Online marketing serves multiple channels for multiple initiatives.

Ted Moon joined Nextel in September 1999 initially to manage all direct marketing efforts of Nextel including direct mail and direct response print. However, it was an experiment with online marketing upon his arrival that launched a new direction and quickly changed his focus. For the last four years, he has focused exclusively on online marketing, driving leads to various sales channels as well as spearheading the online branding efforts for Nextel

Prior to coming to Nextel, Moon spent three years at MCI, the last two in the very successful airline partnership program managing the Southwest Airlines and US Airways relationships.

Moon began his career in direct response advertising in New York City, as an account executive at Ogilvy & Mather Direct (now OgilvyOne) working on AT&T and IBM during his stay. He later became a product manager for Newbridge Communications, a continuities and book club publisher and marketer.

Moon received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in 1989 where he was a co-captain of the lacrosse team and an MBA in marketing from the University of Notre Dame in 1993.

iMediaConnection: What was your biggest online "win" this year, and how did you sell it throughout the company?

Moon: Two things come to mind. Overall results for the online marketing program are at an all time best from both a volume and efficiency standpoint. Our search engine marketing and integrated media campaigns have been the big drivers of this success. Second big win is that we have been one of the success stories when it comes to monetizing our NASCAR sponsorship. Here in our first year as the title sponsor of the sport, it was important to see how we could not only change the name of the top circuit in the sport to the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, but also sell some phones from the sponsorship. Our results have been very encouraging in using the sponsorship to generate sales leads and sales.

iMediaConnection: How has your job changed this year?

Moon: I have added additional responsibilities such as NASCAR marketing as well as corporate accounts lead generation. As far as online marketing goes, with the addition of more staff to the business, I have gone from less day to day manager to more of an internal evangelist of the online marketing program in obtaining additional budget, more responsibility, and educating internal constituents on the power of online marketing.

iMediaConnection: What surprised you in the online world this year?

Moon: That the Spyware and Adware companies have continued to thrive.  I thought through customer experience issues, as well as marketers finding more sophisticated and "above the fray" type activities, this would have decreased. But it seems more and more companies are doing this because they need to remain competitive through unconventional methods.

iMediaConnection: Have you realigned internal structures and resources to simplify or increase integrated marketing?

Moon: We frequently evaluate how to maximize the efficiency of our internal structures, and we tweak as we go along. For example, we recently contracted with some creative and media agencies that will produce some of our offline and online work. However, our overall system has proven to be very effective, so there is no need to fix what isn't broken. 

iMediaConnection: How do you determine your marketing mix -- and how has the role of online in it changed?

Moon: So far, it has been largely a combination of a year over year approach as well as determining which marcom serves which channels and what are those channels' sales goals for the year and then coming up with proposed expenditures. As more and more people discover that online marketing serves multiple channels for multiple initiatives with great cost efficiency, then I believe that online marketing's role will increase even more than it has already and subsequently will become a much bigger part of the overall company marketing mix.

iMediaConnection: What haven't you brought into the marketing mix yet that you want to try?

Moon: I am very intrigued with the concept of having original content on our site to drive hits and creating a microsite that would host the entertainment-oriented content and have it be promoted in an integrated, cross media way. This is a slightly different approach than the typical "hit you over the head with a free phone, unlimited minutes" offer that you see in our category, but I think it will be a success and a way to be above the fray.  It seemed to have worked for other subscription-based, direct marketers so it gives me confidence that it could work for us.

iMediaConnection: Have you seen specific evidence of online driving offline sales?

Moon: Yes, we have seen a substantial amount of traffic and completed inquires that online marketing is driving to the online retail store locator. So we know there is a tremendous amount of traffic we are sending to the brick and mortar stores.  In addition, we have tracked how many inbound TM calls as well as corporate accounts leads we have driven as well.

iMediaConnection: Are you using consultants, software, agencies or other tools to help with search engine marketing?

Moon: We have a dedicated person at our online media buying agency. We also just started a relationship with Atlas.

iMediaConnection: What do you believe is the future of ad agencies?

Moon: As the online marketing world grows, they will have to view the online staff at the agency as being more important to the future of their agencies than ever before. They will need to embrace the discipline as a whole in order to bring the best service to their clients and when putting together integrated programs, they will have to bring the online staff in from the beginning and give them a chance to help craft the overall program from the start and not be an afterthought or a throw in. Agencies that don't take this seriously will not be bringing the best service to their clients and sooner or later, the clients will get it and it will put a big dent into the agencies' long-term future.

iMediaConnection: What do we need to be doing as an industry to help you make Interactive marketing a bigger piece of your marketing pie?

Moon: 1. Keep evangelizing the success of online marketing using metrics that traditional marketers understand and appreciate.
2. Give a reality check of the changing media consumption habits to those who still need it.
3. Weed out the bad eggs in this business that may give the "sleazy" connotation to it. 

iMediaConnection: Are you being affected by any consumer-generated marketing (CGM) -- blogs, user groups, etc.? Are you using any blogs or other social networking tools to market?

Moon: Not yet, but the door is open.

iMediaConnection: How important is CRM in your marketing efforts? Give us an example of what's working.

Moon: Through online marketing, we obtain a lot of prospect "handraisers" who we can put into a prospect eCRM program so that we keep a dialogue with them while they are in the early stages of the buying process (since cell phones are generally high involvement purchases) so that when they are ready to buy, we will have several communications with them and they are best poised to buy from us.

iMediaConnection: What are you investing in now for next year's marketing program?

Moon: Please stay tuned. We have some exciting new initiatives on the way, but nothing that I can elaborate on now.

iMediaConnection: Does anything still frustrate you about what online can or can't do?

Moon: We still can't accurately measure offline sales without special offers/codes for prospect sales. Also, the industry still has not completely reigned in aspects of the business that bring it down. This has gotten much better the last couple of years but we still have a long way to go.

iMediaConnection: What blogs do you read? 

Moon: None, I don't really have time. As a hobby, I read a lot of content on amateur World War II sites that are run by history buffs/enthusiasts.

iMediaConnection: What are your daily "must-see" Web sites and why?

Moon: I look at NASCAR.com since we have such a large buy with them to support our title sponsorship of the sport, as well as some of our key partner sites like ESPN.com, SportsLine, Weather.com, and Forbes.com.  Google is a 10-times-a-day type of site.

iMediaConnection: What are you reading these days, other than iMediaConnection.com, of course?

Moon: I read industry-related news on iMedia and ClickZ News. I read up on the sports business via Sports Business Journal since we are so heavily invested in sports. Personally, I try to read stories of success, overcoming adversity, and leadership that I can apply to my job from other walks of life. Specifically, I read a lot of World War II history and sports coaching books.