Top Signs Your Business Needs a Cross Channel Marketing Strategy
I recently wrote about the question of whether cross channel marketing was a business problem that must be confronted immediately or an opportunity to market more effectively. The former suggests urgency while the latter implies early adopters are most likely to jump on board before widespread adoption occurs.
In the post, I suggested that marketers absolutely must embrace cross channel concepts. It cannot be deemed optional. If competitors don’t steal your customers with cross channel marketing programs, you’re sure to see response and results decline as consumers become inundated with marketing messages across all manner of channels. In that scenario, everyone loses.
Assessing the Need
With few exceptions, businesses have organized marketing into silos such as email, web, social media and mobile. It’s amazing to see teams aligned to these channels spring up almost overnight without an eye on orchestration. The pace of digital channel innovation is such that few can budget the time necessary to consider any other course. It’s like adding instruments to your orchestra without informing the conductor. The resulting noise is less than harmonious.
The extent to which this makes shifting to cross channel difficult depends on many factors, including all the related investments in process, technology and people. Whether this shift happens in the near or long term depends on how urgent the business perceives the problem or recognizes the opportunity. Wise marketers are assessing the situation, identifying the problems of siloed marketing and, in so doing, helping their companies seize the cross channel advantage. Today, these cases are far more the exception than rule.
Cross Channel Needs Analysis
Conditions are ripe for a diagnostic of sorts, to help marketers assess the need for cross channel marketing. Although cross channel marketing presents an opportunity to be more efficient and drive better results, it’s even more essential to address the threat to marketing success posed by “mobilized” consumers bombarded with thousands of marketing messages on a daily basis. Aiming for better results is one thing, but it’s an entirely different case when you need to adopt cross channel concepts to preserve whatever success you are experiencing today.
To gauge the urgency to adopt cross channel methods, there are some obvious indicators and some less so. These “signs” can be grouped into internal and external considerations.
Internal Considerations
The more investment in process, technology and staff aligned to different channels, the more difficult it will be to adopt cross channel methods. The reason this is worth highlighting is that it will take considerable time to resolve different databases, marketing applications, processes and the people managing it all. Businesses with less sunken investments in these areas will be able to adopt cross channel marketing much more easily, and that presents a very real threat to less nimble businesses.
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