Even though print advertising no longer has the impact of 20 years ago, it by no means should be written out of your marketing mix.

In fact, a recent study by eMarketer, found that over 47% of survey respondents stated that magazines influenced them to start a search for merchandise online, beating out the response from email and blogs combined.

Benefits of Multi-channel Marketing

Multi-channel marketing helps build and extend the awareness of your brand, and provides additional opportunities that can actually boost the effectiveness of your existing online campaigns.

A well-implemented and integrated promotional effort allows you to:

• Successfully deliver one consistent message to you target audience;

• Repeat your marketing message across various channels in order to

  strengthen your brand awareness

• Have more opportunities to reach prospects and convert them into customers

Sounds like an obvious strategy to test, right? Well, like most other business strategies, the victories belong to those who can best execute. As General Patton once said, “Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.”

The 7 Barriers to Successful Integrated Marketing

Here are the 7 leading organizational speed bumps that prevent successful adoption and execution

of integrated multi-channel promotion:

1. Lack of multi-disciplinary skill-sets (offline and online marketing) within the organization;

2. Lack of interdepartmental coordination if online and offline marketing responsibilities are spread among different departments;
3. Lack of agreed-upon campaign measurement methodologies;

4. Lack of proper campaign measurement tools;
5. Lack of time;
6. Pre-conceived biases (“This type of marketing has always worked for us … why take our marketing budget dollars away from a proven strategy”?);
7. Company politics and
   How to Calculate Your Break-Even Point and How to Use It
   Definition of Break-Even:The Break-Even point in sales volume is defined as:“That point in sales volume, or revenue, where direct costs have been recovered, fixed overhead expenses have been absorbed and where profit begins”.We can relate Break-Even Point to the information in our financial statements, particularly the Income Statement. The Income Statement should be organized into the following sections:1. RevenueThe sum of all sales and other income net of returns and sales commissions.2. Cost of Sales (Cost of Goods Sold)The cost of purchases that are resold (merchandise) and/or raw materials plus the costs of labor to manufacture the product or convert it or install it or del
   h for merchandise online, beating out the response from email and blogs combined.

   Benefits of Multi-channel Marketing

   Multi-channel marketing helps build and extend the awareness of your brand, and provides additional opportunities that can actually boost the effectiveness of your existing online campaigns.

   A well-implemented and integrated promotional effort allows you to:

   • Successfully deliver one consistent message to you target audience;

   • Repeat your marketing message across various channels in order to

     strengthen your brand awareness

   • Have more opportunities to reach prospects and convert them into customers

   Sounds like an obvious strategy to test, right? Well, like most other business strategies, the victories belong to those who can best execute. As General Patton once said, “Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.”

   The 7 Barriers to Successful Integrated Marketing

   Here are the 7 leading organizational speed bumps that prevent successful adoption and execution

   of integrated multi-channel promotion:

   1. Lack of multi-disciplinary skill-sets (offline and online marketing) within the organization;

   2. Lack of interdepartmental coordination if online and offline marketing responsibilities are spread among different departments;
   3. Lack of agreed-upon campaign measurement methodologies;

   4. Lack of proper campaign measurement tools;
   5. Lack of time;
   6. Pre-conceived biases (“This type of marketing has always worked for us … why take our marketing budget dollars away from a proven strategy”?);
   7. Company politics and
      Why Blog for Money?
      Although the allure of owning your own domain is severely tempting, in all practicality you should really opt to own a blog instead, especially when you are just starting out on the web.WHY BLOG? 1. It is more cost-friendly: it's FREE and capable of generating money (Details in future posts). 2. It provides an easy-to-work-in and learning environment. 3. It is virtually RISK-FREE. 4. It is flexible. 5. It is almost the same as owning your own domain.COST FRIENDLY: Everyone knows that having your domain/website hosted by a hosting company requires payment and what for? You pay for your own domain name, the support they provide, personalized email accounts, and all that junk. You DO NOT
      t message to you target audience;

   8. Repeat your marketing message across various channels in order to

      strengthen your brand awareness

   9. Have more opportunities to reach prospects and convert them into customers

   Sounds like an obvious strategy to test, right? Well, like most other business strategies, the victories belong to those who can best execute. As General Patton once said, “Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.”

   The 7 Barriers to Successful Integrated Marketing

   Here are the 7 leading organizational speed bumps that prevent successful adoption and execution

   of integrated multi-channel promotion:

   1. Lack of multi-disciplinary skill-sets (offline and online marketing) within the organization;

   2. Lack of interdepartmental coordination if online and offline marketing responsibilities are spread among different departments;
   3. Lack of agreed-upon campaign measurement methodologies;

   4. Lack of proper campaign measurement tools;
   5. Lack of time;
   6. Pre-conceived biases (“This type of marketing has always worked for us … why take our marketing budget dollars away from a proven strategy”?);
   7. Company politics and
      The Top 5 Issues Facing VP's of Sales
      Every year millions of dollars are spent investigating and pursuing ways to grow sales. Any business owner knows that sales are the life blood of the company. If there are no sales there is no company, it is that simple!A recent study of 2,663 sales organizations by Think Training, Nightingale Conant, and Trainique uncovered five areas that shed light on what separates the best from the rest (visit http://www.getajobinsales.com/ebook)Issue one - A poorly defined sales process. 82% of all CEO’s said their sales organization had a process that was poorly defined or a process that wasn’t being followed. A sales process is like a road map. If you pay attention it helps you determine if you are in heading in the righ
      d, “Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.”

      The 7 Barriers to Successful Integrated Marketing

      Here are the 7 leading organizational speed bumps that prevent successful adoption and execution

      of integrated multi-channel promotion:

      1. Lack of multi-disciplinary skill-sets (offline and online marketing) within the organization;

      2. Lack of interdepartmental coordination if online and offline marketing responsibilities are spread among different departments;
      3. Lack of agreed-upon campaign measurement methodologies;

      4. Lack of proper campaign measurement tools;
      5. Lack of time;
      6. Pre-conceived biases (“This type of marketing has always worked for us … why take our marketing budget dollars away from a proven strategy”?);
      7. Company politics and
         Sales Lessons from Simple-Speak
         Immediately after dropping off breakfast for me and my brother, the waitress was suddenly overcome with sheer excitement. It was as if she had remembered something incredibly important, or maybe had just a few too many cups of coffee. She leaned in and exclaimed, “I’ll be right back with some ketchup for you!”The waitress scurried away, returning a few seconds later with a bottle of ketchup, which she proudly placed square in the middle of the table. With her hands on her apron, she admired her job well done.Puzzled, my brother and I looked at each other. Did anyone actually ask for ketchup? No. We hate ketchup with breakfast. Even the thought of ketchup with breakfast makes my brother sick. Yet, because th
         ental coordination if online and offline marketing responsibilities are spread among different departments;
      8. Lack of agreed-upon campaign measurement methodologies;

      9. Lack of proper campaign measurement tools;
      10. Lack of time;
      11. Pre-conceived biases (“This type of marketing has always worked for us … why take our marketing budget dollars away from a proven strategy”?);
      12. Company politics and different departmental agendas when offline and online marketing are spread among different departments.

      Guidelines For Integrated Marketing

      For organizations that can overcome the above barriers, here are some guidelines for capitalizing on an integrated plan:

      • Match your search marketing campaigns with your offline messaging by ensuring your PPC campaigns target the same words and terms used in your offline advertising.
      • Coordinate your integrated campaign schedules by developing a calendar of all offline promotions so that you can modify/expand your search campaigns at the appropriate time.
      • Use visitor and conversion data from your web analytics to help structure your offline campaigns for maximum effectiveness, by determining keywords and navigation behavior that most likely lead to conversions.

      • Always create distinct landing pages as targets for your offline promotions that enforce continuity in the message, offer and format to the printed piece. And be sure to use different URL’s or coupon codes for each separate promotion so that accurate measurement and tracking will be in place.
      • Have systems in place to track orders/leads received via phone.

      Measuring The Effectiveness of Your Campaigns

      The core of any successfully integrated effort depends on accurate metrics-tracking and analysis of each campaign. At a minimum, you’ll want to have your web analytics setup to analyze the following by campaign source:

      1. Customer acquisition costs (CPA)

      2. Revenues

      1. For eCommerce – revenues and average order value
      2. For lead generation – number and quality of leads<
      3. Life time value of newly acqu