Learn how to create a solid integrated campaign with advice from a seasoned account manager.

Seven years ago when I got my first job in advertising, the biggest buzzword around was "integration." The full-service New York agency I worked for played up its "integrated" offerings, and stressed to potential clients how important it was to have a "fully integrated" campaign, and how they could help them achieve that zen-like state of total "integration." And smart marketers bought into that.

However, it's no secret that most marketers are now working with several agencies, often maintaining relationships with multiple firms with the same specialty. All types of agencies in diverse disciplines are being asked to work together on marketing campaign development, defining the rules of engagement as they go.

Usually there is one group -- almost always the ad agency, by the marketer's appointment -- taking the lead and driving their TV campaign idea down below-the-line. (Ever heard "How can we bring this to life online?") This leaves other partners -- interactive, PR, direct, promotions -- fighting for a piece of the pie, and for their voices to be heard. 

Rather than driving a creative, media-agnostic approach, this arrangement often results in a "trickle down" (from the TV creative, usually) campaign spread thin across many channels-- whatever budget is left after the TV and print buckets have been filled may be allocated to other media. Sure, everything has a unified look and feel, the same message, but the tactical plan was essentially the product of a creative execution. Is this really "integration?" Or the right marketing mix? Is it even the right way to go about budgeting for a communications plan? In short, no. There is a better way.

Marketers should collaborate with all of their agency partners, considering all media, throughout the campaign planning and development lifecycles. This approach will ultimately get to more impactful, results-driven marketing campaigns that are really integrated. Here's how. 

1. First, define the problem
Yes, this is a given-- but too often symptoms (e.g. sales are down) or causes (e.g. prices increased) are mistaken for the underlying problem. This results in a huge group of people trying to solve a problem which is not really "the" problem. On several occasions I have spent hours with my team just trying to uncover the problem-- so that we properly set the stage for devising solutions. Trust me, it is time well spent.

2. Encourage unconventional thinking
We have all been to "brainstorming sessions" that are not really brainstorming sessions at all, but are more about marketers or agency partners presenting and seeking buy-in on already-baked (or, more often, half-baked) plans. This is rarely productive. It inhibits democratic collaboration, as well as creativity, and tends to result in conventional ideas and solutions to the problem at hand.

Once the problem is defined, bring a cross-functional team to the table to generate solution ideas for the given problem. Getting team members together in a collaborative environment that fosters unconventional thinking is critical. One or two non-contributing people need to structure and facilitate the process of ideation in a receptive, non-intimidating environment in order for this to work predictably well.

3. Collaborate before media is committed
Many marketers start with the media buy to see how far their annual budgets can take them, and then have their creative agencies execute according to the buy. However, when a buy is authorized, and dollars are earmarked and committed for a given planning cycle, it is probably too late to get that cross-functional team working on that big campaign recommendation for you. Imagine someone comes up with a great interactive idea, but the buy has no allocation of dollars to online media. The media planning process should instead be effectively kicked off by cross-agency planning and ideation, not the other way around.

4. Leverage your interactive agency's usability experts 
User experience architects go by many names, but they have one thing in common: a laser-like focus on optimizing a customer's or consumer's experience across interactive channels. Usability professionals are critical participants in this collaborative process because they are the only discipline at the table that is only concerned about the consumer's point of view. Although they are primarily trained in web interaction design and user research, their focus on your target audience's experience is invaluable, and applicable far beyond the web.

5. Test, measure and optimize-- but most importantly, learn
Everyone in the interactive world generally understands that we need to measure everything, conduct tests to understand why things succeed or fail, and optimize campaigns (though these are not necessarily uniformly implemented). But it is critically important to build a store of learnings over time-- and to never ignore them. This should reside with both the marketer and the agency partners, as turnover often contributes to the "blank slate" syndrome. Yes, there are times when it is appropriate to re-validate (or refute) old learnings by retesting, but more often than not you'll see the same results again and again. Don't turn a blind eye to past results-- just like the proverbial mirror, data doesn't often lie.

Kelly Rogers is an account manager with Refinery, Inc. Read full bio.