• by Derek Gordon , March 7, 2011

The old ecology mantra "reduce, reuse, recycle" is one that could be applied to marketing efforts today. But as recent history has shown, it takes an awful lot of people working in concert to achieve objectives as simple as these.

Take search engine optimization strategy. Many marketers struggle with SEO, most often because original content creation is usually at the center of any successful undertaking. To be sure, SEO is important to driving traffic to your Web site, but so are a host of other marketing strategies, which also rely on -- you guessed it! -- excellent content.

From newsletters to advertising, PR to social media, it's no secret that a good marketing strategy leverages every available channel to drive traffic to Web sites. The issue, at the end of the day, is the degree to which each channel is a cost-effective driver. And what typically increases the cost of SEO as a channel is the production of original, high-quality content that naturally leverages keyword strategies. But SEO strategies need not rely solely on content creation from within the SEO team. Unfortunately, gaining timely access to content created in other marketing channels is often impossible because each is its own silo.

Creating silos in a marketing strategy so the ROI of each channel can be independently measured makes sense, but can also prevent the sharing of costs horizontally across multiple channels. This can also lead to attribution fights among channel managers who want to ensure their channel is being measured fairly.

A spirit of sharing across silos is in order, if only because a rising tide does, indeed, lift all boats.

This is particularly true where content production and distribution is involved. Too often, each silo will commit budget to produce top-notch content that could be appropriately leveraged in other channels, if only the others knew it existed.

Back in December, when I moderated a discussion at MediaPost's Search Insider Summit, attendees said one of their key areas of concern was an inability to break down the completely artificial walls between marketing disciplines in order to achieve better outcomes overall. The key reason? The fight for budgets, attribution and the best ROI metrics.

Competition is healthy -- it's what makes economies vibrant, cost-efficient and effective. But too much competition within a single marketing department can be destructive, leading to massive inefficiencies that actually drive up costs and drive down ROI when measured horizontally across an entire organization.

My simple advice to the marketing leaders I work with is a variant on "reduce, reuse, recycle": bring down costs with "produce once, publish many." Blog content and social marketing should be mined for the newsletter channel. Newsletter content should be redeployed into social channels. Advertising should be featured in community pages on your Web site. Keyword strategies should be made widely available to all content producers, together with context for why particular keywords matter to specific audiences. And the PR department, which does the lion's share of writing for most marketing departments, should be seen as a treasure trove of reusable content throughout every channel.

Breaking down silos and looking at the best way to leverage efforts across as many marketing channels as possible will not only bring down your overall cost of marketing, but it will also improve metrics both horizontally and vertically in your organization.

And all it really takes is a similarly old mantra: work together.