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Add You - Bridging the Chasm Between IT and Internet Marketing
Watching young children at play is, of course, entertaining. For the businessperson, watching young children at play can also be educational. Sometimes kids run amok; they can be aggressive, destructive, and unmanageable yet n other situations they are orderly, polite, and delightful. I don’t think the difference has anything to do with the way the planets are aligned. I think the difference is that, in the latter instance, parents and educators have established expectations and boundaries, they have communicated them clearly, and follow up to insure those expectations and boundaries are met. When youngsters know what is expected of them, what they may or may not do, most rise to the challenge. In a broad generalization, when expectations and boundaries have been established the children have an increased ability to learn and communicate, they become more productive and accomplished.The reason this is educational for the businessperson is that the same holds through in every aspect of managing a business. It’s all about expectations and boundaries, communicatio
The study goes on to indicate that almost 75% of those organizations surveyed admitted to not knowing how many users the corporate web site could support. Even worse, over 60% were unaware of how many users were leaving web sites with incomplete transactions, and barely 1 in 10 could put a figur
Business startup and failure rates are scary...In The USA...- Every Year Over 1 Million People Start A Business- By The End Of The First Year 40% Of Them Will Be Out Of Business- Within 5 Years More Than 80% (800,000) Of These Businesses Will Have Failed(Source: The eMyth Revisited, Michal E Gerber, US Department of Commerce)In The UK...- 2003 Saw 423,100 New Businesses In England & Wales Startup- Over Half of All New Firms Fail In The First 3 Years- At Least 211,550 Of These Businesses Will Have Failed Before The End Of 2006(Source: Barclays SME Market Research Team England & Wales Statistics Based On Business Current Account Customers)Unfortunately more and more people are being encouraged to go it alone by government agencies and banks while being given out-dated advice that doesn't actually work.The advisors in these organisations typically have experience in larger production / manufacturing / financial businesses and share marketing advice that really doesn't work for th
For many companies, this proved to be a great strategy. Nimble e-commerce groups created websites and strategies quickly and started producing almost immediate results. However, this approach has lost its luster over the past few years as IT departments are finding their budgets shrinking and staff stagnating. In some companies where the IT department has not had a significant hand in Internet strategy and web site development, a great deal of animosity has grown on the part of IT managers toward anything “Internet,” including Internet marketing. Migrating from an exclusionary mindset to a collaborative mindset is not something that comes easily to some companies. Egos, politics, logistics, and relationships are usually altered in the process. Countless companies are still hobbled by the lack of communication between IT and marketing, inefficient vendor relationships, and archaic processes, all of which compromise customer service. Sure, there are positives to the aforementioned separatist strategy, but there are countless negatives, as many companies have recently discovered. The tide is slowly turning towards cooperation as marketers realize they cannot go it alone anymore in the Internet space, the customers and the technology simply move too fast.
Who’s to blame for this? Both marketing leaders who do not understand the need for soliciting cross-functional support and IT leaders who fail to bridge communication gaps across functional teams play a role in creating the gap that separates IT from Marketing.
A new study recently done in the UK by CatchFIRE Systems reported that nearly three quarters of IT departments are not involved in the initial planning stages of online marketing campaigns, leading to 24% of UK organizations suffering from web overloads and site crashes. Sound familiar? It does to me, I can recall bringing down our web servers SEVERAL times when we began doing email marketing before I thought to involve the IT department.
The study goes on to indicate that almost 75% of those organizations surveyed admitted to not knowing how many users the corporate web site could support. Even worse, over 60% were unaware of how many users were leaving web sites with incomplete transactions, and barely 1 in 10 could put a figur
The first part of this article assumes that your company is listed on the stock-exchange. Please stay tuned...As consumers we are continuously seduced by advertisements. And luckily we all know what we want and what we need so we can handle this continuous stream of challenges.Perhaps less sexy but even so often, your business is seduced in the same way. You should buy this, you should go for six sigma, implement CRM, open in a new market, develop a new product, add additional services, and the only thing you know for sure is that your budget is limited.One mistake and your opponent will catch up easily.So how would you minimize business mistakes?The first pillar is about minimizing these mistakes. It is the pillar of credibility. You know that when you company is listed on the stock exchange, that all actions are observed by the market. If your company announces a business strategy that is not credible, the stock price will decline (which will impact future resource management opportunities).The first pillar of successful resource
For many companies, this proved to be a great strategy. Nimble e-commerce groups created websites and strategies quickly and started producing almost immediate results. However, this approach has lost its luster over the past few years as IT departments are finding their budgets shrinking and staff stagnating. In some companies where the IT department has not had a significant hand in Internet strategy and web site development, a great deal of animosity has grown on the part of IT managers toward anything “Internet,” including Internet marketing. Migrating from an exclusionary mindset to a collaborative mindset is not something that comes easily to some companies. Egos, politics, logistics, and relationships are usually altered in the process. Countless companies are still hobbled by the lack of communication between IT and marketing, inefficient vendor relationships, and archaic processes, all of which compromise customer service. Sure, there are positives to the aforementioned separatist strategy, but there are countless negatives, as many companies have recently discovered. The tide is slowly turning towards cooperation as marketers realize they cannot go it alone anymore in the Internet space, the customers and the technology simply move too fast.
Who’s to blame for this? Both marketing leaders who do not understand the need for soliciting cross-functional support and IT leaders who fail to bridge communication gaps across functional teams play a role in creating the gap that separates IT from Marketing.
A new study recently done in the UK by CatchFIRE Systems reported that nearly three quarters of IT departments are not involved in the initial planning stages of online marketing campaigns, leading to 24% of UK organizations suffering from web overloads and site crashes. Sound familiar? It does to me, I can recall bringing down our web servers SEVERAL times when we began doing email marketing before I thought to involve the IT department.
The study goes on to indicate that almost 75% of those organizations surveyed admitted to not knowing how many users the corporate web site could support. Even worse, over 60% were unaware of how many users were leaving web sites with incomplete transactions, and barely 1 in 10 could put a figur
I have been searching for years to find a profitable, easy to start internet business. I had absolutely no experience and only functional knowledge of how the internet worked. All I knew was that I wanted to start a business, make some money to pay a bill or two and be home when my son was home from school.When I first began this journey to the elusive internet riches, I was living at home with my parents. I had a three year old son who deserved better and no one to help me get ahead. I already felt completely guilty for leaving my son with my mother all day while I worked full time as a cashier. I only made $7/hr and knew I deserved more. But I hadn’t finished college. I should have been in college right then, but you know how things build up and distract you from your goals. (Having a child, dealing with baby daddy drama, my grandfather, my favorite uncle and then my baby brother passing away within six months of each other were my distractions.)Without a college degree, I couldn’t land the jobs I already knew how to do. Just because I didn’t finish college,
Who’s to blame for this? Both marketing leaders who do not understand the need for soliciting cross-functional support and IT leaders who fail to bridge communication gaps across functional teams play a role in creating the gap that separates IT from Marketing.
A new study recently done in the UK by CatchFIRE Systems reported that nearly three quarters of IT departments are not involved in the initial planning stages of online marketing campaigns, leading to 24% of UK organizations suffering from web overloads and site crashes. Sound familiar? It does to me, I can recall bringing down our web servers SEVERAL times when we began doing email marketing before I thought to involve the IT department.
The study goes on to indicate that almost 75% of those organizations surveyed admitted to not knowing how many users the corporate web site could support. Even worse, over 60% were unaware of how many users were leaving web sites with incomplete transactions, and barely 1 in 10 could put a figur
The saying “Quality, not Quantity” is applicable even to the world of email marketing. So many organizations are purchasing large databases of email addresses, with hopes to achieve high open rates and sales. The truth is that you are more likely to achieve your campaign goals if you send an email out to 100 targeted individuals than you would to 10,000 randomly purchased email addresses.There is a common misconception when it comes to the quantity of emails in your email list. A lot of business owners think that the key to running successful email campaigns is to send their emails out to thousands and thousands of email addresses and this is commonly achieved through the purchase of large databases. This way of thinking about email marketing is wrong and will only result in discouragement and campaign failure.When you purchase email lists from companies, you can never be too sure how they acquired these email addresses in the first place. Often, large databases of email addresses have been collected in ways that are misleading to the users providing their emai
Who’s to blame for this? Both marketing leaders who do not understand the need for soliciting cross-functional support and IT leaders who fail to bridge communication gaps across functional teams play a role in creating the gap that separates IT from Marketing.
A new study recently done in the UK by CatchFIRE Systems reported that nearly three quarters of IT departments are not involved in the initial planning stages of online marketing campaigns, leading to 24% of UK organizations suffering from web overloads and site crashes. Sound familiar? It does to me, I can recall bringing down our web servers SEVERAL times when we began doing email marketing before I thought to involve the IT department.
The study goes on to indicate that almost 75% of those organizations surveyed admitted to not knowing how many users the corporate web site could support. Even worse, over 60% were unaware of how many users were leaving web sites with incomplete transactions, and barely 1 in 10 could put a figur
Your brand identity communicates a promise from your company to your customer. Your brand identity consists of your logo, business card, letterhead, website and all other marketing and advertising collateral. When a customer looks at your brand identity, what do they see? What is their perception of your company?You may run your business from your dining room table, be a company of 1 or only work your business part time. Whatever the scenario, your brand identity is still important. When a client looks at your business card or your website, they should never be able to tell or even get the perception that you work from home. What should stand out for them is how professional, trustworthy and stable you look as a company.In business, perception is everything. There is no guarantee, a potential customer will meet you before looking at your business card or your website, so it is important to make sure your brand identity is strong enough to stand on its own, without you.You can be a SOHO (small office home office) business and have the look and feel of a f
The study goes on to indicate that almost 75% of those organizations surveyed admitted to not knowing how many users the corporate web site could support. Even worse, over 60% were unaware of how many users were leaving web sites with incomplete transactions, and barely 1 in 10 could put a figure on the consequent monetary losses to their organization. These statistics underscore the basic problem: how can we act as goodwill ambassadors to our customers when we do not have an adequate technical understanding of the tools that are at our disposal? Any good sales manager knows how many calls his sales staff can make in a day, week, or month. Yet, the average marketing manager hasn’t taken the time to inquire about how many visitors her website can handle in a day. This status quo clearly indicates the need for increased contact between IT and Marketing.
Results and relations would improve appreciably if marketing were to send a representative to IT project meetings and IT were to assign a technical liaison to each marketing team. Even involving an IT developer in a weekly sales and marketing planning meeting will have a beneficial impact. While the developer may have little understanding of marketing concepts like CPM, CPA, ROMI, and what have you, at least he can give an honest answer on whether your current CRM technology can handle the sales management mandates or reporting requirements. The average IT person can also bring your meeting back to Earth in a hurry when you casually suggest launching your next product via a worldwide webcast of a real-time speech from your CEO and an exclusive Rolling Stones concert to millions of viewers.
At the end of the day, your sales and marketing team needs an embedded IT team member, especially if you are placing a great deal of emphasis on CRM, Internet marketing and your website to drive your sales numbers. Moreover, if you have designs on ANY integration of your CRM, ERP systems and your web presence, you’re in a far better position with an IT person on board than if you try to go it alone or make that integration happen through the flavor-of-the-month vendor that you’ve hired for the job. If you’re scratching your head on how to get more involved with IT, or what all the elements are in the equation, here are ten points to consider when engaging your IT department. 1. Treat IT like a partner. Your IT department is not a vendor that you can give orders to. Seek the department’s input. An IT solution is a tool that requires technical input and information sharing.
2. Embed IT personnel in
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