Cisco Systems’ Theresa Kushner on Navigating Online and Offline Strategies
September 2006 By Daryl Gale
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Now that your company has spent a king’s ransom on marketing-related hardware and software, hired consultants by the dozens and adopted new, innovative Internet marketing strategies, what now? How do you integrate the new technology of clickthroughs and tracking software with the good, old fashioned ‘smile and a firm handshake’ method of closing a deal?
It’s not an easy task—even the biggest of companies, according to Theresa Kushner, director of integrated marketing programs for Cisco Systems Inc. Not easy, but certainly not impossible either. It’s simply going to take some planning and out-of-the box thinking on your part, Kushner says. San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco Systems, dominates the world market for routers and switches, the hardware that links the networks that powers the Internet. With 2005 revenues totalling nearly $25 billion, Kushner’s job is to manage, on a grand scale, those same basic marketing strategies employed by the local pizza shop.
Target Marketing caught up with Kushner as she was preparing her materials for this week’s DMA Interactive Marketing Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. Kushner’s presentation at the conference, Solving the Mystery: What’s Driving Profitable Business to Your Site, dovetails nicely with this issue’s Q&A topic, melding online and offline marketing strategies to maximize customer follow through.
Target Marketing: How difficult is it to track results and crossover data between a company’s online and offline marketing programs?
Theresa Kushner: Sometimes tracking from online to offline is like putting square pegs in round holes. The information you gather from your Web site may or may not be accurate enough to effectively track your customer base or revenue streams. The way around that is to accurately measure profitability from a marketing perspective.
Let me explain. Sometimes we folks in marketing tend to lose sight of the big picture. We dissect each segment of the market, and each segment of the target audience so fine, and into such tiny chunks, that we forget about the bottom line, the return on investment. Ask yourself how online customers can be routed successfully to your sales force, and how new or established customers can benefit from the online experience. It’s the oldest business adage out there: Identify your customer, and get to know your customer. That’s your starting point.
TM: How is your company accomplishing this?
It’s not an easy task—even the biggest of companies, according to Theresa Kushner, director of integrated marketing programs for Cisco Systems Inc. Not easy, but certainly not impossible either. It’s simply going to take some planning and out-of-the box thinking on your part, Kushner says. San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco Systems, dominates the world market for routers and switches, the hardware that links the networks that powers the Internet. With 2005 revenues totalling nearly $25 billion, Kushner’s job is to manage, on a grand scale, those same basic marketing strategies employed by the local pizza shop.
Target Marketing caught up with Kushner as she was preparing her materials for this week’s DMA Interactive Marketing Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. Kushner’s presentation at the conference, Solving the Mystery: What’s Driving Profitable Business to Your Site, dovetails nicely with this issue’s Q&A topic, melding online and offline marketing strategies to maximize customer follow through.
Target Marketing: How difficult is it to track results and crossover data between a company’s online and offline marketing programs?
Theresa Kushner: Sometimes tracking from online to offline is like putting square pegs in round holes. The information you gather from your Web site may or may not be accurate enough to effectively track your customer base or revenue streams. The way around that is to accurately measure profitability from a marketing perspective.
Let me explain. Sometimes we folks in marketing tend to lose sight of the big picture. We dissect each segment of the market, and each segment of the target audience so fine, and into such tiny chunks, that we forget about the bottom line, the return on investment. Ask yourself how online customers can be routed successfully to your sales force, and how new or established customers can benefit from the online experience. It’s the oldest business adage out there: Identify your customer, and get to know your customer. That’s your starting point.
TM: How is your company accomplishing this?
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