I’ve bludgeoned you all with survey results, spending information, and agency forecasts to drive home the point that a titanic shift is taking place from offline to online marketing. With 70% of product and service searches beginning online, it’s no surprise the marketing dollars are flowing in that direction, toward the people.

Your phone calls and emails are supportive but many of you are experiencing issues with your leadership. This is what I’m told:

Senior management refuses to act and are ignoring their own real-world experiences, since they too use Google and make purchases online. That frustrates people.  Here’s what that sounds like over the phone: “We sit around and talk about web-commerce and being found on Google all the time, but we never decide anything…” Line two: “We know our web-strategy is poor but we have other priorities that we're more comfortable working on, so that’s where our time and money goes. I guess it’s a comfort thing but it’s costing us sales.”

In second place (sorry senior management), leadership is dumb. Ever heard that one before? The grumbling comes because senior management says they believe the data and think of themselves as fairly web-literate. Really? One very frustrated VP said, “I’ve been pounding the table for over a year and they just don’t get it.” Another person said, “We spent a lot of money on a good website and they (senior management) actually think we’re done. That no other actions are required…it’s amazing.”

The grumbling and accusations are not new to senior managers. It’s no fun but when knowledge and action fail to intersect, they take the brunt of the storm. It comes with the big check.

The solution is having a clear marketing strategy that begins with a web-strategy. That’s right, new marketing strategies begin on the web, not the other way around.

Here’s the image:

It’s a three-part strategy that forms a virtuous cycle, with each part supporting the other two and all of them supported by traditional marketing tactics. The results are clearer messaging, better branding, new sales leads, increased revenue, higher margins and a lower cost-to-serve model. It’s a very productive cycle.

1. Social media locations like YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, or whatever works for your company, are great for having direct conversations with your customers. You need to know what they’re thinking. It’s Marketing 101 stuff; only the data-collection tools have changed. You can call your customers if you want but you’ll probably get voicemail. They’re online.
2. The reason social media activity is important is because it will improve your rankings on the search engines. That means all those great products and services you offer, as well as that fantastic website you invested in, can actually be found by customers. Did I mention 70% of product and service searches begin online, mostly on Google?
3. Marketing generated action, such as Blogs, search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and adding videos and photos to your site, not only provide fodder for social media, they also drive search engine rankings. Google bought YouTube so it’s no surprise that YouTube videos rank high in Google’s algorithms.

Traditional marketing doesn’t go away, advertising and print media still have their role. It’s a supporting role.

The payoff for all this strategy is more website traffic to drive sales. Finally, something we can all agree on.

Steve