In the
past, many marketing programs were totally vertical. In other words,
they were purely direct mail or purely magazine direct response and
so on. Today, virtually all marketing contains a web address. In adding
that component to our off-line marketing, we are doing e marketing.
We are telling our prospects to go to our site, just as an 800 number
tells them to call us. Unfortunately, many marketing efforts do not
coordinate the on-line component and leave the prospect in bewilderment.
For example,
if you are selling an insurance program via direct mail and include
a special free trial offer, yet fail to put that offer on your site,
you will degrade your response. People that go to your site will expect
to see a "mirror" of your off-line promotion. Not having that
will certainly hurt your response rate. Think about it. Imagine someone
calling your 800 number only to speak to someone who knows nothing of
your marketing promotion. Yet that is done more and more every day as
marketers put a web address on everything from business cards to milk
cartons.
I think
there is a reason for this. Most marketers don't have much experience
in e-marketing. They are afraid. We all tend to use what we know to
solve problems. If you are a surgeon then surgery must be the answer.
If you are a direct mail expert than direct mail surely is the way to
increase your business. So, we fall back on what we know, and what we
are comfortable with. The site is up to the IT people. They run it.
They control it. And when you go to them with a request all you hear
is how long it will take to make the change on the site that you want,
and how complicated it is. Bull. Lets start demanding that our websites
reflect our off-line efforts. Lets learn more about how e marketing
works. Lets get more comfortable with it because it is here to stay.
No marketing
lives in a vacuum. Virtually all marketing is a combination of media.
It is the integration that will help any program truly meet its full
potential. Ignoring the Internet, wishing it wasn't so difficult, and
hoping that it won't matter, is not going to make it go away. If you
are a marketer and have not embraced the greatest marketing medium of
all time - you will be left behind. Employers want to see internet expertise
in their marketing managers and executives. These skills are not optional.
They are mandatory.
Marketing
will change. New marketers will be combination technical, design and
copy people. They will be open to change and understand the technologies
that are now emerging. It is time for those who put their heads in the
sand to wake up and join the party. It's a great new world out there
and it is up to us to make it all happen.