Marketers Need Metrics to Integrate "Old School" and "New School" Media

I saw a great article on the eMarketer web site. A joint study was done by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers. They found that only 7% of US marketers were very satisfied with their progress integrating "Old School" (traditional) and "New School" (digital) media.

There seem to be several obstacles preventing further adoption of "New School" media. According to the study, the first and largest hurdle to overcome, is the need for solid metrics. The second-biggest obstacle is lack of understanding of "New School" media, followed by hesitation by company executives to "expand their horizons" and the infamous silos that prevent the different organizational entities from, "getting on the same page".

The study found that both customer and agency marketers agree on how to increase the acceptance of the integration process;

* Become as educated as possible on "New School" media.
* As always, set clear goals and business objectives.
* Understand what the customer needs.
* Test and retest (and retest, again).
* Commit to detailed metrics and analytics.

Of course, none of the above matters without a way to measure campaign ROI. The real challenge many marketers face is that the necessary data to measure ROI is often decentralized across the multiple marketing "engines". Data sets and terminology are not standardized.

A strong solution to this challenge would be to utilize greater Marketing Automation. This integration of marketing and technology would allow companies to centralize and standardize their "Old" and "New" school media channels on one platform, thus allowing for a smooth integration of their marketing efforts.