Internet advertising. Web advertising. Social Media Marketing. Email Marketing. Mobile Marketing. App advertising. Display marketing. Remarketing. DSPs. PLAs. Search marketing…
All of these are ways that marketers tend to talk about marketing on the internet today. And, if we are really being honest, they are usually talked about them in silos.
But this nomenclature, this approach, misses the quintessential point of each of them.
In all, the consumer is Connected.
Connected to the Brand.
Connected to the Locations.
Connected to their Family.
Connected to their Friends.
Connected to their Employer.
Connected to their Coworkers.
Most companies give lip-service to the idea of a holistic approach to marketing. When, in reality, they slice out a piece of the budget pie, allocated it to these different areas and revisit metrics quarterly. But, seldom if ever to they look at the Connected-ness of these.
Historically, there may have be an excuse. It was harder to track where sale originated and the nurturing path they took to the sale, or the repeat sale. Fortunately, this reality is changing with attribution management concepts and tool finally maturing to a point where marketers, analyst, and management can gain a better understanding of how a sale evolves with each of the formats.
We can see from which ad, social media, site people originate, as well as how often, latency, click paths, and ultimately a sale, or an online proxy for the sale. With good CRM practices, this connection can be continued off-line as well.
The days of silo’ing interactive media should never have existed. But the excuses for not abolishing these 20th century practices are dwindling quickly. Soon, the only excuse that will be left is laziness.