Tying It All Together: Stories of Multi-Channel Marketing Success

Moderator: R.J. Talyor (ExactTarget) | Speakers: Laurie Beasley (Beasley Direct), Lee Rosenthal (Apartments.com), Suresh Vittal (Forrester Research)

As online marketers, we all have opportunities to help improve the effectiveness of the investment with which we are entrusted. The complexity of online marketing can be daunting when faced with the reality of the situation, but that's where we thrive. In the CONNECT10NS conference session I attended today, Suresh Vittal from Forrester Research suggests marketers biggest problems are:

  • Attribution modeling
  • Measurement (of results)
  • Organizational silos
  • Technology gaps
  • Data disparity
  • What Forrester refers to as "Splinternet" - the fractioning of the web

As a result, there are many views of same customer and enterprise customer knowledge that remain elusive. With that, among other things, the challenge is how to present communications most effectively. So how to we bridge the challenge?

Vittal suggests 8 Principles:

  • Identify customer regardless of channel.
  • Enable dialogues, not just programs.
  • Include social insights.
  • Move optimization to the forefront.
  • Bridge online & offline gaps.
  • Provide functionality at marketer's desktop (making sure they are equipped to use the software).
  • Incorporate planning and resource management capabilities.
  • Unify inbound and outbound marketing programs.

As I reflect on the day's sessions, the data is critical, and ExactTarget's new interactive marketing hub appears to be positioned to harness the opportunities and give marketers a competitive edge like never before.