Team says industry needs more case studies and research that are not CPG-related.

Kirsten Fry-Sanchez is director of marketing for Western Union Online Services. She leads the day-to-day operations, manages the revenue and profits, handles operations and customer service, the online service portfolio, customer site experience, site merchandising/content, online marketing and global strategy.

Shawna Landers (pictured) is the online services marketing director for Western Union handling agency relationships, worldwide online strategy, strategic partnerships and overall online advertising programs.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: We presented a group of large-scale, long-term portal partnerships to senior management. These partnerships were structured as much more than media buys and integrated us into the portals as well as offered expanded distribution opportunities. While funding did not allow us to move forward on everything, we are starting with one major portal and this is a breakthrough for the online group.

iMedia Connection: How has your job changed this year?

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: Online has had much more scrutiny than in prior years due to our success and the exposure online is getting in general in the press. We also are beginning online advertising in international countries, which proves very challenging.

iMedia Connection: What surprised you in the online world this year?

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: The rate that media prices are going up and the popularity that online has experienced vs. prior years.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: We have not realigned, but we are receiving more interest from traditional offline groups on how we can work better together. We also will be adding online advertising in international countries and we’ll be integrating with international teams. The popularity of the medium will increase our group size in 2005.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: Within our organization, online is separate from all other marketing groups. Unfortunately, we do not integrate into other business units' marketing mixes. However, online does support all channels of our business including offline and telephone. We are attempting to prove the value of what online offers to all parts of our organization.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: As referenced above, we haven’t done traditional media mix modeling and I feel it’s important to understand which media drives sales more efficiently. In addition, we should use all our media channels to push all business channels, e.g., online pushes offline, TV pushes online and telephone, etc.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: We recently completed a Dynamic Logic study for the sole purpose of tracking purchase intent offline after viewing online ads. We're extremely pleased with the results. We still struggle with having firm data of the value of what offline sales are driven from online but we did do a telephone money transfer banner campaign and saw very good response in using Web to drive telephone sales.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: We have a search engine agency that helps with keywords, search engine optimization and natural placement.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: Agencies will continue to need to prove the value of the marketing investment -- helping companies achieve their never-ending goals of leads, sales, etc. However, ultimately, it’s the relationship the agency has with the client and the strategic thinking that guides a client’s business and marketing efforts forward. A client needs business/marketing intelligence they don’t feel they can get elsewhere. They need agencies to provide strategic direction and forward thinking that always keeps the client ahead of the curve.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: We need more case studies and research information that is not CPG related. As a company in the service field, it's difficult to show management studies that have nothing to do with services. It only brings comments that "that's not related to us." We'd also suggest studies with mid-size organizations with more realistic online marketing budgets.

iMedia Connection: 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?

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: We aren’t participating in these efforts to any great extent.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: We need to mine our databases better in order to do true CRM initiatives. To date, our efforts consist of basic email marketing campaigns and we haven't gone as far as we need to. We plan on having a much more comprehensive CRM schedule that ties to multiple variables in 2005.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: We are planning on re-investigating additional portal partnerships as well as much more in-depth European advertising.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: Definitively proving that online helps offline. In addition, we’d like to move somewhat away from CPA- or CPT-type modes and closer to the quality of the action -- based on the transaction on customer value, not just volume.

iMedia Connection: What blogs do you read?

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: This isn’t a focus of our days.

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: The IAB SmartBrief is very helpful as well as scanning Media Post and eMarketer for key up-to-date information on the industry and statistics. 

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

Fry-Sanchez and Landers: See prior answer. Also, key Jupiter reports.