Marketers now have opportunities – and challenges — we’ve never had before. With the diversity of channels and media, consumers have so many more options. Marketers must be prepared, no matter how a customer expresses interest, to respond to that intention. Search engine marketing is the vehicle for not only responding appropriately, but also converting that customer, tracking that customer, and gathering an incredible load of data on that customer’s behavior. But often this opportunity isn’t leveraged because of a simple lack of communication between web, print and broadcast marketers. Below, Catalyst VP Lee Tuttle gives his insights on how to improve communication between the online and offline teams.
Q: Why is it important for offline and online marketing teams to communicate?
A: The offline team is responsible for a multitude of channels — TV, direct mail, newspapers, yellow pages, magazines, radio, podcasts, and more. The online team manages paid search engine advertising and website optimization.
There are three main reasons you want these two teams to communicate well. 1) To ensure the brand delivers consistent messaging and user experience; 2) to maximize brand exposure; and 3) to make best use of your marketing investment.
Another reason good communication is so important is that in general, somebody is already ranking for your messaging in the online channel. There are very few keywords you can type in that don’t already rank. So when you put your offline messaging out and you don’t alert your online partner, another business, possibly your competitor, will pick up traffic from that.
A recent example of this is the case of Ford vs. General Motors. According to AdAge, Ford spent $2.5 million to promote its Ford Hybrid during the 2006 Super Bowl using Kermit the Frog. 25% of Americans watch Super Bowl ads and 72% use the Internet on game day. Yet General Motors – not Ford – bought the keyword “Kermit†to promote their hybrid car, capturing all the interest generated by the Ford TV ad. Without proper communication, you can miss out on huge opportunities like that and leave tens of thousands of people going somewhere else.
You don’t want the traffic you deserve going elsewhere. Buying the right keywords and making sure your website is ready to go will make sure consumers will see your message instead of someone else’s. Alerting the online folks allows them to protect their campaign exposure on the Internet and makes sure that people see the messaging you are putting out there. It will also help you deepen the brand exposure by making sure the brand message is consistently held no matter what channel the consumer is on.
Q: What are three challenges to successful communication?
A: In a perfect world online and offline teams would share information easily. In the real world marketing across channels is not efficient and it’s more painful when you have a new channel slapped on to the end of an existing process. It’s complicated. For example, to successfully optimize a site, the online team must interact with tiers of internal and external marketing, communications, advertising and public relations teams; market research; the regulatory team; external website design and development groups; and internal IT. In addition, online team must be aware of the company’s relationships with numerous third-party organizations and associations. When you add marketing channels to your mix, you need to reform the team to make the process efficient and painless and it takes a while to do that.
The first challenge is learning about the new channel and integrating it honestly into your existing marketing mix and process. The second challenge is the speed at which marketing needs to execute to meet the needs of clients. Everyone is “under the gun.†And in the rush of getting deliverables done on time, communication can get left out. The third challenge is agency ego. I’ve found that each agency seems to think they know the client best. And until they can look at it from the client’s perspective and figure out what’s best for the client they won’t make communication a priority.
Q: What are three types of info that should be shared?
A: First, the exact messaging of the offline ads – the very same terminology. Second, who the audience is, what their demographics are, what they are searching on and how are they searching. Third, the timeline of the campaign. The online team needs to think of the offline marketing team as one of its customers.
Q: What are two communications mistakes to avoid?
A: The first mistake is not letting the online people know what the messaging is. The second is not giving them enough time to help. The challenge is that it always feels like there isn’t enough time. Creating an effective combination team will streamline this process, give you better results and maximize your marketing investment.
Q: How can sharing information benefit website optimization?
A: Understanding the language of the online channel is essential. Offline marketing can include this language in their offers to make the consumer’s experience seamless. If we can incorporate the language people are speaking online and the offline messaging this benefits SEO. But it’s not a one-way street. Information needs to move both ways. Otherwise the learnings are dropped. The online team needs to start informing offline about the online customer. Current research says that 67% of search queries are driven by offline channels (Jupiter Research, June 2007). People would rather go online to learn more about something than wait for the next TV ad to air. Both types of marketing need to share information so that your efforts can be inclusive when putting together the next campaign. Because offline efforts drive customers to the Internet, companies need to embrace the channel as an extension of marketing and figure out how to leverage that.
Q: How can you improve communication between online and offline teams?
A: There are two simple ways to improve communication. 1) Always share offline media plans and flow charts with the online team. 2) Invite the online team to offline planning meetings and allow them to participate in strategy calls with other marketing and advertising partners to ensure your online plans remain in sync with your offline efforts. Remember, it’s a two-way street. Your offline team can tap into keyphrase research to better understand how people talk about your product or service online; your online team can integrate DTC keyphrases into your search campaign. With channel integration you can achieve maximum results both online and offline.
Lee Tuttle, Vice President of Search Marketing, Catalyst
Lee Tuttle has over twenty years of experience in managing technologies, projects and departments, including over six years in Internet development. Prior to joining Catalyst, Lee was Regional Vice President for Operations and Project Management at Agency.com. Lee’s career started at Lotus Development where he was credited with building Lotus’ primary applications and databases for Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing and Finance.
