| Marketing can be quite a challenge for any | | | | case, you are making things harder than they |
| services company. Selling intangibles is not the | | | | should be and are losing out on the cumulative |
| same as selling concrete products that can be | | | | benefits of having an integrated marketing |
| touched, tasted, or test driven. While product | | | | program. |
| marketers need to be concerned with packaging, | | | | Many of our clients, all service companies, come |
| branding, and focus group results, service | | | | to us with a specific request. The request might |
| marketers must figure out how to get prospects | | | | be for a web site, a brochure, or a report of |
| to buy the promise of quality, reliability, and | | | | some kind. While we are happy to provide these |
| results. | | | | deliverables, we try to do so within the context |
| Any honest marketing professional will tell you | | | | of the client's larger marketing strategy. Trouble |
| that any marketing effort is pretty much | | | | is, more often than not there is no larger |
| educated guessing, where budget resources get | | | | marketing strategy. The request is more a |
| bet like chips on a roulette table. There is no such | | | | reaction to a stimulus ("We need to update our |
| thing as a "sure thing" in marketing, in spite of the | | | | web site," or "We need a brochure to send to |
| claims made by experts in the field. It's all | | | | prospects") than a part of a multi-faceted and |
| probabilities and odds. | | | | integrated marketing approach. |
| Still, you have to show up and play. But if you | | | | I think that all of us can grasp the advantages of |
| understand that marketing is really a gamble, you | | | | an integrated approach over a onesy-twosy, |
| have skewed the odds of success more in your | | | | do-it-as-it-occurs-to-us way to conduct marketing. |
| favor. This knowledge will allow you to plan more | | | | An integrated approach increases the ability of |
| carefully, see the results more pragmatically, and | | | | individual marketing initiatives to contribute to and |
| help you decide which program elements stay and | | | | benefit from other initiatives, so that a "whole is |
| which go based on results. | | | | greater than the sum of its parts" effect is |
| But wait...I am assuming that you actually have a | | | | achieved. It can be much more cost-effective and |
| marketing program, and that may be inaccurate. | | | | can produce a much higher return on investment. |
| If your business is like most small to medium (and | | | | It can raise awareness and interest in the target |
| in fact, some quite large) enterprises, your | | | | market faster and more powerfully. It can align |
| marketing efforts may be stand alone initiatives | | | | closely with business objectives so that results |
| with little or no relation to each other. If this is the | | | | are on track with company goals and mission. |