Horizontal Strategic Integration
Horizontal Strategic Integration is a concept that encompasses all of your marketing efforts across the board. This is what comes to mind when people think about an integrated marketing campaign. If you are not familiar with what an integrated marketing campaign is, it’s a complex phrase that basically means that all of your marketing efforts are working together. Both your online marketing campaigns and your off-line marketing campaigns are working together to achieve a single desired result.
This is a concept that seems to be common sense, but I can’t tell you how many times I see a company’s marketing efforts going in 15 different directions. When your marketing efforts are going in 15 different directions, not only are you confusing your customers and your staff, but you’re also wasting valuable marketing resources. You literally may as well have a Friday night bonfire for your staff and use your marketing budget to fuel the fire.
One particular area of media that often lacks horizontal integration, is TV advertising.
It’s becoming slightly more common, but it still is shocking how much money is wasted with TV commercials. An good example of an integrated TV commercial is the Axe Apollo advertisement that aired during Superbowl XLVII (Forty-Seven). At the end of the Axe Apollo “Nothing beats and Astronaut” commercial, there was a simple call to action to go to their website to enter to win a trip to outer-space. This was a great use of horizontal integration with online marketing, online lead generation, and a mass-exposure television commercial to generate more traffic. (Click here to watch the “Nothing Beats and Astronaut” commercial.)
While we are on the topic of super bowl commercials, it always amazes me how companies spend so much money on a 30-second commercial, yet, they don’t take the right steps to maximize all the media exposure. In fact, some super bowl ads even provide virtually free traffic for their competitors!
A few years back, Ford had one of the more memorable Super Bowl commercials for their new Hybrid, Ford Escape that starred Kermit The Frog! Ford didn’t take the extra step to ensure they capitalized on the interest the commercial created on the back-end and competitor General Motors (GM) recognized an opportunity. GM purchased the word Kermit in paid search ads on Google to promote their own hybrid model. This strategic move by GM essentially got them all of the benefits from having a Super Bowl ad, with out having to create or pay for the actual commercial. Compared to paying for a Super Bowl commercial, the cost of the paid search ads was next to nothing.
Unfortunately there are dozens of stories just like the Ford horror story. Don’t make the same mistake in your business.
It’s very important that you consistently think about how you can make your marketing more effective by leveraging the power of cross-media, Horizontal Integration.