Variable Data Printing

Leveraging customer managed relationships with integrated marketing can be a profitable combination, as strategies like target marketing and market segmentation are utilized. Marketers are finding that they are using data in their CRMs (customer relationship management databases) to help them market to selected customer segments. Yet the CRM (customer relationship management) has morphed into a CMR (customer managed relationships), giving customers increasing control, which in turn has led to a trend of customers collaborating through social media in these relationships.

Driven to the web by print, direct mail, radio, TV or outdoor media consumers are using mobile, computer and even interactive TV screens to communicate their thoughts and needs to the world. It’s apparent that integrated media has made this close collaboration with customers and prospects possible and interactive.

Social media has made a huge impact on how companies and brands are interacting with their customers and giving their marketing campaigns flexibility and spontaneity. While social media allows the spontaneity, it often lacks the quantifiable aspect that a controlled campaign supplies through feedback and back-end tracking. Twitter is one known channel that customers have effectively used to give immediate feedback on a campaign, brand experience or share new ideas.

But what if you are just looking for ideas and willing to take a risk?

50/50 Chance For Ford Motor Company – Could this be a Social Media Experiment Gone Bad?

Ford Motor Company decided to go head-to-head with their customers and prospects by giving away 100 Ford Fiestas in return for customer feedback via social media ~ good or bad ~ for 6 months! Talk about taking a risk? This could have easily been a social media experience gone bad.

The provisions included customers blogging for 6 months about their experiences. Through this feedback, Ford hopes to learn how to best approach prospects for the new Ford Fiestas, in addition to possible product modifications. As risky of a proposition this may seem, it will supply Ford with exactly what is working and what’s not, what is important to Ford owners and potential owners and what is not.

Priceless feedback like this is amazing market research. With the blogs being open for the world to see, it could come at a hefty price for Ford if this social media experiment backfires. It’s definitely a 50/50 chance. If the customers give good feedback then it could be invaluable word of mouth; if bad feedback, it could turn into a viral spiral of bad publicity for a new product launch, causing real damage to Ford’s brand.

But Scott Monty must feel pretty confident about their brand and the Fiesta product to give it a go, making this a completely transparent social media experience. If good feedback then it could be invaluable word of mouth, if bad news it could go viral in a heartbeat and do real damage to Ford’s brand.

And, given the fact Ford just had a record breaking 2011, reporting their best annual earnings since 1998, making it the 2nd most profitable year in the company’s 109-year history, this definitely seems like a safe bet.

[Not to mention, Scott Monty's no amateur at Social Media ~ he just came in at #89 on Top 100 Influencers on Social Media - Congratulations Scott!]

Ford has started a conversation through integrated marketing that could begin to change the way we think of advertising and brand management. By leveraging its customer managed relationships, Ford is able to gain valuable insight on market research and future product initiatives.

Integrated marketing, risk taking and having that conversation with customers, and most of all but most of all listening to our customers seems to be the way of the future. Looks targeted marketing and customer managed relationships are here to stay and integrated marketing might just be the way to profit from them.

Integrated marketing plans are employing content marketing as a means to motivate your target audience of customers and prospects to buy and build their brand. Not so long ago you would see an ad, a TV spot, hear a radio spot or get a mailing with a “special offer” and that was the marketing plan and strategy rolled into one. Strategy has since changed and the new tactics have been implemented and clearly defined as separate from the marketing strategy.

Marketers have learned to effectively communicate with their target audience of customers and prospects in the way their audience is most comfortable receiving a message… Social media, print, email and more often an integrated approach of marketing channels. Changes in sharing personal information, selling and frankly courting customers have continued. Now the content of the message and the way it is delivered has changed. Sales pitches have dramatically softened and valuable, relevant content is appearing in its place in integrated marketing plans.

This has indicated a large scale shift, a trend, in the market place to create and distribute relevant information to attract a highly defined target audience. With the adoption of market segmentation, the more this highly targeted audience is informed without an obvious sales pitch, it seems the more profitably the customer responds to the marketers approach. Good content grabs your attention; makes you think about what you have just seen heard or read and then act.

In a recent Roper Public Affairs study 80% of business-to-business decision makers polled said that they preferred content marketing to ads. 9 out of 10 marketers currently use content marketing and are already spending 25% of their marketing budget on it. Many tactics are used to disseminate this valuable content to a target audience: social media, case studies, white papers, personal appearances as a speaker, webinars, informational videos and more – again utilizing an integrated approach.

You still need to drive your target audience of prospects and customers to this valuable content or deliver it to them in some manner. SEO, direct mail, outdoor advertising, and QR codes are just a few integrated marketing tactics that people have found effective. Once a relationship has been established it often is continued even sought out by the information’s recipient. Think about blogs, Twitter, and Google Plus – there are people who follow them religiously. Consider adding content marketing to your integrated marketing plan for a segmented audience. You might just see your sales jump.

How will you start creating engaging content to add to your integrated marketing mix? What will be your content marketing priority?