As an old-time marketer, the last three years have been an interesting time. A fellow marketer I respect enormously and I had a coffee in a small Sydney cafe and discussed our frustration with digital marketing.

With social networking emerging at stellar speed and everyone wanting to have this and that we questioned: ‘How does it add value?’ It reminded us of the dotcom bubble but more subdued.

My friend went on to become an expert in social marketing in high demand and I invested in some new technology companies to work on it from the inside, one of which was Komosion.

Over the time we got to understand that a lot of what was being put forward was ideas and without clear tangible outcomes. You should do this; you must have one of these; and why aren’t you?

When the question of why and what profit will it deliver was ‘insultingly’ raised, the answer would come back ‘But if you don’t you will miss out’ ……. it sounded very familiar.

That’s not how we approach business at Komosion. I have just had the great pleasure of working with a client on Komosion’s behalf which has seen more than 60% of its industry concentrated into two players in a matter of five years!

The client decided it wanted to create a competitive advantage using the web, eDM, SMS, social media, etc, in short digital marketing. Komosion’s MD John O’Neill and I started by agreeing on an approach which reflected what we had learnt from our marketing experience and our observations in recent years. The key points were:

1.       Digital marketing must fully integrate into the existing marketing program and brand principles to deliver results without a huge additional infrastructure cost.

2.       The program must be supported at the top and by key stakeholders such as suppliers and advertising agencies.

3.       There must be a clear single role that the digital marketing was to fulfil

4.       The website was to be a key platform on which the digital program was built, and into which most paths led and fed out of, or, at the very least, connected back to.

5.       Direct communication with consumers allowed unfettered access to our real customers. It must be a 2 way conversation but driving mutual benefit.

Our main message was that the marketing principles both online and offline are very similar, although digital has a number of significant advantages:

1.       It can be immediate. It is flexible and quick to implement

2.       It is accepting of multiple segments being interacted with simultaneously

3.       More tools, more facilities for achieving more

4.       Totally accountable and measurable

5.       Borderless access to markets

We recommended a Website overhaul and aligning offline and online digital channels including SMS, Social networks, email, Twitter, mobile apps and banner advertising to deliver results which will translate into business.

The strategy is now being executed and we look forward to being held to account.