills? Is social media just another word for PR, or is it in fact the ultimate one to one medium?

Traditional marketing and advertising thinking is no longer effective as consumer media habits continue to evolve.  Branding is for all intents and purposes dead, as most consumers’ first impressions of a brand are what they find in search results or what they read from other people in reviews. As consumers circumvent traditional media approaches, they are gravitating towards those media/channels that provide easy access to information, advice and recommendations, plus allow them to socialize and be entertained at the same time. In the process, these consumers are building and refining their own trusted personal networks.

The opportunity for agencies and marketers alike is clear. Forget about continuing to structure your organization in silos like brand, direct, digital and social marketing, and start to think about People2People marketing. If you can integrate your marketing efforts and succeed in motivating customers not only to interact with you, but to share their personal networks with you, you will have created a powerful channel for your brand in the marketplace.

Those of you who are direct marketers will be disappointed to hear that targeting is dying too. As consumers change to pulling information as they want or need it, push marketing becomes less and less relevant no matter how “targeted” the marketer thinks it is. No longer can you just drop an email to your house file or run a banner campaign with the simple objective to sell more products or generate more leads. You have to become part of the conversation, where they are and when they want to have it. Also, keep in mind that conversations cannot be bought either, and if they are the community often quickly finds out and retaliates.

The new age of People2People agencies have to be experts in understanding consumer habits and expectations in this new media environment. They need to be the unbiased filter that prioritizes the media/channels and indentifies the ones that will yield the greatest ROI.

This new breed of agency will avoid the temptation to shout messages at consumers disrespectfully or target thousands of people multiple times (reach and frequency). Instead, they will embrace techniques that cultivate genuine and open dialogue with customers, where brands quietly listen and learn, and then respond with new features and product innovations that better match the needs of the consumer.

These agencies will be rewarded by clients who not only out perform their competitors, but also deliver industry leading financial results. You may be interested to know that in July 2009, a report by social platform provider Wetpaint and analyst firm Altimeter found that: “Companies deeply engaged in seven or more social channels (blogs, branded social websites, Facebook, Wikis, ratings and reviews etc.) significantly surpassed their peers in terms of both revenue and performance.

Future growth and success will be led by those agencies that embrace this new media environment and choose to become part of a new breed of People2People agencies. Those who remain siloed will continue to become less relevant over time and unable to deliver against evolving client expectations.

 

 

NFL Type Special Teams Are Perfect For Ad Agency New Business

Special teams have been used very successfully in the NFL for many years. While they may not be on the field all the time, team members with special skills are brought into the game when they are needed to help win that play. The same approach can be used very successfully for ad agency new business.

While most agencies have a specific area of expertise/experience for which they are known for, many of the agency staff members bring with them a much broader range of experience/expertise gained in other agency environments. Quite often this expertise is dissipated across the agency’s various departments and client teams, and never brought to bear in a cohesive and organized fashion. By not doing so, you may well be missing an excellent new business opportunity!

Over the years a number of agencies have been successful using this special teams approach to target and win additional new business. By bringing together in virtual teams’ staff members, who possess certain skills or experience, they were able to create a competitive offering in the marketplace. An excellent example is Leo Burnetts’ “Kid Leo” group. A virtual group of staff with specific expertise/experience marketing to kids. Other agency groups have built similar special teams focused around marketing to women.

Special teams are a great way to break into a new category. They allow you to leverage your existing resources without having to hire on new. They aggregate the collective expertise that already exists within the agency into a credible and saleable client offering. The special team provides additional job satisfaction to your staff by allowing them to showcase their past experience and gives them an additional challenge. Best of all, they open up new sources of revenue and new client opportunities for the agency.

The risk is relatively small. If it does not work out, at least you have not invested a huge amount of money and hired on overhead that you now have to let go. It’s a great way to prove out a concept and then bring on additional resources as required.

Try conducting a simple internal audit. Ask your staff to highlight any specific category, product or target segment expertise that they have. If you identify some interesting pockets, find out how broad or deep the expertise goes. They may even have existing client contacts that could be the targets of your initial new business approaches.

You never know, this may well be the start of something big!

 

 

New Business Opportunity for Ad Agencies…Web Analytics

When Webtrends surveyed marketers worldwide about how to close the gap between data analysis and business action, their top answer was more knowledgeable staff. These marketers just self identified a real new business door opener for savvy agencies.

Smart agencies are always looking for a compelling reason for approaching new business prospects. Most have already found out that the offer of a credentials presentation is not the answer and most often leads to no response at all.

In this particular instance, marketers themselves have identified a specific frustration they are experiencing, as well as what they believe they require to help them solve it… More Knowledgeable Staff! Their problem, however, is that in the current economy, most marketers have had to cut their staff overheads to the bare minimum and hence do not have all the capabilities and smarts that they need on their marketing teams. According to Unica survey, 72% of marketers had no full time staff member devoted to analytics!

What could be a better new business door opener for a smart agency that can help them close the gap between data analysis and business action? Heck, there is even Independent research available to help agencies support their approach, and identify the specific issues that need solving.

 

Of course this assumes that your agency has the capabilities to help the client:

• Integrate data and results across all channels and from all possible sources.
• Verify the accuracy of the data.
• Simplify the data as much as possible and drill down to find the insights within it. (If you torture that data long enough, it will confess)
• Develop a dashboard that’s easy to use and powered by real time, up to date information.

I once asked a client of mine what she attributed to her meteoric success within the company. Her answer was simply:

“She who owns the data has all the insights and therefore holds all the power”

A perspective that might be helpful as agencies consider the opportunity at hand and whether to pursue it or not.

 

 

New Media Predictions That May Scare the Life Out Of Most Ad Agencies

As we look toward the future, in almost every case new media’s operating revenues, when discounted for inflation, will never equal those that used to be generated by traditional media!

Vin Crosbie has been described as “The Practical Futurist” by Folio, the trade journal of the American Magazine Industry. The founder of Digital Deliverance LLC, and an adjunct professor at Syracuse University, he has over 31 years of media experience, 16 of which being in digital media.

Mr. Crosbie recently wrote a column for ClickZ in which he makes three new media predictions. These predictions are probably enough to scare the life out of most ad agency professionals and at very least will give them plenty to think about. Especially as they relate to the current ad agency business model and the revenue streams that support them. Here they are:

New media revenues won’t equal past traditional media revenues:  In almost all cases (excluding certain exceptions like Google), when discounted for inflation, new media operating revenues will never equal those that used to be generated by traditional media. A significant issue as consumers switch media consumption from traditional to new media.

Why? – Firstly, the economics of new media are based on surplus whereas those of traditional media were based on scarcity. Second, the internet tends more often than not, to eliminate the middle man (agencies plus media buying and planning companies). Advertisers can now go direct. Add to that the huge increase in consumer generated content and you have a new media system that is far more efficient than the old.

Newspapers and magazines can’t keep up:  Mr. Crosbie maintains that it is nearly too late for almost all daily newspapers and most news magazines. To survive, they should have made the necessary changes to their business models and infrastructures 5-10 years ago, in order to adapt to the new media. They did not because at that time the consumer’s hadn’t yet switched media consumption from print to online. They were profitable and such changes may not have paid out for 3-5 years or more.

US radio and TV will implode: The 80 year old affiliate structure of America’s radio and television industries is about to implode due to broadband new media. Why should a network continue to split commercial advertising time with local affiliates when it will be able to deliver programs directly to viewers’ TV sets? He predicts that there will be a bloodbath in the US television industry in the coming decade now that broadband is making the traditional model obsolete.

Sobering thoughts for an industry that was built upon media commissions earned through the role they played as intermediary. Sobering from a new media perspective too.

 

 

Mobile Marketing…The New Frontier For Ad Agency New Business Growth

 

While advertising dollars allocated to mobile marketing currently lag behind increased consumer usage, spending on mobile marketing is expected to increase significantly over the next five years. The opportunity is now for agencies to take the leadership position with their clients.

eMarketer estimates that mobile ad spending will increase from $416 million in 2009, to $1.56 Billion by 2013, outpacing online ad-spending as a whole. While the overall complexity of the medium may make it appear daunting to agencies and marketers alike, overcoming these complexities can pay dividends.

According to eMarketer, mobile marketing has an additive effect on other advertising and marketing efforts, and can bridge the gap between digital and traditional campaigns. It is also flexible, lending itself to both Direct Response and Brand reinforcement campaigns. Based on this perspective, who better to champion the mobile revolution than the agencies that create these campaigns.

I recently came across what I consider to be a best practice example of mobile marketing that truly does bridge the gap between digital and traditional campaigns. Major League Baseball (MLB) is a market leader in this area.  Not only do they do an incredible job in both the traditional and digital worlds, their iPhone application is nothing less than incredible.

Fans no longer have to be at the game or seated in front a TV screen at home or at some other venue. They don’t even need a computer with a high speed internet connection. Now fans can watch their favorite teams’ game live on their iPhone, no matter where they are. This includes all pre-game coverage and all the other added value content around the game. By the way, the quality of the overall experience is amazing. Other games can be subsequently viewed for a mere 99c.

Everything MLB does is targeted at enhancing the fans experience with both their favorite team and MLB overall and they deliver that in spades.

Perhaps the next killer app in mobile marketing will come from your agency for one of your clients.

Forrester Research Identifies Significant Challenges For Integrated Agencies

Integrated Marketing, 360 Degree or whatever you want to call it marketing, continues to be the topic de jour among agencies and marketers alike. Many agencies are clamoring to reposition themselves as “Fully Integrated and Media Neutral”, capable of delivering work across the full media spectrum. Forrester’s latest research suggests that most clients may not be ready for such an agency.

According to a recent survey, conducted by Forrester Research on behalf of Merkle, most marketers lack a holistic view of their customers and communicate with them in multiple silos. As a result, these marketers are unable to adopt a customer centric approach, supported by strategies focused on maximizing total customer value. A situation that is the antithesis of what most integrated agencies offer.

Organization and technology are the biggest barriers: Most marketers claim that they want to send relevant messages to customers and communicate with them in a way that improves the brand experience. More than half of the respondents reported the lack of a single owner of the customer experience, which resulted in silo’d, inconsistent approaches and misaligned goals within the organization. If such a situation exists internally, how could the marketer possibly engage effectively with an integrated agency?

Very few marketers use customer engagement as a primary factor in their communications: Only 11% of marketers said customer engagement was primary and 32% said it’s often a factor. For 20% of respondents, it is seldom or never a factor.

“We struggle to measure customer engagement. We don’t have a system to manage it, in part because nobody has a singular responsibility for managing it. Unfortunately, it’s just not a priority.” (Hi-tech company)

Only one-third employ a contact strategy:  Only 35% say that they have a contact strategy designed to deliver the right message through the right medium at the right time.

Measurement doesn’t drive budget allocation: Almost two-thirds of respondents (64%) continue to allocate budgets across marketing disciplines based on historical spending, and 56% do so simply based on planned activity. Why? –  because that’s what they do. Media mix modeling – which allows marketers to understand the incremental impact of specific media and activity – is used by less than one-third of the respondents.

Marketers are missing the point more than half the time: When assigning credit for a sale or transaction, more than half attribute the activity to the most recent touch point. If a prospect saw a TV commercial, received a direct mail piece, three emails and then searched for an item and bought it from their company, the entire credit for the sale would be allocated to their SEM efforts. Less than a third of marketers calculate fractional attribution across all activity.

All that being said, it would appear that clients, especially the larger clients are not structured in the optimum way to be able to easily engage with an integrated agency. Their internal structures tend to support the ongoing use of independent specialists focused on supporting each of the silos.

That’s probably why everyone has been chasing the Holy Grail of marketing for years now, and the chase will probably continue for years to come.