Integrated Marketing

First in a series of three posts about the theory behind the new layout of ArkansasRazorbacks.com

With declining impact of traditional display advertising and low click-through rate for on-screen image advertising, editorial-based information presents at least the equal impact of these older formats, and research shows some direct and many anecdotal impacts of increased probability of messages resulting in positive action.

The goal of integrating marketing is to infuse the editorial content which fans value with the necessary information to inspire them to be aware of promotions and other awareness on behalf of advertisers, but to do so in ways that can be easily shared within the social graph and understood by the consumer.

In other words, write out the details in a clear story.

Traditional marketing consumes inordinate amounts of time, money and verbiage to get across a simple point: tickets are on sale for $10 at the gate; tonight is cap night; there is a $5 off coupon for a family of four at the game.

Those details, written as a story or as bullet points attached to editorial content achieve their goal. They can then be shared by among friends, either via social network sites like Facebook or over direct message systems like Twitter, SMS text or traditional email.

Time saved on the creation and delivery of elaborate display advertising is spent on targeting the message to people likely to act upon it: again, the readers of editorial content about the teams and athletes in question.

This does not mean turning old-school newspaper ads into an email and blasting it out across every possible address an institution owns. No matter how noble one believes the cause, that is pure and simple spam.

Next, the steps to turn meme to action.