Best practices 9 and 10
Know your real goals.
This point is all about the numbers. All too often, marketers set out with what they want to do, rather than what they want to achieve. We want a website. We want to be in social media. We want to be in mobile. No doubt you do, but what do you want your business to achieve and how can interactive marketing help achieve it? Make the business case, show the ROI criteria, evaluate, and improve. The tools are readily available to help you.
So, we need bigger ideas and more tactics up our sleeve, a better grip on resources, and established professional standards. We need to be bolder. We need to respect the engineers, invest in marketing R&D, and listen to customers. And then we need to leave a legacy.
Pay attention to the digital contribution to your brand's heritage.
Heritage is a part of the brand's story that we can tap into and take home with us. There is a new Audi showroom in London on the way into town from Heathrow airport. It is supposed to be the largest in Europe, and I have no reason to doubt it. There are many floors, all full-height glass and displaying some very fine metal indeed. One floor is dedicated to the brand's glorious past -- the Quattros that ruled the rally world before they were banned for winning too much. It has been set at the perfect height to be visible when you are driving past on the elevated motorway next to it. The showroom causes a traffic jam, as drivers slow down to gawp -- and deservedly so.
How many marketers consider what happens to their interactive communications when they are (inevitably) replaced? We are throwing everything away. It is sad. In 20 years it will be fascinating to see a brand's digital journey, but all that will be left are some servers with a long history of deleted files, and whatever the Wayback Machine managed to preserve. We were the kids who could program the video recorder. We should leave a legacy that shows the evolution of the digital revolution.
Fred Brown is a partner at Last Exit.
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