In the digital age, your business needs integrated digital marketing. Period.
Beyond needing coherent visual cues across various digital platforms (e.g. website, social media, email marketing, etc.) to have consistency in your brand representation, what will make your business stand out is the seamless orchestration of meaningful interactions with your customers – from their initial awareness of your brand to becoming loyal customers.
Regardless whether your business is trying to win over B2B clients or B2C customers, your clients/customers expect personalization and a seamless online user experience. It could be argued that a traditional set up, where departments are built around performing exclusive functions of Sales, Marketing, Public Relations, Information Technology, Graphic Design, or even setting up online vs. offline departments to manage different types of marketing campaigns, only contribute to the fragmentation of your marketing and sales efforts. This is not just merely a “communications” issue. An emphasis on corporate wide “marketing integration communication” strategies will not solve the problem if your staff does not have the proper experience or tools to develop a coherent strategy.
As with any endeavor into a new territory, you need someone who is not only well versed in PR and marketing best practices as well as able to identify the critical steps in a successful sales process, but also someone who is experienced in the development of technology (web and mobile) and usage of data analytics (engagement, conversion and performance matrix) at the helm of marketing integration. Without a multi-disciplined approach, a senior leader that is lacking in one or more of these areas of expertise will only result in further fragmentation and encourage silos.
However, a strong leader that can set up new goals and design a gradual transition plan to facilitate the adoption of new behavior with updated performance incentives, will gain the trust of those who want to be a part of the delivery of sophisticated and integrated work in the digital area.
The right software that you can count on to integrate both your online and offline efforts is the backbone of any great marketing integration effort. When it comes to delivering an integrated marketing experience, each step of your engagement process with your customers must be tracked and analyzed.
Most companies have piecemeal platforms with various tools that offer low cost solutions for specific tasks such as: sending out email campaigns, setting up customer data and follow up inputs and bookkeeping (client billing/invoice). These tools are typically in addition to employee’s inbox or the customer service representative’s inbox where interactions with customers are logged. With this set up, it’s almost impossible to create any kind of discipline for tracking and analyzing customer behavior.
We recommend the Hubspot software because it is easy-to-use all in one tool that can track EVERY potential customers’ interaction with your brand online. From engagement (e.g. social media interactions, email opens, click through) to conversions (e.g. conversion rate, bounce rate, subscribe/ unsubscribe), the software details each customer’s journey, which then allows you to compare with the organizations larger goals and objectives.
While poor integration across traditional and digital channels threatens marketing ROI, disconnect and misalignment between marketing and sales departments can obstruct growth of your business. Regardless of your business being large or small, it can benefit by putting your business back on the right track by having a strong leader to set achievable goals and the right tools to measure your results.