Integrated Marketing: It's still 'IN', isn't it?

It's interesting how everything I see and do working with clients always brings me back to the

concept of 'integrated marketing' - a term coined years ago but I believe is just as relevant today. Whether you are talking about digital marketing, revenue marketing, internet marketing, email marketing, PR, AR - anythingmarketing; none of it works unless all dials are tuned and all marketing disciplines, campaigns, activities are integrated across the board.

I wrote about examples of what happens if marketing is not integrated in older blog posts but there is one experience I had that 'showed me the money' - what it costs when marketing isn't integrated.

A client of mine had three different product lines - two of which were their core products and one which was an after-thought product developed by an engineer who thought it was a solid piece of technology. Let us call each: Product A, Product B and Product C.

Marketing activities, either by design or by accident, were integrated for Product A and Product B; the message to customers, the marketplace, media and analysts was consistent and the branding, website, positioning, targeting, lead generation, partner management and field marketing were all aligned.

Product C, on the other hand solved a completely different business problem for a completely different audience than the other Products. Regardless, sales viewed Product C as an easy way to bring in incremental revenue quickly. The Sales VP assigned three full times sales representatives and one inside sales representative to focus solely on Product C and instructed Demand Marketing to run lead generation activities. Corporate Marketing was not supporting any activity over Product C other than the Product Marketing Manager (who was one of the best the company had) to develop marketing content and sales collateral without any oversight to ensure brand and messaging consistency.

The results? Demand Marketing barely generated leads for Product C and the cost per lead was way out of line when compared to the other product lines - over $9,000 per sales lead - 300% higher than the cost of a sales lead for Product A or Product B.

Was it the marketing? You bet it was - a great example of what happens when you do not have integrated marketing.

If you have had similar experiences, I'd love to hear.....