THE MAIN OBSTACLES TO DELIVERING ON YOUR CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING ACTIVITIES (AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM)

‘CONSUMERS HAVE BECOME LESS TOLERANT OF BRANDS THAT FAIL TO PROVIDE A CONTEXTUALISED,

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.’CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING REPORT 2015, ORACLE

MARKETING CLOUD AND ECONSULTANCY

HENCE CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING: Not ‘multi-channel’ or ‘pan-media’, but a marketing approach that provides ONE CONNECTED EXPERIENCE...

...WHEREVER the customer touches it.

Oracle Marketing Cloud and eConsultancy asked 425 MARKETING EXECS about their hopes, fears, and dreams for cross-channel marketing.

5%THOUGHT THEY HAD IT ON TRACK.

JUST

LET’S LOOK AT THE TOP SIX OBSTACLES.

OBSTACLE 1: THE CROSS-FUNCTIONAL HURDLE

You’ve got:

A great social media guy

A fantastic web creative team

A brilliant campaign strategist

BUT do you look at INDIVIDUAL SKILLS... or

CUSTOMER OUTCOMES?

If they’re not looking beyond their functional expertise, they’re not doing

cross-channel marketing.

A ‘LACK OF A CLEARLY DEFINED STRATEGY’ (21%) AND ‘LACK OF

RESOURCES’ (20%) WERE THE MAIN REASONS CITED FOR THE FAILURE TO DELIVER WELL-ORCHESTRATED CROSS-CHANNEL INTERACTIONS.

LEAPING THE HURDLE:

Turn to your metrics. Instead of pages clicked or executions produced, start looking at cross-media metrics...

...like what proportion of Tweet clicks segued into a phone call, or what percentage of mobile visits led to a newsletter sign-up.

JOIN UP YOUR SKILL SETS.

OBSTACLE 2: THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY GAP

ONE-FIFTH OF RESPONDENTS (21%) SAID ‘UNDERSTANDING THE

CUSTOMER JOURNEY’ WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR FOR

EFFECTIVE CROSS-CHANNEL ORCHESTRATION.

It’s easy to see marketing as a series of one-off events:

In reality, the distance from cold name to repeat customer is a JOURNEY.Everyone on your team needs to understand it.

This campaign That microsite Those open days

LEAPING THE HURDLE:

To get there, look at people’s BROADER UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR AUDIENCE.

Does that email expert know that her 2% response includes another 3% who didn’t click, but phoned instead?

Does your demand gen guy know he’s driving an extra four sales a month for the sales team?

Do your customer service agents know a successful call is reducing churn from 10% to 5%?

SHARE THE SUCCESSES and HELP THEM SEE THE WHOLE JOURNEY.

OBSTACLE 3: THE COMPANY STRUCTURE ASSAULT COURSE

ONLY 5% OF COMPANIES THOUGHT THEY WERE ‘VERY MUCH’ SET UP

FOR CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING... DOWN FROM 7% IN 2014.

Larger companies operate in silos for a REASON:

BUT YOUR ORG CHART IS NOT A MAP OF CUSTOMER NEEDS.

It makes things easy to manage

It creates clear hierarchies

It supports accounting

infrastructures

LEAPING THE HURDLE:

To turn org-chart-centric into customer-centric, LOOK AT INFORMATION FLOWS BETWEEN TEAMS.

Once teams see insights into their work from other sources... they can be surprisingly fast to make use of them.

BEFORE REORGANISING, TRY ‘RE-INFORMATIONING’ to restructure from within.

OBSTACLE 4: THE CLEAR STRATEGY

WATER-JUMP

BETWEEN 2014 AND 2015, THE NUMBER OF COMPANIES SEEING A

CLEARLY DEFINED STRATEGY AS KEY TO CROSS CHANNEL MARKETING

INCREASED BY AROUND ONE-THIRD, FROM 22% TO 29%.

CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING NEEDS A PLAN.But do you groan at the thought of YET ANOTHER STRATEGY MEETING?

LEAPING THE HURDLE:

One attack strategy for getting on-plan faster: define the problem first. Can you demonstrate:

How much customer equity you’re leaving on the table by not having a Cross Channel Marketing strategy?

If there is a financial case for joining two teams or changing direction?

If you can put numbers on the value of a change?

If so, THE WHOLE C-SUITE WILL LISTEN and if you can talk their language it could earn you a seat on the board.

OBSTACLE 5: THE LACK-OF-

RESOURCES LOG-JAM

20% OF REPORT RESPONDENTS STATED LACK OF RESOURCES

PREVENTED THEM DOING CROSS CHANNEL MARKETING EFFECTIVELY.

RESOURCES. RESOURCES. RESOURCES.Not all challenges are on the obstacle course. Sometimes they’re all the other people competing with you for what they need.

TIME. PEOPLE. ATTENTION. MONEY.

LEAPING THE HURDLE:

Here’s an innovative solution...

• Instead of trying to win against them, check their alignment.

• Are DIFFERING GOALS forcing departments to pull in OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS?

• CHANGE THE GOALS, BRING THEM TOGETHER.

• Think of cross-channel marketing as a TEAM SPORT!

OBSTACLE 6: THE WHERE’S-THE-

BATON? HANDOVER FAIL

ONE-TENTH OF PEOPLE SAW TECHNOLOGY LIMITATIONS AS

DRAGGING THEM DOWN.

WHAT CAN HELP SCALE THIS FINAL HURDLE?

A surprising percentage of respondents thought that TECHNOLOGY COULDN’T DO ENOUGH FOR THEM.

LEAPING THE HURDLE:

Look at marketing technology challenges from the customer’s viewpoint, not the department’s.

Think about:

What will this investment contribute to customer equity?

How does this software connect gaps on the customer journey?

What parts of the customer experience are we not serving, but should be?

NOT ALL TECHNOLOGY MAY HELP ANY ISOLATED DEPARTMENT...

BUT THERE ARE A THOUSAND WAYS IT CAN HELP THE CUSTOMER.

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CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING REPORT 2015

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