The number-one objective for brands is to truly understand consumers and connect with them through relevant interactions. It’s a simple goal to which organizations universally aspire.
Jan Kestle
Marketing organization structures are not keeping up with fast-changing media options and channels. Most organizations are still structured by channel. There are traditional media experts, digital advertising specialists, email marketing teams, merchandisers, contact centres and front-of-line groups. Yet they are all trying to engage the same customer. On the converse side, the consumer thinks of one brand, interacting with it via multiple media. There is not a mobile customer, an email customer or a brick-and-mortar customer. There is just one customer – using a variety of channels to connect with a brand – and marketers can delight or frustrate that customer depending on how well we understand them.
Fortunately, there are powerful and agile solutions available from marketing technology providers that can help. Analytics are getting better than ever at profiling consumers, planning media and personifying the best customer. CRM and e-CRM systems are available as software-as-a-service and are therefore accessible at the marketer’s finger tips. Modelling engines can identify the next best offer online in real time. The tools are amazing.
Unfortunately, many organizations are too often burdened with legacy systems, with “point” solutions that don’t work well together and with marketers and IT professionals who are prevented from collaborating to ensure best-of-breed marketing solutions. Investment, both in money and talent, is necessary, but the first step to overcoming this barrier is to recognize the obstacle.
Finally, today’s multiple touchpoints mean companies often don’t have a single view of the customer, and this problem is exacerbated by the lack of an enterprise-wide data strategy that would help create that view. Simple data management issues like householding and address accuracy are still a challenge.
Linking online and offline behaviour of customers is still more rhetoric than reality. Data-related strategy and technology responsibilities are spread across enterprises – and more often than not, no one is in charge.
What is common to all three of these obstacles? Silos in channel strategy, technology and data.
Marketers, technologists and data scientists alone cannot fix this silo situation. Responsibility lies with the C-suite. Only leadership from the highest levels can create a culture that enables the evidence-driven decision making which will lead to one view of the customer. A strategy that ensures that the right message gets to the right audience via the right medium at the right time is imperative. Sharing and managing data across the enterprise, selecting and integrating the right tools, and engaging customers with consistency across multiple touchpoints – all are essential to separating brands from their competitors.
To begin this transformation, senior management should organize and support cross-channel workshops and program reviews specifically designed to bring stakeholders and providers together. The explicit objectives of these efforts should be:
• to create one view of the customer
• to breakdown tech barriers and
• to ensure a consistent marketing message across all channels
In most Canadian companies, there is more talk than action. Making these changes happen is nothing short of disruption. And the obvious leader in this mission is the Chief Marketing Office.
Overcoming the obstacles of organizational silos that keep us from connecting with customers won’t be easy, but there is significant momentum in this direction. The results show that a data strategy is effective. The marketing tech providers want to see more integration and better hand-offs, and the marketing, PR and advertising pros (both in-house and at the agencies) know that omni-channel optimisation is essential. All the pieces of the puzzle are there. Now is the time for business leaders to put them into the right places.
Jan Kestle is the president and founder of Environics Analytics
