Marketing integration is an often overlooked but critical area of corporate success. As corporations grow, they begin to create natural silos of specialization. This provides greater efficiency in the short term so the result is good. The specialization leads to topical experts with very deep knowledge about the the insides of a single system or process, for example: promotion, advertising, server management, content creation, search optimization, etc..
This isolation is seductive and as a corporation continues to grow, the natural tendency is to become complacent with their process. They perform their task and consider their work to be done when their "specialized task" is complete. They did their job so the work is complete and they can go home happy.
Marketing integration is where consultants live and where the hard work of productivity improvement happens. Building the process to join multiple silos is not easy but it is like tapping a well. The benefits gush forth and everybody is more successful in executing their specialization. The benefits in large corporations are very significant when you cross the chasm and make the total process more efficient.
In this section, I will cover some of the valuable integration points to consider when creating your marketing eco-system. I consider this low hanging fruit!