New data from The 2012 Q1 Shopping Insights™ Mobile Study shows that:

• iPad users now account for about two-thirds (68 percent) of mobile shoppers.
• The iPad drives a whopping 90 percent of all mobile revenue (and 4 percent of total retail revenue).
• Conversion rates were strongest with the iPad (1.5 percent for iPad vs. 0.57 percent for other mobile devices).
• Compared with all other mobile devices, average pages per session were highest for the iPad, at nearly six pages per session (5.7 for iPads vs. 3.6 for iPhone vs. 4.1 for other mobile devices).
• The iPad had the highest average order value (AOV) of any mobile device: $158 for iPad vs. $105 for other mobile devices vs. $104 for iPhone and other iOS devices in March 2012.
• Interestingly, AOV for iPad shopping is even creeping ahead of the AOV from desktop computers ($158 for iPad vs. $153 from desktops).

These results indicate consumers continue to embrace mobile shopping, and tablet users are leading the charge. What can you do to appeal to this new generation of tablet-centric consumers?

Make it enjoyable

Anyone who has used one knows: The iPad is a fun and immersive experience. Touch the screen and an entire world of media and information is at your fingertips. It’s almost as though you’re invited to play with each piece of content.

How can your brand stand out in this format? What will make your app – and yes, if you’re going to compete in tablet computing, you have to have an app – compelling and engaging? What unique aspect of your product/service can you leverage in app form, and how can that translate into effective marketing?

For inspiration, take a look at Gap’s 1969 jeans app –an innovative way of interacting with the Gap brand. Not only can consumers check out the company’s product lines, mix and match outfits, share via social media channels, find a store via a geo-locator, get designer tips and exclusive content, but they can also purchase directly from their mobile device.

Simplify

Simplicity is one of the linchpins to the tablet computing experience. Tablet computers (and especially the iPad) aren’t designed for the dormant hacker that some argue resides in all of us. Tablets are designed for everyone. (They’re so simple a three-year old can use one, remember?) Your messaging needs to be just as user-friendly.

In other words, don’t make information difficult to find . . . and don’t just sell. Instead, make the layout appealing to touch, and make the presentation relevant, convenient and engaging. If you do, you’ll make the most of the tablet format, and you’ll make the most of consumers’ ever-more-precious time. As the variety of digital channels continues to expand, your customers are finding themselves bombarded with brand messages. Can you blame them for running low on patience for content that seems too complicated? Keep it simple. Focus on images/video (rather than text), provide clear calls-to-action, include direct links to any actions, etc.

Encourage purchasing

With its easy-to-use interface, the iPad is a prime tool to encourage online browsing, and so it’s no surprise that a recommendation engine can yield big benefits in this context. (Think of other recommendation engines you know, such as those in use by Amazon, Netflix, or Pandora.)

As outlined here, recommendations fall into four broad categories:

• Personalized recommendations – based on the user’s past behavior
• Social recommendations – based on the past behavior of similar users
•  Item recommendations – based on the product/service itself
• A combination of the three approaches above

Recommendations give customers a gentle nudge towards a purchase they may not have considered. They’re the sweet spot between online browsing and searching –and when coupled with an intuitive app and the ease of tablet computing, they can boost sales.

Integrate messaging

Tablets empower consumers with digital communication that’s available 24/7 at the touch of a finger. That makes tablets a great format to integrate your apps, company website, videos, social media channels – virtually everything. Variability can erode the value of your product or service, so hone in on the messaging that works and use it consistently across all channels, (whether traditional or digital). Also, capitalize on the tablet as a force multiplier by making certain your content can be easily shared via social networks.

Aim for weekend, evening appeal

In addition to the findings outlined above, The RichRelevance study also found that iPads “rule the weekend.” According to the survey results:

• The iPad share of shopping sessions (viewing, not necessarily buying) increases on the weekends, reaching 7 percent on weekends vs. 5 percent during the week.
• The iPad’s share of sessions climbs in the evening hours, from around 5 pm until 9 pm, reaching 9.45 percent at 9 p.m., rising from a low point (.4 percent) at 3 a.m.
• In comparison, traffic from all other mobile devices is stable on weekdays and weekends, accounting for about 1.3 percent of all sessions
• On average, about 6 percent of all orders originate on mobile devices (iPad included) on weekends vs. 4 percent on weekdays.

What do those results mean for marketers? They mean you can leverage an engaging, relevant app to appeal to the customer who wants to kick back with their tablet and relax on weekends and/or after hours. An iPad is a fun, easy-to-use digital device –but it’s not a laptop or at all similar to the computers we all use at our jobs. Tablets are devices consumers want to use, not ones they necessarily have to use. They’re more versatile than smartphones and, let’s be honest –they’re just plain cool. Design your tablet content to appeal to consumers when they’re ready to have some fun.

New research is making it clear that marketers can no longer think of “mobile” as one big group containing both smartphones and tablets. Tablets are emerging as a separate category, one that needs to be recognized for its wide consumer appeal and unique marketing potential.

In fact, in the latest “Recession Survey” from the ANA (Association of National Advertisers), the vast majority of the marketers polled (84 percent) said they are still being asked to tightly manage their controllable spending –and that’s up from 77 percent who were working under those constraints last year.

More specifically, ANA’s research found that marketers are opting for short-term budget cuts related to overhead expenditures. For example, 28 percent of marketers plan to decrease investment in professional development (e.g., conferences, training) and 21 percent plan to utilize more freelancers to fill open positions – both increases from 2011.

In addition, marketers also plan to reduce costs and expenditures by:

• Restricting departmental travel and related expenses (68 percent)
• Reducing advertising campaign media budgets (48 percent)
• Altering the mix of marketing channels to lower cost channels (40 percent)
• Eliminating/delaying new projects (36 percent)

I suppose it’s no surprise that businesses are eyeing any economic uptick with guarded optimism. But after reading these survey results, I feel I have to trump that caution with a few words of warning of my own. You see, while it certainly makes sense to be vigilant with spending, marketers must also be mindful that short-term budget cuts are simply not the answer to long-term budget issues. They never have been, and they never will be.

Instead, if you want to solve long-term budget issues, you need to take a more holistic approach. These days, you need to dig down deep. You need to consider all relevant business practices, look across all marketing channels and start focusing on a strategy that’s comprehensive and integrated.

Once you do, you’ll begin to recognize that an integrated marketing management (IMM) approach helps you simplify. It helps you zero in on your message, so you can make sure it’s consistent and effective across channels. And, it helps you create efficiencies in today’s complex marketing environment.

After all, marketers can no longer work in a silo. Successful marketing initiatives now require collaboration across multiple disciplines and departments, and an integrated strategy enables the involvement of all the parties based on best practices, with access to all the necessary data and digital components. What’s more, IMM incorporates measurement and analytics to allow refinement and improvement at any stage in the process. Morever, it gives marketers the insight to recognize underperforming campaigns early on and kill them before too much is spent in vain.

With an IMM strategy, you’re better able to test, measure and analyze to determine where you should concentrate your efforts –and ultimately, that’s going to help you better manage costs and optimize marketing ROI. So, don’t fall into the trap of thinking only short-term. Take a different tack. Start meaningful change and uncover enduring cost efficiencies by adopting an IMM approach.

As Bob Liodice, president and CEO, ANA, points out, marketers need lasting solutions that focus on efficiency. “We need to view this as an opportunity to push our industry to reach the next level of innovation and evolution,” he said.

Does your organization face challenges when trying to develop a long range view of marketing spend? Take our Marketing Leadership Challenges Survey to find out how to best measure spend and for examples of companies that have improved their ROI by tracking the right metrics!

Image: freedigitalphotos.net

The sweeping new EU e-privacy directive requires all marketers and website owners operating in any EU country to obtain consent from European users before implementing cookies or other technologies to capture online visitor information. Essentially, that means cookies can only be placed on machines where the user or subscriber have opted-in.

Regulations like this are a dramatic change because, as you know, digital marketers now routinely use cookies and other technologies to tailor online customer experiences, enable web analytics, recommend products, allow auto-log in and compile browsing histories. As of May 26, digital marketers in the EU must re-think their strategies and create appropriate formats for customer opt-in, while also coping with a potential reduction in the amount of available customer data.

Even though there was a 12-month lead-in period to prepare for the impending e-privacy directive, many EU marketers remain unsure about how to comply with the regulations. Some EU countries have yet to create laws based on the new directive and, as a result, it is not apparent how aggressively various governments will enforce opt-in cookies.

But, there’s no longer time for excuses. Marketers must be proactive and adjust marketing practices to accommodate these new and evolving realities. In order to comply with the EU e-privacy directive, I suggest you follow these steps:

1. Take inventory. Consult with your IT and web analytics teams so you fully understand what types of cookies and other tracking mechanisms you currently use.

2. Give consumers clear and complete notice. Start with the basics. Make sure your privacy policy is explicit and up-to-date.

3. Develop a new opt-in mechanism for your website. If you’re marketing online to EU citizens, you need to collect explicit opt-in via some mechanism other than the browser.  (Sure, a relatively simple solution would be to ask each user to adjust his or her browser settings to allow for cookies. However, it is not clear whether this would be acceptable as ‘consent.’) You’ll have to consider using a mobile application, a registration form or check box, or even in-store or telephone consent.

4. Revamp your website architecture. How will the user experience change if website visitors do not check your cookie opt-in box? An unending series of pop-ups will detract from the customer experience, but an ‘express consent’ mechanism allowing global opt-in on your home page and any landing pages could work as a creative solution. 

5. Collect and manage the data on your landing pages.  Use marketing automation or eCRM software to help you collect, store, manage and utilize data so future email or other messaging can reflect custom landing pages for those who have provided an express opt-in.

Marketers and consumers appear to feel quite differently about the new directives. Ecoconsultancy found that 89 percent of UK consumers think that the EU cookie law is a positive step –though 75 percent had not heard of the e-privacy directive before they were surveyed. An earlier study showed that 82 percent of digital marketers believe the EU law is bad for the web.

To help marketers and business owners better understand the new regulations, the UK’s Information Commissioners Office created a website , complete with specific guidance on the rules on use of cookies and similar technologies.

As Information Commissioner Christopher Graham writes at the blog of the Information Commissioner’s Office, the time for equivocation has passed: 

“Finally, I want to make it clear what will happen after 26 May 2012, the end of the lead-in period. There will not be a wave of knee-jerk formal enforcement action taken against people who are not yet compliant but trying to get there. If you are working towards compliance and following my advice then keep going. If you haven’t started yet, you need to be reading the advice, speaking to your peers, looking at how other websites inform and empower their users. But if you have decided that this is all too difficult, that you don’t want to give your users choices about how your web pages might collect information about them or that you will get around the law by wilfully misleading people about what you do and how you do it then be assured that if we get complaints or have concerns then we will be checking your site and we will take the necessary steps to ensure that you do work towards compliance.”

At first blush, you might think housekeeping like this is a “nice-to –do.”  Everyone likes to keep their email subscriber lists tidy and up-to-date, right? But, as I explained in my earlier article, scrubbing your email subscriber lists is no longer just a “nice-to-do.” It’s a “must-do.” Regular deliverability audits are becoming increasingly important as spam traps become more and more sensitive and ISPs fine-tune their scrutiny of email traffic.

So, once you’ve completed a deliverability audit and identified all inactive subscribers on your list, you need to chart a strategy to reactivate them.  Here, in very general terms, is the course of action I suggest:

• Create segments to isolate any subscriber who hasn’t clicked or opened in the last three months.
• If you have other data indicating that these subscribers are active (purchase history, etc.), use that data to define “activity,” and then bucket active individuals into their own group.
• Bucket subscribers by “opt-in source” and “opt-in date.”
• Send a reactivation (win-back) message to inactive subscribers.
• Create a win-back message that clearly communicates the value of your program to your subscribers and ensures they know they must confirm in order to continue receiving email from you. (You can consider sending two messages to this user base, but make sure this is clear in both messages.)
• Consider including customization in the message related to the source of the opt-in. For example, “You subscribed to receive our newsletter when you completed a product purchase….”
• In addition, consider a win-back message that’s very bold and punchy. Try a unique offer, a survey or something else that’s different from your normal messaging, but still within their permission grant.  I’ve seen Aprimo clients use language similar to “We hate junk mail, too….”
• Be certain you do NOT send your win-back message to your “active subscriber” list, and don’t send it to more than 50,000 audience members in a 48-hour period.
• Closely monitor opt-outs and spam complaints as you deploy the message.
• If inactive subscribers do not respond to the win-back messages, remove them from your file.
• Evaluate why they became inactive in the first place. Look at their source of opt-in. Is there a large # of inactives coming from a specific source? List purchase? Partnership? Event?
• Review your message stream and determine at what point in the message stream did they become inactive? Fix it!

Why spend time on reactivating inactive subscribers, and determining why they became inactive? There’s a two-fold reason.

First, inactive subscribers may be more apt to view your messages as spam. Then, if they report you as a nuisance, your overall inbox placement with ISPs can be negatively impacted. Stay out of spam traps and stay on the good side of the ISPs by keeping your email subscriber list clean and up-to-date.

Second, remember this: Every inactive subscriber was once an active subscriber. At some point in the recent past, each inactive was so interested in your product/service that he/she took the time to join your email list. Determining the reasons they became inactive will help minimize inactives in the future. They’re already familiar with your brand and may need only a little nudge to become active once again, but if you can determine what makes them switch, you can use this to your advantage to curb inactivity in the future

This survey of senior marketing executives from large corporations was geared at gaining a greater understanding of how practices are evolving in these areas: data collection and usage; marketing measurement and ROI; and traditional-digital marketing integration.

Interestingly, three major challenges emerged:

• Brands are intimidated by big data. 29 percent reported that their marketing departments had little big data to look at, while 39 percent indicated that the data that they were gathering was insufficient, or already outdated. On top of that, marketers in the study admitted they are less likely to gather digital data than traditional marketing data.
• Digital integration is key, but how do we measure success? 51 percent of those surveyed are using mobile ads, but only a mere 17 percent are tying them to any sort of financial metric. Of the 85 percent using social networking accounts in their marketing efforts, only a small fraction (14 percent) attach them to financial metrics.
• ROI is often mentioned… but rarely understood. Nearly one-third (31 percent) of respondents defined ROI as a measure of their audience share. 28 percent base their marketing budgets on “gut instincts.” Remarkably, more than half (57 percent) don’t consider ROI in their planning at all.

Clearly, critical insights are being lost or ignored by many brands because of a chronic inability to gather and analyze big data.

Sure, they’re tired of missing out on these insights—and the impact these insights have on marketing planning and success measurement. But, the learning curve and the sheer weight of the information available continue to intimidate marketing teams into inertia.

Unfortunately, consumers are going to leave behind any brand that refuses to dig in . . . and the gap between companies that “do” use big data and those that “don’t” is only going to get wider. As technologies continue to evolve –becoming faster, more versatile and cheaper than ever before –big data’s role will continue to swell and consumers and retailers will begin interacting across an even wider array of channels both on- and off-line.

More and more, your customers expect a seamless experience no matter where they’re interacting with you. That mean you need to know:

• what they’re saying about what they need and want
• what they’re saying about you (and your competitors)
• what they expect from you
• what kinds of experiences they’ve had with you already, and
• how all those factors are working together to build (or jeopardize) your business.

In short, it’s time to embrace the omnichannel revolution. Marketing success increasingly depends on weaving together all the different components currently expanding the frontiers of digital marketing. It depends on gathering big data, analyzing big data and then, acting on those results in real-time.  And it depends on combining all this –the “science” of marketing — with creative expressions of branding, positioning and go-to-market campaigns.

Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

And in many ways, digital shopping is built for moms. Digital moms are empowered with mobile devices, and they’re no longer a segmented group reached only through niche sites. Whether it’s searching for a healthy recipe, finding reviews on a local repair shop or looking for medical insight, moms are heavily dependent on search engines. In addition, “mommy bloggers” are now thought leaders, and many moms find information in online communities like CafeMom and Cool Mom Picks.

Moms as “Mombassadors”

According to another new study by Performics, moms are active and engaged users of social networking sites, compared to other women. They’re more likely to visit these social media sites regularly, trust what they read their about their favorite brands and make a purchase – such as a car, clothes or travel – based on social media recommendations.

What’s more, moms are recommendation engines. Once a mom discovers a brand or company she likes, she is more likely to become a brand ambassador. Mothers were 34 percent more likely to recommend companies and brands through social networking sites and 25 percent more likely to talk about companies and brands they follow. This is probably a reflection of the finding that almost two-thirds of moms believe they can influence companies by voicing their opinions on social networks.

Let’s face it: moms like to talk about their likes and dislikes, including passing on brand information. (“You should see this deal I got today!”) Thousands of women are online generating brand buzz and acknowledgement, but remember: This kind of WOM doesn’t happen overnight. It takes an integrated media approach to fully understand what makes moms want to engage and how best to get them talking up your product/service.

Moms are Most Engaged on Pinterest

Pinterest is a rising star and already has the attention of top brands across the board. Moms have taken to Pinterest quickly as well and according to Nielsen, they’re 61 percent more likely to use the network than the average American.

Better yet for Marketers, Pinterest has moved past Twitter in terms of the amount of referral traffic it delivers and it’s also closing in on referral giant StumbleUpon. The power of Moms as recommendation engines coupled with the visual appeal of Pinterest’s user interface, allows a whole new way for marketers to engage with Moms and incorporate their loyalty into their brand.

Moms are Deal Hunters

Marketing Charts recently released study results that reveal even more insights for marketers who want to target moms, the “Chief Purchasing Officer” in many households:

• Digital moms look for best deals. Moms are coupon clippers, but this isn’t your grandmother’s sort of clip-and-save; it’s more like click-n-save. Moms are 70 percent more likely to download coupons from retail marketing websites than the general population, and 65 percent more likely to download coupons from a manufacturer’s website. They’re also twice as likely to use social media to find and use coupons. How can you use digital coupons and promotions to engage moms and turn a discount hunter into a loyalist?
• Moms read signs. Unlike some dads, who are map-adverse and label-blind, moms are more than twice as likely to respond to in-store messaging on kiosks, signs and in-store circulars. The study also showed that 71 percent of shoppers as a whole, not just moms, are likely to make lists at home in an effort to penny pinch, up from 67 percent in Q1 2011. Among those polled, more than half (56 percent) said they choose stores based on discount price offerings. Once again, these results tell me moms are thoughtful, budget-minded shoppers. Can you use in-store signage to: 1) grab their attention, 2) play into their desire for convenience, 3) offer a discount, and/or 4) integrate your online messaging into a compelling customer experience that reinforces your brand?

Moms are Going Mobile

Today, mom is tied to her smart phone, and a joint Nielson and BabyCenter study showed that moms use the latest digital devices (including laptops, digital cameras, DVRs, gaming consoles and tablets) as necessities—not luxuries.

“This research confirmed what we’ve been seeing over the last couple of years—that mom is at the forefront of technology adoption, readily transforming behaviors to better support her journey of motherhood,” said Mike Fogarty, SVP and Global Publisher at BabyCenter in a press release.

Undoubtedly, moms are leading the charge, but this is the kind of consumer we’re going to see increasingly queuing up at our cash registers –both on- and off-line.

There are a lot of people in the industry that use different practices to acquire lists. However, using the wrong vendor, or acquiring the wrong name can have a long term impact on your overall reputation so we highly recommend you proceed with caution.

When you purchase a list, you need to approach it with the following items in mind:

Questions to ask yourself:

1. Who am I targeting?
2. What are my objectives? List Growth, foot in the door or purchase?
3. How many names do I need to not only acquire, but convert?
4. Or, how many names do I need to meet my chosen objective to make this worth my while?

Questions to ask your vendor:

1. How often do you refresh your list?
2. How do you verify contacts / titles?
3. How did you acquire the names you are selling?
4. Are they opted-in? By what method?
5. How often are your names sold?
6. What is the typical delivery, open, and click rate?
7. Are you consistently removing bounces, opt-outs, spam complaints?
8. Do you cleanse your own data against known spam traps, bad domains, etc.?

Acquiring your names is just the beginning. Once you have the email addresses, you need to use a product like Aprimo to not only execute your tactics, but develop strategies and messaging to ensure you’re talking to the right person with the right message, through the right forum, and garner more intelligent potential out of your list purchase.

The market is moving away from batch and blast to intelligent, targeted, segmented, Digital Marketing. Aprimo, for example, will allow you to include your lead source as a data point to track engagement and response over time. You can also use this data to customize and refine the message you are sending to this new audience base.

You can and should subsequently use this information to ENGAGE better with your data / target markets and segment your data faster and more accurately. You should carefully mail to your purchased list and frequently monitor response metrics to ensure that this list doesn’t ultimately damage the reputation of your domain /IP address if you’re using the same domain/IP to send email to your engaged customers.

You should use your data to LEAD your marketing function/campaign with more confidence … delivering campaigns that PERFORM better in terms of results.  Always think in terms of any customer communication strategy on how to ENGAGE – LEAD – PERFORM.

What do all the numbers mean? What information is most valuable to a business like mine? What can I actually learn about my prospects’ behaviors and needs? How can I use data to make my marketing plans more effective?

Creating buyer personas is a smart way to transform information overload into an actionable set of insights. Buyer personas provide marketers with a clearer picture of their target customers, with the goal of creating marketing plans that connect with them more effectively.  Marketers have been creating personas for years, of course—but the level of specificity we can now achieve has the potential to make today’s B2B buyer personas much more effective.

As the Buyer Persona Institute’s Adele Revella explains in this excellent webinar, a buyer persona is really a detailed profile of a real person we hope will become a customer. Insights gleaned from a buyer persona can be tremendously valuable in developing lead generation strategy.

Here are five questions to help you climb in the data mountain and develop a truly useful B2B buyer persona:

What are the demographics that define your core B2B prospect? Start with the basics: average age, gender, industry, company, position, average income for position, location. Where is this person spending their time and resources? It might not seem like all of this information matters when it comes to connecting a potential customer with your products, and you might not have access to this level of detail, but the more color you can add to the picture, the better.

How does your B2B prospect define success? Remember to include the flip-side of the challenge question: What does your prospect want to accomplish—and what does their leadership want them to accomplish? What are their metrics for achievement? By gaining a clearer sense of your potential customers’ goals and hopes, you’ll develop more clarity about how you can help them get where they want to be. And as we all know, successful customers are loyal customers!

What are your B2B prospect’s pain points and challenges? By gaining insight into the hurdles and obstacles your prospect faces – real or imagined – you’re better able to position your product as a valuable solution. Challenges could include: issues they face every day at work in getting their job done; concerns about sourcing products or services; pressures from leadership; and other common industry frustrations.

How would your B2B prospect go about buying your product? What does a day in the life of your prospect(s) look like? Does she work day-to-day with a product like yours, or is she sourcing it for someone else? Is his company large or small? Does she need approval to make buying decisions? Is the buying process quick or slow? By putting together details like these, you can customize the sales funnel to meet the particular needs of your prospects.

What obstacles stand in the way of your B2B prospects making the decision to buy the product? What are their pre-purchase concerns or worries? What issues might they have had with a product like yours before? Where will they go to learn more about you? Who will they ask for a reference? How do they feel most comfortable connecting with you? The answers to these questions will help you smooth out the bumps in your sales process, and put your prospect at ease from the very beginning.

Better buyer personas translate into better marketing plans, and they help you target your prospects in a way that’s relevant to their specific needs. By asking the right questions and then utilizing automation to analyze the behavior of prospects across multiple channels and touchpoints, valuable insights will emerge. This data will help you tackle questions such as:

• What nudged buyers through the funnel?
• Did certain segments respond differently than others?
• Which messages resonate (and which ones don’t)?

Based on these answers, you’ll be able to tweak your buyer personas – and your future process – even more. The key, as always, is not to do more marketing, but to do better marketing. Using automation to fine-tune buyer personas and analyze buyer behaviors will help you become more strategic in your approach, so you can navigate a path through the data mountain, drive more sales and improve ROI.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Trader Joe's maintains brand consistency by labeling ethnic foods in accordance to their overall brand strategy (Trader Jose's for Mexican food and Trader Giotto's for Italian, for example)

Smart brand strategy tells us that every aspect of what companies do…

• What they make
• How they make it
• What they use to make it
• How they sell it
• Where they sell it
• To whom they sell it

… needs to reinforce their overall brand.

That’s why you don’t see Rolexes selling in department stores, or processed foods at Trader Joes. Leading brands know where their customers go to find them. They pay careful attention to the kind of shopping experience customers expect when they get there. And they understand what each of those things say about their products and their markets.

Missteps anywhere in that process can significantly impact how both customers and prospects perceive your brand. So, avoid brand confusion by staying alert to today’s most common challenges to brand consistency, including:

You look different on the inside than the outside.

External marketing teams are focused on what they believe customers want to see and how they can meet those needs with the products they have to sell. By contrast, internal teams are charged with getting everyone on board within the company. These are two very different kinds of challenges, and if you don’t integrate external and internal materials and messages, both will fall flat.

You’re not as agile as you need to be.

Internal product and marketing review processes can be huge hurdles when it comes to maintaining a strong, consistent brand image across products. The processes exist to support the brand, of course—but if they’re impossibly slow or complicated, they’re more likely to be sidestepped by folks who are eager to get things out the door. In addition, multiple hand-offs can easily lead to delays, misinterpretations and other unintended consequences.

Your use of digital channels has expanded.

As the number of channels through which a brand can express itself continues to proliferate (think of the emergence of Pinterest, or evolution of hyper-local marketing) it becomes difficult to maintain a steady message across mediums. Ensure that your digital, traditional, field and partner channels are consistent. Decide how each new channel will mesh with your messaging, not the other way around.

You now make more than one thing.

Today’s global marketplace is enormously complex. If your company has a diverse range of products, at different price points, from different product genres, targeted at very different audiences, it can be incredibly difficult to present a unified, strong, clear brand. Once again, integrating processes is imperative when you’ve got more than one or two—or a few—things going on.

Your marketing objectives and your business objectives are no longer aligned.

Many companies grow and evolve into something different than they were when they began. You might make the same type of product, but with new technology. Or, as above, you might have expanded your product line. Maybe the company has different ownership now, and the founder was a big part of the original brand promise. Whatever the changes might be, they can make it tough to figure out where you’re at now—and if you don’t know that, it’s impossible to determine where you need to be.

A clear brand message and image are essential in this noisy marketing world. The only real way to rise above the fray is to be consistent in what you do, how you talk about it—and how you treat the customers who opt in to your promise.

How can you achieve this level of coordination and collaboration? Ultimately, you’ll need to implement a multi-channel strategy that helps you:  1) improve efficiencies across different marketing functions, 2) better understand consumers and, 3) continuously accelerate profitable growth. But, first things first: Start now by identifying the immediate challenges you face. Recognize the critical importance of maintaining brand consistency, and you’ll be one step closer to creating a brand that people will remember, relate to … and love.

Has your overall brand message become frayed? Try our Marketing Leadership Challenge to see how you can weave your brand back into each channel!

These original “TV” shows, made to be viewed online, are probably just the tip of the antenna, so to speak – considering the reported $500 million that Hulu plans to spend developing content this year.  It seems like the market is ready for this type of investment.In February alone, Americans watched 2.5 billion videos on Hulu, which the company calculates to be 1,000 videos a second.

So, keep your eye on this channel. After all, it was only a few months ago when a Forrester research report showed that the average Joe Viewer spends just as much time surfing the web as surfing channels on TV, about 13 hours a week. For cord-cutters, the decline of the TV set continues, and naturally, the ramping up of digital means that more and more video companies like Hulu are going to play in this media sandbox.

What does it mean to marketers that Hulu, an ad-supported, on-demand video streaming service, is stealing prime time? For one, Hulu is demonstrating that it’s willing to put more skin into the advertising game. Hulu advertisers will not be charged unless their ad has been viewed to completion, and Hulu is hoping this commitment will show advertisers that the time to invest in online video is now. Second, the shift to online viewing –-and from a variety of different devices, such as phones and tablets – is a reminder that multi-platform tools of engagement (social media, interactive promotions, etc.) are the way to engage consumers and retain customers.

Hulu’s move toward original programming, underscores that:

Tracking is key. Though television may be losing viewers to online video, up to this point, it has been holding on to advertisers. In part, this retention is due to the standardized nature of TV ad formats: the rating systems, buying models and counting methodologies show reliable, familiar numbers. But the still-somewhat fuzzy picture of the digital space is yielding innovation, flexibility, and most important to advertisers, interactivity. As we’ve seen with other digital channels, the ability to track is key. Marketing revolves around behavior, and digital channels offer the opportunity to track preferences, actions and performance.

Marketers need to find focus amidst the media clutter. Consumers still rely on the Old School venerable mass media outlets of print, radio and TV. But these now compete with newer digital channels, such as (let’s rattle them off) websites, Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, Twitter and a dazzling array of other social and community networks. At the end of the day, the key question is this: How can you break through the clutter? One way to answer that question is to start mastering these various channels through marketing automation solutions that support a holistic campaign approach, some of which are focused on 1:1 interactions. Today’s technology offers levels of sophistication never before available, and these solutions can help you break through the online clutter, get noticed and engage with both your prospects and customers.

The latest is the greatest (maybe). Much of what we knew two years ago – or even a year ago – about video marketing is now obsolete. In fact, many would say that no form of marketing has changed its channels as constantly as video marketing.  As a result, it is absolutely essential to not just fire your so-called remote control at any target that moves. You need to understand the significance of measurement to avoid the white noise out there – and there is plenty of that these days.

Follow the Leaders. Take a look at German automaker BMW, which is ramping up its mobile marketing through Hulu Plus’ mobile app for the iPhone. BMW is promoting its new luxury cars with short, mobile-optimized clips, offered while consumers watch TV shows and movies in the palms of their hands. Here’s the take home message: Mobile video advertising is an immersive experience – there are no distractions or clutter as with television, and viewers can click through on calls-to-action if they want/need more information. In addition, video offers sight, sound and motion, a winning trifecta for luxury brand makers. Could this media work for your brand? How can you use video to optimize engagement with your target audience?

Social TV is poised for tremendous growth. Analysts expect social TV to become a $12 billion dollar market by 2020. And why not? Social TV is at the intersection of social media, TV devices and programs, and it supports all of the TV-related content and conversations going on in social media. The action is fast in furious and includes check-in tools for location-based TV viewing, with services like GetGlue and Miso helping TV programmers and networks establish loyal viewers.

As with any rapidly evolving technology, there’s sure to be plenty of uncertainty in the video landscape and for social TV, but stay tuned. These platforms are poised to completely disrupt the screen as we know it. What will media look like in the future – will it be “out of the box” or “inside the box?”