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5. It's about dialog. Interactive marketing means active, not passive customers. No more "getting your message out there." You must engage.
6. Don't overlook offline media. By definition, direct response in any medium is interactive. Print, radio and TV, and direct mail continue to deliver respectable results, and can be a powerful part of your mix.
7. Track and report results. John Wanamaker famously said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." He would have loved interactive marketing. It reveals what works, so you can do more of it, and what doesn't, so you can do less of it. Track direct sales, and also clicks as correlated to sales, since many people click for information but purchase later over the phone, by mail or in-store.
Beyond improving effectiveness, use tracking to sell the value of interactive marketing to management on an ongoing basis. If you wait for "Those Who Control the Purse Strings" to ask, you have waited too long.
8. Don't overpromise. Even if you build the best interactive marketing department in the history of man or beast, your company must still offer products and services people want, at a price they'll pay, via delivery systems they accept. It must treat customers well. It must operate within the context of the national and world economy.
So be careful not to set up interactive marketing as a panacea or, worse, a scapegoat. Interactive marketing is fast and powerful, but it's not magic.
Matthew Wilcox is vice president of corporate marketing and communications for Zions Bank in Salt Lake City. He heads the bank's interactive marketing department.
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