This week saw the first JUMP event put on by eConsultancy at the beautiful Old Billingsgate (the historic site of London’s old fish market, on the banks of the Thames). JUMP was designed to focus on ‘joined-up’ marketing: creating integrated marketing campaigns that cross channels and platforms, online and offline, to create greater impact.
I was invited to represent Efficient Frontier and be part of a panel of experts discuss the issues faced by brands as part of the event’s Optimise stream - one of eight streams running concurrently at the event (among the others were ‘socialise’, ‘engage’ and ‘analyse’). The focus was how to optimise marketing online and offline; and with me were Barry Louth, head of media for British Telecom, Jude Brooks, head of digital for Coca-Cola GB & Ireland, and Margaret Robertson, marketing director for Canvas Holidays.
There were some important issues raised with the panel, many of them themes that recurred in other sessions throughout the day. Perhaps the most pressing take-away from the event was the need to break down siloes within organisations, so that marketing disciplines work together to have the greatest impact on sales (and that agencies ‘play nicely’ together, in Jude Brooks’ words). Joined up marketing must mean the impact of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Customer attribution was a recurrent theme, too: how to understand the journey that customers go through to arrive at the point of sale (or registration / subscription / other customer action).
Through the day, there was much to be learnt from people in varied industries, and thinking that could be applied to different marketing situations. Earlier in the day, Penguin’s Anne Rafferty talked about creating ‘the long wow’: sustaining interest from customers rather than relying on a single stunt to draw their attention to a book. In performance marketing terms, our equivalent is paying attention to the long tail - the activity that, although it doesn’t necessarily bring in the sudden influx of customers to your site, but brings in lower-level, sustained and profitable site traffic.
But the overall lesson of the day was that digital and social media marketing can’t exist in a bubble away from the rest of the business, but must be integrated right across the business and from the board down; through IT, customer service, sales and marketing. The focus is firmly back on the customer, and on providing them with relevant information and engagement over all appropriate channels. We heard stories of how customers are more likely to buy from a store if they’ve read an email from a brand; how online activity can influence offline purchase; and how TV advertising can increase results of paid search campaigns.
The future of marketing really is joined-up.
Jonathan Beeston
European Client Services Director
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