Businesses are taking major steps to bridge the gap between their cross-channel product offerings and how these are communicated & measured across those channels with the best return on investment: Search, Online Advertising, Mobile and Social Media. Developing a clear, well-organized strategy that translates and mingles across all online channels is #1 on their list.

The best thing about digital marketing is its accountability. With an ability to track marketing spend back to the sale, businesses have the opportunity to make their marketing dollars accountable. And, luckily, there is no shortage of useful customer data to be parsed & analyzed.

The customer data that runs across your internet marketing campaigns is a critical piece in competitive marketing strategy, offering the ability to optimize toward audience preferences, conversions & an ROI. But tackling this data beast is not easy & setting measurement up correctly from the beginning is a critical piece.

Research also shows that the top challenge for businesses is resource-related = 45% of businesses lack the time and manpower required to collect and analyze all the data. Many in-house marketing professionals don’t quite know where to start when it comes to aligning & measuring internet marketing campaigns – and these are the same resources who are already squeezed & could use a fresh perspective on the current digital landscape. Vast Interactive can help.

Vast Interactive’s 2012 Internet Marketing Planning Cheat Sheet:

1. Align Online Campaigns: Translate business goals into an organized, cross-channel internet marketing strategy.
2. Set Your Bar: Set realistic 2012 cost per conversion goals using historical data as a benchmark.
3. Measure ROI: Organize & set-up conversion-focused analytics tracking for all internet marketing campaigns.
4. Integrate: Focus on combining both Search and Social into a promotion strategy your company can maintain in a cost effective way over time.
5. Search Marketing: Optimize your website for SEO, tablets and mobile; coordinate with Google Adwords campaigns, and track ROI.
6. Social: Coordinate seasonal and search-responsive communication campaigns and involve email marketing.
7. Include Mobile: Put mobile interactivity to work in new ways to capture the attention and spend of the connected consumer.

Vast Interactive Consulting helps businesses align their digital marketing, offering turn-key solutions, from campaign planning through project execution and ROI measurement.

Contact Cathy Llewellyn to learn more about getting your internet marketing campaigns in shape in 2012.

“Measurement Challenges Stump Marketing Executives.” eMarketer – 12/16/11
“Where Search Marketers Will Put The Money” by Laurie Sullivan; MediaPost Search Blog – 11/08/11
“Web Analytics Year in Review 2011” by Garry Przyklenk; Search Engine Watch – 12/28/11
“US Companies Face Big Hurdles in ‘Big Data’ Use.” eMarketer – 01/03/12
“SEO Company Releases Statement on State of Digital Marketing Report and Social Media.” Digital Journal – 11/18/11

The Big Winners in 2012′s marketing mix will be Email Marketing, Social Media, Mobile and Search. 60% of businesses plan to increase their email marketing budgets – with Social Media coming in 2nd (55% increase in social media spend), and 37% for Mobile/Search tied for 3rd.

The Catch? You have to track it back to ROI. Social Media integration, data integration, and ROI data analysis are key drivers in 2012, as more businesses respond to the tense global economy and marketing dollars are held more accountable.

2012 Key Challenges for Marketers: data integration, ROI analysis & resource constraints.

“Social And Email Top Growing Marketing Budgets For 2012” by Jack Loechner, 12/23/11

“Barclays: Lower Ad Growth For ’12” by Steve McClellan, 12/16/11

“A 2011 study by the National Restaurant Association confirms that consumers who use social media, including apps, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, UrbanSpoon and more, not only dine out more, but are more likely to become return customers. The study divided these techie-type consumers into two categories, based on data from the Association’s 2010 National Household Survey: “connected adults,” which refers to people who frequently use email and the Internet, and “social media-savvy adults,” who use at least one of the following tools: Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and other food review sites, or mobile-phone apps like Foursquare and UrbanSpoon. ” Via ReadWriteWeb