Multichannel Marketing

As up-and-coming Internet architect Full Moon Interactive tells its clients, it's not a question of traditional marketing versus online marketing, it's knowing when and how to use both. In fact, integrating traditional marketing tools with cutting-edge online components is the hallmark of the company's end-to-end convergence marketing solutions. "We see the Internet as many different things," says Nancy Johnston, Full Moon Interactive's executive vice president. "It's a distribution channel at times, an advertising vehicle at times, a customer service vehicle and even the product itself at times. It's a medium that takes different shapes and forms depending on who you are. One needs to remain open to the different possibilities in order to be successful."

Headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in San Jose, Calif., and Chicago, Full Moon offers its Fortune 1000 clients a full range of services, from strategic consulting and marketing development to production services for Web sites, Web applications and advertising programs--both on or offline--as well as ongoing Web site operations.

Full Moon begins by meeting with the client to assess their level of expertise with the Internet and to find out what's working and what's not. Some of Full Moon's clients, like California Federal Bank, Protection One Alarm Services and Oral-B, a division of Gillette, use the full range of services. Others, like Dell Computers and FastV, where the Internet is more central to their business, use only a particular service such as a marketing program or content development.

Partner With Someone
"A traditional packaged-goods company can't expect consumers to find their stand-alone Web site on their own," says Johnston. Full Moon recommends using traditional paid advertising to drive traffic to a Web site either for more information or to actually close the deal online. Johnston also advocates underwriting or sponsoring content on a site that's of interest to the target group. In other words, it's back to the old TV mode of the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Or, as in the case of Full Moon's client, Oral-B, they might license their content to a healthcare portal site. Partnering with someone can be very effective as long as you have good information about what's happening and where people are going, Johnston advises.

Full Moon also believes there are sponsorship opportunities within e-mail marketing if, of course, people are truly interested in the subject matter. "We have one-to-one demand creation sponsorships--we call it the FMI Compel program--which is a combination of database e-mail marketing and Web site personalization. It's a very highly targeted program that sees an amazing response," says Johnston.

Internet Visibility
In addition, Full Moon has a practice dedicated to what it calls Internet visibility, which translate into improving its client's listing or ranking on search engines. "There are all sorts of things you can do on your Web site and with a search engine to be visible when someone types in a keyword or the name of your company," says Johnston. That strategy involves focusing on the top seven or eight search engines or directories--like Yahoo!, Lycos and Alta Vista--and figuring out the criteria, or what algorithms, are currently being used because it changes regularly. First and foremost, you have to understand how people search. Then you can code things a certain way on the page or insert meta-tags to make sure your company name is listed prominently, according to Johnston.