The CORE Strategy Road Map

What I found to be one of the most interesting sections of The Future of Interactive Marketing was the suggested road map and questionnaire to determine where to begin the CORE strategy found toward the end of the document.  Presumably, a senior manager in a firm would be the one to fill out the questionnaire and cross-reference the results with the corresponding road map to determine where the firm needs to begin their CORE strategy.  These results would then be distributed to the interactive marketing department, and some months later the senior manager would expect a report outlining what the firm should do or has done, what the expected or accomplished results are, and then the senior manager would determine whether or not to continue with the current interactive marketing plan.  This traditional approach concerns me.  I am sure that there are companies that would take a different approach to interactive marketing, but nevertheless I believe this would be a typical use of the CORE strategy.

In my opinion, a more appropriate approach to the road map and questionnaire would be to have the entire marketing department fill out the questionnaire and compile the results.  Based off of these results the firm can determine where they begin on the road map.  I recommend this because I anticipate very different results from the questionnaire depending on age of employee and exposure to interactive marketing.  A CMO that has been in place for many years and is trying to figure out how to begin an interactive marketing campaign will likely be of the opinion that the firm is much farther along in the process than the recent graduate who has years of exposure to interactive marketing and has studied it in school.

My concern with this document, while full of great information and providing a good tool for implementing an interactive campaign, is the lack of information on how to use the tool.  I feel like a lot of good tools provided to the world free of charge lack the proper instruction on how to effectively use them.  This is a tool that must be used very carefully and properly, otherwise the results could be disastrous.

-Rob