Welcome Gold Medal Wine Club

Please join us in raising a glass to welcome the newest client to Intersynthesis: Gold Medal Wine Club. Cheers to top rated boutique California wines being shipped right to your door!

Responsible Email

Over 20% of emails are undelivered according to an article in eMarketer today. To deal with spam, ISP and corporate filtering systems have gotten aggressive about stopping email that does not follow industry best practices. High frequency mailings, unsegmented distribution lists, and low value to your audience can cause your messages to be blocked from ever making it to the Inbox. Socially responsible marketing is not only about creating a positive impact on your community and audience, it's about being more effective in the long term as well.

The End of Browsing?

Internet time may have peaked for consumers, according to Forrester findings reported in Ad Age today. As people become more savvy about using the Web as a tool to quickly find what they want, casual surfing is on the wane. Search and email continue to be staples for online reach, but increasingly marketers will need to understand their audience better to offer meaningful interactions across multiple channels.

Interactive Marketing to Gain Share of Spend

Forrester research reveals the recession is a tipping point shifting the ad industry away from traditional mass media to interactive marketing. Their article in Ad Age says ad budgets won't grow much over the next 5 years, but the share spent on digital will grow from 12% in 2009 to 21% by 2014, increasing pressure on less effective and less accountable offline channels.

Multi Channel Integration

According to an eMarketer survey, 85% of marketers see the value in multi channel integration, but only 12% currently compare performance data across channels. This leads to channel conflict and sub-optimization (optimizing one channel at the expense of others, negatively affecting top level ROI). Intersynthesis can help with meaningful interactive channel integration.

The thing about Bing

Microsoft launches Bing tomorrow, its new search product. Ad Age reports that Microsoft will spend $80 Million on advertising campaigns to convince us to switch from Google to Bing. Admittedly, the marketing on this is well done so far. The brand name is simple and memorable, and the positioning as a "decision engine" sounds like good differentiation. But the proof will be in the functionality.

Microsoft is going out on a limb, betting that it understands the context of WHY people search for the terms they do. Not just what information they want, but what do they want if for? In particular, this idea holds interesting possibilities for travel, online shopping, local results and health care. The true mark of good service is anticipating your customers' needs before they even know what they want themselves.

So kudos to Microsoft for taking a risk and pushing the envelope. If they actually get this right, it will definitely be a step forward. If not, it will just make search results annoyingly irrelevant. And that would be a shame because the idea behind this new product is fundamentally sound. For all our sakes as consumers, let's hope it works.

Integrating SEM and Affiliate Marketing

Bidding on keywords that are also someone else's trademarked terms is a risky business. It's one thing if you're marketing another brand's products and you have permission to use their terms, but according to an Ad Age report released today, you can expose yourself to serious litigation if you or your agency are careless about how you use others' branded terms. And this risk can be compounded if your affiliate marketing program includes publishers who bid on keywords on your behalf. Even if publishers bid on keywords with branded terms you own or have permission to use, those bids may jack up the price of your own search engine marketing program.

When managing an affiliate program, present your publishers with a clear policy about what branded terms you may allow them to bid on to send you traffic, and any price limits you may require for your own branded terms. A little preparation up front can save you a lot of headaches later on.

Consumers in Control

User generated content, email and social media networks are changing the way consumers utilize the Web, according to a recent Ad Age article. The old advertising paradigm of broadcasting one-way messages about your brand is crumbling as consumers have begun to engage in conversations with each other. The question facing businesses and non-profit organizations is how quickly will you join those conversations?

Advertisers who want to acquire new customers and retain the ones they already have must be prepared to utilize digital channels to interact with their audiences. Authenticity is key to effective interaction in the online community, just as it is offline, and that means presenting yourself consistently across every channel customers use to connect with you. Integration in your marketing efforts is no longer a nice to have, it's a survival technique.

Web resource to help respond to Jesusita Fire

Wondering how you can help those affected by the Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara? Intersynthesis has set up a web resource gathering links to local businesses and non-profit organizations that provide ways for you to volunteer or donate to support people and animals in need. Learn more.

Jesusita Fire

The headquarters of Intersynthesis is based in Santa Barbara, CA, which as you may have seen in the news is currently battling the Jesusita Fire. As of this posting, more then 30,000 people have been evacuated and the fire has burned more than 8,000 acres in the last four days, including dozens of residences. While conditions are reported to have improved, the Jesusita Fire contnues to rage and more areas are threatened. More information can be found at the Santa Barbara Independent.

Intersynthesis extends its deepest condolences to those who have lost their homes in this tragedy, and its best wishes to all fellow Santa Barbarans displaced during this time. We also offer our sincere gratitude to the over 3,000 women and men fighting the Jesusita Fire, putting their lives on the line to return our city to safety.

CMOs shifting more ad spend online

After announcing a slight contraction in '09 online sales yesterday, eMarketer reveals CMOs are reacting to tighter budgets by shifting more of their advertising spend to interactive marketing channels: 90% will increase or maintain their spend on email, and 83% will do the same with their paid search (PPC) program.

Competition gets tougher for online sales

According to eMarketer, online sales are now expected to slip by 0.4% in 2009. While still relatively flat, this represents a marked contraction from the fast pace of year-on-year growth online sales have enjoyed for some time. The article also predicts a return to double-digit growth by 2011, but the intervening period represents an inflection point in consumer behavior. The article says, "the way consumers shop is changing, and smart online retailers will take advantage [of] their new behavior - and online informational needs."

Consumers are increasingly using multiple interactive channels to "background" check the businesses they buy from. It is no longer sufficient to broadcast a one-way marketing message; today's savvy consumers are doing their homework and smart advertisers will ensure their campaigns give audiences information, not interruptions.

Offline metrics holding back online spend?

Two recent articles in eMarketer present an interesting juxtaposition and challenge for the interactive marketing community: digital media continues to play a greater role, but integration is seen as lacking.

In one article, eMarketer demonstrates that marketers are increasingly shifting advertising budget towards digital media. More than 70% of advertisers surveyed by eMarketer will increase their spend in 2009 for social media maketing, seach engine marketing (SEM), and mobile marketing in particular. However another article from eMarketer the day before identifies that half of those surveyed are still only allocating 10% or less of their total advertising budget to the online space. What's getting in the way of these folks leveraging interactive channels to get better ROI? The number one answer is not "having metrics to properly allocate the mix of traditional and digital media." Another popular response was "it is difficult to get multiple agencies to collaborate effectively on integration."

It seems the lack of metrics and accountability with traditional media, combined with the paucity of true cross-channel marketing providers, is causing advertisers to still ride the brakes on getting the most benefit they can from interactive marketing.

What metrics would you propose to compare offline and online effectiveness?

Welcome!

Welcome to the Intersynthesis blog!

This blog posts topics and audience comments relating to current events and emerging trends in integrated interactive marketing. Areas of discussion may include search engine marketing, email marketing, display media planning, affiliate marketing, call center sales, mobile marketing, social media marketing, pay for performance pricing models, and socially responsible advertising.

The intended audience for this blog is marketing and advertising professionals, so some familiarity with industry terms and jargon is assumed. We invite you to add your comments, though we ask that all comments be respectful of others. Content and links relating to marketing and advertising are acceptable, but please avoid making comments that are themselves only advertisements. This is a moderated blog. We support the open dialogue of ideas, including those we may disagree with, and we also reserve the right to remove any comments that in our own opinion may be considered offensive.

For more details about Intersynthesis, please visit www.intersynthesis.com.

R. Geoffrey Stevens
President & CEO
Intersynthesis, inc.