Interactivity, mobility and the real-time Web have forever changed the marketing landscape. Multiple channels and touchpoints - Facebook, blogs and micro-blogs, video-sharing sites, mobile applications and emerging tools such as Twitter and real-time search - are providing companies with an unprecedented opportunity to interact directly, and immediately, with target audiences. Having said this, most marketing organizations aren't even scratching--

--the surface of what they could achieve because their own internal communication process is nothing like the real-time Web environment, where information is shared, consumed, reacted to, evaluated and refined in real-time.

For starters, most organizations are organized around a handful of dedicated specialists responsible for managing online marketing campaigns across a variety of disparate channels. And these marketing team specialists responsible for various disciplines like Web, email, social media, mobile and search marketing often tend to be isolated and not in synch.

What's more, most are working with limited resources - perceived or real - due to recessionary budget cuts. In fact, 63 percent of marketers who recently participated in a Lyris-sponsored survey for TWTRCON NY 2010 felt the budget they had to run programs related to social media was too limited.

This real-time information sharing will force marketing organizations to change how they collaborate. If organizations developing marketing programs for social media platforms don't truly embrace this way of doing business internally, how can they create effective strategies that will resonate with target audiences externally?

A "Connected" Approach Is Needed to Compete and Thrive

Today's audiences respond to conversations, not just campaigns. And the real-time Web and mobility have created the need for a "360-degree experience" - meaning your marketing efforts should surround your audience. This requires marketing organizations to embrace a common goal and take a unified view of results.

Therefore it has never been more important for the marketing "right hand" to know what the marketing "left hand" is doing in terms of target audience communications and response. Marketing teams must directly link all marketing activities to ensure consistent messaging and brand experience for audiences accessing information in real time from a variety of sources using different devices.

With so many tactics to reach a target audience - and different specialists working independently on them - companies require more visibility into who is doing what, when, why and how. "Disconnects" among online marketing disciplines lead to missed opportunities to share results and ideas; maximize budgets; mobilize talent and assets; and ultimately, create and deploy online strategies that reach and engage an audience and earn their loyalty.

Becoming a "connected marketing organization" is not about reorganizing the physical layout of the office (though that could help) but about a new mindset - getting teams to let go of dated practices and to think and act more holistically, as a natural part of an integrated online marketing process.

Marketing organizations that collaborate to align channels and teams have found they can reduce labor costs, increase team productivity along with marketing performance and ROI by improving the reach and relevance of key messages, promoting content reuse, and creating better relationships and results by serving audiences in a unified, clear manner.

The Lyris/TWTRCON survey revealed that 77 percent of marketers have had some success at managing an online marketing strategy across departments, including SEO, email, social, mobile and analytics. While that's a good number, it still means that 33 percent have not been very successful.

Three Fundamentals of Connected Marketing Organizations

Based on our experience working with marketers who have embraced or are moving toward the connected marketing organization approach, we’ve found the following practices in common:

• Sharing the vision. Connected marketing organizations rally their teams to adopt a unified vision, build creative synergies, and work toward common goals. This helps to avoid turf wars and encourages an open, collaborative environment.
  
  
• Continually seeking cross-channel insight and opportunities. In the connected marketing organization, teams are brought together early in the process to discuss how different functions can collaborate to enhance the power of the marketing message for a particular program. For specific campaigns, connected marketing organizations clearly strive to understand each touchpoint, where they overlap, and where each channel can help reinforce a key message.
  
  
• Rewarding team outcomes. Overall team success, rather than solely individual outcomes, is rewarded in the connected marketing organization to emphasize that collaboration is valued. Many of the marketing organizations we have worked with have designed
  incentive systems that underscore cross-channel discipline success.

Many marketing teams are not collaborating on inbound and outbound marketing activities and responses to those efforts as often as they should. However, it’s not difficult to make adjustments that will dramatically improve this situation and lead to the development of a marketing strategy that will resonate with target audiences on many levels. Taking a holistic, connected view of the organization and methodically measuring success, creates an environment where ideas and information flow freely: a perfect match for today’s real-time Web environment.

For more information on hyper-collaboration and the real-time Web download the Lyris Perspectives whitepaper:

• Connect Online Marketing Teams to Improve Community Engagement and Marketing Performance

Also check out these free on demand webcasts for more tips on integrated marketing:

• Social Media Marketing + Email Marketing - The Dynamic Duo
• Driving ROI with Email, Social & Mobile Marketing
• Integrated Online Marketing: The Sum is Greater Than its Parts
• Using Mobile Marketing for Email Campaigns: A Primer

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About the Author

Blaine Mathieu is chief marketing officer for Lyris. Blaine is responsible for Lyris' brand and product strategy, including driving marketing initiatives for the company's Lyris HQ™ integrated-marketing suite and its Lyris ListManager™ email-marketing software.

Related Resources:

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• Download free online-marketing guides, tools and webinars in the Lyris Online-Marketing Resource Center.