Yet integration remains a challenge for many, as lack of understanding and silos of activity hamper change
A recent survey of marketing professionals, carried out by Marketing Week Live!, has found the largest barrier to adoption of integrated marketing is a lack of understanding of what it actually is.
Those who have already begun dipping their feet in, however, are finding the practice to be cost-effective, beneficial to brand reputation and a step towards better results from integrated campaigns.
Online research carried out in conjunction with Marketing Week and New Media Age online for Marketing Week Live!, which takes place on June 29th to 30th at London’s Olympia, looked at the main barriers preventing companies from taking an integrated approach to marketing. Following lack of understanding over what integrated marketing really means, as the biggest barrier to adoption, came a lack of strategic consistency across different disciplines followed in third place by existence of marketing functions in separate departments.
“There are some clear challenges for companies looking to integrate the various marketing disciplines that they choose to drive forward,” said Nolan O’Connor, marketing director at Marketing Week Live! “The results of this survey clearly show that a more strategic approach needs to be taken at a senior level to remove the silos in which we have traditionally worked.
“The research has also shown us that when marketers do embrace integrated marketing more holistically, they start to see reputation boost, tangible results and most importantly return on investment, what we are terming the three Rs.”
Digging deeper into the findings from the survey revealed that there are real moves across the UK to make integrated marketing for businesses. Just over a third of the UK marketing professionals polled are already running integrated marketing campaigns, with a further 15 per cent having fully integrated all of their marketing activity.
Of those who are already using integrated marketing, half have found that integrating marketing activities is creating at least some cost efficiencies. With 11 percent of those finding they are saving more time and money than they expected.
If marketers are looking for even more justification for more integration, respondents to the survey are finding that better results are being delivered when disciplines are integrated (47 per cent) and it is making it easier to build a the brand’s reputation (41 per cent).
Andy Oakes, publisher of New Media Age magazine at Centaur said, “We are already seeing online marketing pulling together different disciplines, bringing digital strands together with traditional offline activity. What was quite a surprise is that the majority of marketers at companies where activity is being integrated are choosing to do it themselves. Just six per cent of companies are employing an external agency to run the whole campaign.
“There is also clear demand for greater clarity when comparing performance from different parts of the marketing mix. Integrating marketing practices will provide this, it is just a matter of agreeing on what success looks like and how to measure it. When different marketing disciplines are levelled out you can really see which elements give the greatest returns, something that is invaluable and almost impossible to measure without integration. As a result marketing budgets can be made to work harder and better – it’s win, win.”
Notes to editors:
‘The Challenges of Integrated Marketing’ is an online survey conducted by Centaur on behalf of Marketing Week Live! 2010, the UK’s largest marketing event.
A total of 202 marketing professionals were polled between May 26th and June 21st 2010.
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