I follow the articles of Kendall Allen, a marketing and digital media consultant who writes occasionally in Online Spin.

In her latest article, she comments on some issues that drive commercial marketers nuts, and probably a lot of nonprofit marketers and fundraisers as well.

She says: “…there are at least four areas that may drive you completely nuts if you don’t commit to getting them right. The infrastructure, mechanics and data utilization imperative of a cross-channel, digitally oriented world are very demanding. Today, we see several areas of continued strife, if not mania, inside even the strongest marketing organizations…”

Her four areas?

Consumer segmentation: “We all inherently know it’s not enough to rely on consumer demographics alone. Even layering in lifestyle points and anecdotal attitudinal information does not lead you to the holy grail of consumer intelligence, i.e., understanding who your best, most productive and profitable customers are. And then understanding how to create segmentation that allows you to strategically attract, retain and earn their loyalty and ongoing business.”

Testing: “This is one of those areas that doesn’t have to be complicated. It just means slowing down enough to confirm the testing construct and agree on what shall be tested. I think it gets complicated out of fear or lack of sureness on the best way forward.”

Landing pages: “The savvy marketer knows that the best landing pages deliver on brand, promise, relevancy and a swift path to conversation. Data and site analytics often reveal the need for tuning or overhaul to service any of those requirements. And such change is not always easy to negotiate in a pool of cross-department interests that may not be as aligned as they should be when it comes to the site.”

Cross-media and custom metrics: “In today’s converged media world, establishing metrics is not as simple as rattling them off based on your marketing objectives. If you are crossing traditional and digital lines, you are dealing with measures that are not necessarily portable.”

Kendall suggests how to deal with these challenges. I guess we can take some solace in the fact that commercial marketers with much bigger budgets than most of us are still grappling with the same issues as we “poor folk” in the nonprofit sector!

Tom