We’re all familiar with containers - Tupperware containers, barrels, boxes, cars and silos (both the literal and the figurative sense), etc. Categories and departments are also containers. Containers can be incredibly useful. In the literal sense, they keep valuable or perishable items safe. In the figurative sense, containers keep order and help make sense of things.

But containers aren’t always effective when it comes to business, and they're certainly not effective when it comes to developing, measuring and getting results from online marketing. Effective online marketing requires an integration of mediums and resources – not silos.

It’s not uncommon for a marketing department to be organized into functional containers. Email marketers in one container, search engine marketers in another, and so on. But the best marketing results come from an integration of mediums – and that requires an integration of functions, even if organizationally the functional containers need to be somewhat separated.

For example, even a fairly standard lead generation email marketing program requires coordination with other marketers, and the use of tools and mediums that are not exclusive to email. The project manager of an email marketing program will likely have to work with the following people, at a minimum:

• The database manager for the list
• A designer or HTML coding expert to develop the email message
• Someone from the Web team to develop a landing page
• An operational guru who ensures the leads or sales are seamlessly entered into the company’s CRM system or other database.

That’s a lot of container-busting for a fairly basic email marketing program.

It is possible to take that email marketing program up a notch and realize greater results for the same amount of effort. Instead of sending a “batch and blast” email message (which some may argue is its own container) one could:  

• Take a look at Web analytics to determine the email messaging or offer that recent Web site visitors found most appealing.


• Use deliverability metrics to ensure that the email content won’t cause the messages to get caught in spam filters.


• Leverage search engine marketing, social media marketing and/or mobile marketing to expand the reach of the email offer.


• Tap into email and landing page templates to minimize the amount of time it takes to create from-scratch versions and mitigate the risk of email messages not rendering properly for recipients.


• And, perhaps most importantly, break out of those silos that slow down the integrated marketing process by reaching out to people on whom you rely, and developing processes that make it easy to work with one another - no matter what your org chart says!

How are you breaking out of conventional containers to improve your online marketing in 2010? Share, discuss and debate here.

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About the Author

Cathi Mason is director of marketing programs for Lyris. Her team is responsible for executing programs that delivery quality leads to the sales team.

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