If we’ve learned one thing about publishing and the Internet, it’s that you can’t always catch many of the great reads out there.

Here’s a fascinating article/report from McKinsey Quarterly titled, Four ways to get more value from digital marketing, which was published in March 2010 that never hit my radar until today.

"Companies that make the deep strategic, organizational, and operational shifts required to become effective digital marketers can become more agile, more productive, and accelerate revenue growth.

Since the dawn of the Internet, marketers have regarded it as a vast laboratory, launching experiment after experiment to crack the code that generates sales and customer loyalty. Not surprising, most have failed. Consumers adopted digital technology as they themselves saw fit, in the process fundamentally altering the way they make purchasing decisions. Companies that understand this evolution are now carefully moving digital interactivity toward the center of their marketing strategies, rethinking their priorities and budgets, and substantially reshaping their processes and skills.

Through our work with dozens of companies navigating this shifting landscape, we have found that the most successful digital marketers focus on managing four core sources of value as they increase the percentage of marketing and channel spending that is directed to digital activities…"

This is an excellent read (and very worthy of the free sign-up to access the full report).

You can grab it here: McKinsey Quarterly – Four ways to get more value from digital marketing.

(hat-tip: Guy Pressault).