Unsiloed- Interactive Marketing

8/6/2019 Unsiloed- Interactive Marketing

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3 unsiloed:interactivemarketing

4 strategy:startwithwhatyouknow

6 technology:choosetherightsolution

8 operations:thehubandspokesmodel

10 getunsiloedmoveupthecurve

11 conclusion:fuelingthedigitaldialogue

Every conversation, every interaction you have with a customerwhether on Twitter,

Facebook, Email, or SMSis a building block to the way the customer will ultimately view

and talk about your brand. Yet marketers continue to store the data they gather in separate,

siloed locations. Its through a solid framework of Strategy, Technology, and Operations that

marketers can nally break down channel barriers and fuel the digital dialogue. Its time to

join the real-time conversation. Its time to get unsiloed.

UnSiloed: interactive marketing

What's Inside?

ExactTarget All rights reserved 01-02152011


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UnSiloed: interactive marketing www.ExactTarget.com

More than ever, consumers have a choice when it comes to how they

interact with brandsfrom the products and services they favor most, to

the personal information they choose to share. But amidst email, SMS,

Twitter, Facebook, and other interactive channels today, the biggest

consumer choice of all is deciding how they communicate with brands

or rather, how tolet brands communicate with them.

Its evident that consumers have exercised this right: ExactTargets

industry-leading Subscribers, Fans, & Followers research reveals that 20%of consumers indicate theyve started following a brand on Twitter in order

to interact with that company, while nearly 40% of consumers like a

company on Facebook to show brand afliation to friends. But this doesnt

mean social media has miraculously trumped all other interactive channels. Think email is old news? Think

again96% of daily email users subscribe to at least one brands email messages, driving more purchases

than any other channel. So while email isnt new, it certainly isnt dead. The question is, how can all interactive

channels come together in an integrated, unsiloed interactive marketing approach?

Still, some marketers continue to operate their customer interactions in silos, conning social media and failing

to integrate email, CRM, and other customer data sources into one, 360-degree view of the customer.The truth

is, this approach not only alls short in eectively using customer data, it creates a one-way conversationthat orces inormation out to consumers but ails to listen to what is responded. A November 2010

report from Forrester Research, Inc. entitled CMO Mandate: Adapt or Perish reveals a cruel reality for these

marketers, saying that in the future, there will be two types of companiesthose that are agile and adapt to

consumers changing media behavior and those that go out of business.

Lets face it: joining the real-time conversation isnt reached by pre-planning Tweets and automating a years

worth of batch and blast emails. Today, traditional campaign management isnt enough. By taking an unsiloed

approach through stronger Strategy, Technology, and Operations, marketers can better engage in the real-

time conversation by fueling what we call the digital dialogue. In this report, well detail this framework with

insightful explanations and step-by-step tactics to help you on your way toward a more uniedand more

successfulinteractive marketing strategy.

UnSiloed: interactive marketingBreaking down BarrierS to fUel the digital dialogUe

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www.ExactTarget.comUnSiloed: interactive marketing

strategy: start with what you know

In talking with the most successful marketers around the world, one

fundamental has emerged as the best way to create a truly unsiloed

interactive marketing program: start with brand promise and build on it as

part of a broader strategy. It sounds simple, but all too often, interactive

channels are operated (even in large global enterprises) as a handful of

tactics (Tweets, wall posts, emails, blogs, and video posts) in search of a

greater interactive strategy. Think about itno football team steps onto

the eld without rst developing a plan of attack. And no construction

crew starts building a house without a solid set of blueprints. Why should

your companys approach to integrated marketing be any different?

Developing a strategy to interact with customers across email, mobile, social, and sites is no small task. There

is, however, a place to start and a process to follow.

Begin by defning your core brand promise:

What does your brand stand for?

What are your unique value props?

What do you promise your customers?

Knowing the ins and outs of your brand will help dene the way you approach interactive marketing, too. Why?

Because an unsiloed approach helps you deliver that promise across all channels, reaching consumers right

where they are, in the channels theyre already using. Whatever unique characteristics your brand embodies,

knowing your brand personality inside and out will help you better know your customers inside and out too,

leading you right to the channels theyre most invested in.

Now, take a step back and think about all the ways your organization interacts with customers. Who in your

company communicates regularly with clients? Is it solely a customer support center? Or do customer relations

also exist within your sales, marketing, and public relations departments? By taking an inventory of all the

consumer touch points your company houses, you can better understand how digital dialogue generates a

greater impact. Lets be honest: consumers today are constantly rotating from one digital conversation tool to

anotherif they dont isolate these channels from one another, why should you?

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Unsiloed interactive marketing doesnt mean having to choose one channel over the other. After all,

while Twitter and Facebook may be rising in sophistication and popularity, consumers still prefer emailmore than three to one. But thats the beauty of having an integrated approachwhen email, mobile,

client support, social, and all your other customer interactions come together, it creates a uniform view

of the customer, helping you fuel more genuine, rewarding relationships.

Most of all, marketers must not prioritize a channel over the customer. In its August 2010 report,

Organizing For Interactive Marketing, Forrester Research states that this approach separates the

channels from business and brand strategyinefciently [duplicating] operations across brandsand

[creating] inconsistent or annoying customer experiences. The purpose of unsiloed interactive marketing

is not to have the largest subscriber database or Twitter following. The goal is to make the consumers

experience with your brand more cohesive, more accommodating, and more enjoyable.

Finally, defne success. Some of the best marketers view unsiloed interactive marketing through a

service model, measuring improvement in products and services while listening in the social space, aswell as other customer interaction channels. After all, everycustomer interaction becomes an important

measurement in the success of your program. If 90% of rms are listening to the conversation, but only

15% are actually doing something with the information, the smartest marketers will be the ones who look

at the steps theyre taking and realize the cost-benet.

No two companies are alike. And that means no two interactive strategies are alike either. Its important

to remember that theres no silver bullet, and dening an interactive strategy wont be as easy

as downloading it straight from the internet. However, it should be inspiring to know that its driven

entirely by your brand, your company, and how you dene success. And it doesnt just exist on paper.

Incorporating the right technology and organizing staff through well-oiled operations allows your strategy

to be actionable, making it the job of your entire organization to manage customer interactions well.

Lets be honest: consumers today are constantly rotating from one

digital communication tool to anotherif they dont isolate these

channels from one another, why should you?

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technology: choose the right solution

At ExactTarget, we love software. But its not the right place to start when

building an interactive media presence. Interactive channels dont exist

in silosand neither should the technology that powers it. Without a

strategy to apply it to, software compounds the challenge of unsiloed

interactive marketing. But when customer interaction is approached as

ahorizontal function that spans across the business, it becomes a key

enabler to power success.

Marketing should look to a technology solution that empowers

people in different divisions, geographies, and functional areas to

speak on behalf of the brand. Much like CRM or other businesssystems, interactive marketing should provide a foundation to help manage and engage in the

conversation in real-time. Each individual employee, team, or department within an organization may

interact with one particular customer in a unique way. But, the record and view of that customer must

remain consistent across the entire company to ensure the greatest possible operational efciency,

ROI, and most importantlycustomer service.

Customers are going to interact with your brand in multiple ways. Thats why its so important to log

information about each and every client interaction within a shared business system that all customer-

facing employees throughout the organization can access in order to absorb this new data. This way,

the customer is always treated with awareness and adherence to their previous experiences with your

brand. Not only does this single view of the customer make it easier for your employees to work andinteract efciently, but it also creates a better experience for the consumer, who isnt forced to repeat

conversations, questions, or frustrations every time he or she interacts with a different member of your

organization. Linking consumer proles through cross-channel data creates an authentic, real-time

way to unify and integrate your companys view of each individual customer.

But, bewareinvesting in software isnt about choosing what your companys most comfortable with, either.

Its about meeting your customers where they are, taking the information you receive, and responding through

the most appropriate channel in real-time. According to the Forrester CMO Mandate: Adapt or Perish report,

marketers who dont participate in the new technology that consumers adopt will never learn how to capitalize

on it. Brands must allow consumers to interact how theywant to, whether through email, mobile, social, or any

other channel. Other technology then enhances customer relationships by adding CRM, web analytics, and

other rich behavioral remarketing data to the mix. By investing in tools that allow for data integration, brands

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Marketers

should prioritizeinvestments in

technology based on

how much they will

affect the brands

ability to improve

the customer

experience.

CMO Mandate:adapt Or perish

forreSter reSearch, inc.


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paint a clearer picture of who their customers are, using the technology as a means of enabling

the information and powering it back out through genuine responses.

At the same time, marketers must invest in tools that allow them to participate in the

conversation while its happening. Otherwise, the brand conversation continueswithout them.

Or even worse, the conversation is over before theyve even sent their messages out. The

reason? Marketers are still struggling to change their mindsets from campaign management

to interaction management. According to a recent study conducted by eConsultancy1, 98%

of marketers use at least three channels to deliver multichannel messages to their customers,

but more than hal still store the data they gather rom each channel in separate, siloed

locations. In the same study, only 35% report that they collect data from different sources and

store it in a single database. And when asked about the challenges of multichannel marketing,

71% cited maintaining high-quality data as a major challenge.

Why does collecting the right combination of data to effectively market on the real-time

web remain a challenge for the large majority of marketers? Its because the very tools that

have promised best-of-breed solutions are simply insufcient. For example, campaign

management solutions remain too formulaic, and fail to allow marketers to truly understand and

engage a specic type of customer. These and other static solutions of the past simply dont

accommodate the speed and complexity of the ever-changing, real-time web. The answer lies

in fnding a tool that allows you to not only analyze the conversation about your brand,

but also reactin real-time.

Every customer record, every text you send, and every Twitter conversation you engage in

should form an integrated, comprehensive view of the customer, allowing you to create more

accurate, more meaningful relationships with the client. No matter what channel youre using

to engage a customer, each and every interaction you have with them is highly inuential

to the way the client will ultimately view your brand.

The mistake that many brands often make is the buy now, strategize later theory, which

causes some companies to purchase software without rst establishing a strategy or basis for

use, forcing the tool to become a hindrance to your interactive marketing team, rather than an

asset. Beginning with a strategy that outlines what you want to accomplish will help you make

a wiser decision when it comes to choosing the technology thats right for your organization.

1 Richard Lees, Companies Arent Making the Most of Multichannel Marketing Data, eConsultancy,

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/6683-companies-aren-t-making-the-most-of-multichannel-marketing-data.

the interactivemarketing hUBConsumers today interact

with brands using a number

o communication tools

email, mobile, Twitter,

Facebook, and more. Luckily,

the ExactTarget Interactive

Marketing Hub provides a

canvas to turn real-time data

into real results. With intuitive

dashboards and automated

eatures, marketers can

fnally plug these pieces

in to a single, integrated

platorm, allowing or more

consolidated data and richer

digital dialogue.

Sign up today or a ree demo

o the Hub at:

www.exacttarget.com/hub.
http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/6683-companies-aren-t-making-the-most-of-multichannel-marketing-datahttp://www.exacttarget.com/hubhttp://www.exacttarget.com/hubhttp://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/6683-companies-aren-t-making-the-most-of-multichannel-marketing-data


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operations: the hub and spokes model

Customer interactions live everywhere throughout your businesssocial

media management exists in marketing, customer data lives with the CRM

team, and client support resides in customer service.

So, who owns the responsibility of managing interactive marketing?

The answer is everyone. With more and more CMOs managing the

technology budget, its natural for interactive responsibilities to fall in

marketing. But if employees all over your organization are interacting with

customers every day, doesnt it make sense that the task of managing the

real-time conversation should be divided as well?

staFF. While email and mobile campaigns remain central to marketing, social media presents new

opportunities to expand to the larger organization with a framework we like to call the hub and spokes model,

utilizing employees throughout the company in order to maximize impact. A team of social media specialists

acts as the expertthe hubin

delegating and carrying out the

companys interactive strategy.

Other departments throughout

the organization (sales, PR,

marketing, customer service, and

others) function as extensionsorspokesof the companys overall

interactive program, enabled to

interact with consumers and share

responses to customer messages

by incorporating their own expertise

and specialty within the organization.

This method of air trafc control enables the people who are behind a specic matter to actuallyanswer the

questions. And with a robust system to trafc those questionswhether on Facebook or Twitterto the right

people, you can get them answered and sent back out to the customer as quickly as possible.

workFlow. Enabling every department in your company to interact with customers and view previousdialogue opens the door to more meaningful, more valuable dialogue with consumers. Marketers who can

SOCIAL

MEDIATEAM

CUSTOMER

SUPPORT

SALES

MARKETING

PUBLIC

RELATIONS

THE HUB AND SPOKES STAFFING MODEL

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effectively build a strong staff of expertsand advocates throughout the organization will not only streamline

business processes, but also make the brand more human. Interactive marketing channels like email, Facebook,and Twitter were intended to bring people together, not split them up into independently-functioning silos.

When all aspects of interactive marketing can function this way too, brands will reveal deeper, more meaningful

customer relationships.

I you expect your brand to have a relationship with the people who interact with you online and purchase

your products, its imperative that you equip your business to manage the brand conversation. Forrester

Research refers to this as spreading interactive DNA in their report, Organizing For Interactive Marketing,

stating that more and more, the job of the interactive marketer isnt just creating and executing interactive

programs. It is also helping other business functions understand how interactive technologies will affect their

internal processes and overall customer relationships. After all, consumers just want to be treated like people,

and they dont care if your social media, customer call center, or email marketing departments fall in different

areas of your business. They expect your brand to know them no matter who they interact with at any

given time.

authentic conVersation. Consumers now have more choices than ever when it comes to interacting

with brands. Think about itthey already receive enough irrelevant messaging in their mailboxes, inboxes, and

cell phones. And yet, some brands continue to pre-plan Tweets and Facebook posts or automate batch and

blast emails without regard to previous interactions, forcing messages out to consumers who have no interest in

listening. While traditional campaign management methods mightve worked in the past, todays top interactive

brands are the ones who createauthentic conversation, letting consumers speak rst, and then responding

appropriately.

So, how can you be sure that theyll choose to interact with you? Luckily, driving authentic conversation doesnt

require you to hire a small army of digital dialogue specialists to generate interesting and thought-provoking

chatter with customers. All it takes is data. Authentic conversations happen when the digital dialogue is driven

by informationeverything from email open and click-through data to analytics on recent purchases. Breaking

through the clutter is achievable by rstlistening to what consumers have to say about your brand and then

responding through the appropriate channel. Rather than forcing messages out to consumers (whether through

email, text, Facebook, or Twitter), take a supportive customer service approach, letting your consumers speak

rst. Send and post messages that invite conversation (intriguing questions, fun polls, or forums on hot topics)

instead of distancing consumers with irrelevant marketing speak. Not convinced? ExactTargets latest research

from the Subscribers, Fans, & Followers series reveals that more than 90% of consumers unsubscribe, unfan, orunfollow because of too frequent, irrelevant, or boring communications.


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get unsiloedmoVe up the curVe

At ExactTarget, we help companies go from operating siloed, individual channel campaigns to creating and

delivering the most effective and engaging digital dialogue possible. As these brands consistently increase

their level of interactive sophistication, their revenue begins to increase as well, forming a diagram we like to call

The Relevancy Curve.

Organizations whose strategy begins to adapt to the relevancy curve (increasing in sophistication and generating

more revenue over time) have one thing in commonthey didnt go from simple to strategic over night. Building

a successful interactive marketing program takes time, careful planning, and nurturing. Adding data sources

one at a time (whether CRM, web analytics, or even social media channels) slowly and efciently plants building

blocks to developing an integrated, 360-degree view of the customer. Thus, brands can neverbegin at the top

of the relevancy curve. Its only through diligent cultivation of the unsiloed framework (Strategy, Technology,

Operations) that they earn the opportunity to arrive there instead.

THE RELEVANCY CURVE

RELEVANCY

BLAST

DRIVEN

PROFILE

DRIVEN

ENGAGEMENT

PERSONA

DRIVEN

BEHAVIOR

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ENGAGEMENT

DRIVEN


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conclusion: Fueling the digital dialogue

The best marketers today can agree on one thing: interactive marketing channels provide an

unparalleled opportunity to engage with customersand it cant be operated as a silo. Through

an unsiloed approach, marketers can createreal interactive success, getting the most out of

these evolving channels in the real-time era. With the ability to execute on a solid framework

of Strategy, Technology, and Operations, marketers can transform interactive marketing

management into something that extends beyond marketing alone, permeating the entire

enterprise and enabling the brand to successfully engage with consumers.

the interactiVe marketing hubthe ultimate

unsiloed platForm

Every conversation, every interaction you have with a customerwhether on Twitter,

Facebook, Email, or SMSis a building block to the way the customer will eventually view

and talk about your brand. But when these channels operate independently, the view of

the customer becomes disjointed and diluted.

The ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub breaks down silos, bringing together Email,

Mobile, Social, and Sites communications into one, intuitive dashboardhelping you

turn millions of data points into meaningful customer interactions. With features like

cross-channel campaign calendars, at-a-glance reporting of real-time activity, Audience

Builder segmentation tools, and more, you can nally break down the barriers of siloed

interactive channels and start understanding your customers.

Sign up or a ree demo o the Interactive Marketing Hub at

www.exacttarget.com/hub today.

real reSUltS.gUaranteed.

ExactTarget helps

thousands o companies

around the world execute on

better interactive marketing

Strategy, Technology,

and Operations every

day. Through world-classsupport and an integrated

platorm to eectively use

data, our customers have

consistently increased their

sophistication and driven

revenue. Let us take a

look at your data and well

consult with you or a better

plan you can execute on and

take to market.

Visit www.exacttarget.com

or call us at (866)362-4538

or more inormation.
http://www.exacttarget.com/hubhttp://www.exacttarget.com/http://www.exacttarget.com/http://www.exacttarget.com/hub

Unsiloed- Interactive Marketing

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