To many businesses, the term integrated marketing simply means ensuring that all marketing messages and creative elements are consistent across every marketing channel—online and offline—that the business utilizes. And while consistency of message is certainly an important aspect of integrated marketing, it’s really only the proverbial “tip of the iceberg.” Let’s examine the less obvious but equally—or more—important concept underlying successful integrated marketing programs: commitment to customer-centric marketing.
Perhaps a Picture Says It Best
A post in MarketingProfs’ Know-How Exchange forum asking about integrated marketing generated a lively discussion of the topic, which the following Wordle diagram sums up:
(Recall that Wordle diagrams use size to indicate how frequently a particular word appears in the text that the diagram represents.) As this diagram depicts so well, your customer—every bit as much as your communications—needs to play an important role in your business’s integrated marketing strategy.
Why Is a Customer-Centric Strategy So Important in Integrated Marketing?
Quite simply, because your customers and prospects lead integrated online and offline lives—they move frequently and seamlessly in and out of online and offline worlds—and they expect the same of you. Wherever and however they meet and interact with your business, your brand and your products and services, they expect no disconnects, no Jekyll-and-Hyde experiences. Not only do you need to provide consistent messaging and branding across channels, you also need to provide consistent experiences whether your customers interact with you online, over the phone, face-to-face or through your content.
A customer-centric strategy means that handoffs from one channel to another (e.g., a URL from a direct mail piece that sends the customer to a page on your Web site) need to be seamless as well and part of a unified experience that the customer has with your brand. A customer-centric strategy means that marketing, sales and customer service work together to ensure that all the “parts” work harmoniously and transparently to help your customers complete what they set out to do.
Where to Begin?
If a customer-centric integrated approach to marketing sounds complicated, you’re right—it can be. Depending on the size of your company, it’s often hard enough just to manage your messaging and creative to ensure consistency across channels, let alone tackle customer-experience issues. But the rewards of pursuing a customer-centric integrated marketing strategy are plentiful in the form of increased trust and respect, competitive advantage and the perception that your company really “gets it.”
Let us know how ACS Creative can help you achieve your integrated marketing goals.
Perhaps a Picture Says It Best
A post in MarketingProfs’ Know-How Exchange forum asking about integrated marketing generated a lively discussion of the topic, which the following Wordle diagram sums up:
(Recall that Wordle diagrams use size to indicate how frequently a particular word appears in the text that the diagram represents.) As this diagram depicts so well, your customer—every bit as much as your communications—needs to play an important role in your business’s integrated marketing strategy.
Why Is a Customer-Centric Strategy So Important in Integrated Marketing?
Quite simply, because your customers and prospects lead integrated online and offline lives—they move frequently and seamlessly in and out of online and offline worlds—and they expect the same of you. Wherever and however they meet and interact with your business, your brand and your products and services, they expect no disconnects, no Jekyll-and-Hyde experiences. Not only do you need to provide consistent messaging and branding across channels, you also need to provide consistent experiences whether your customers interact with you online, over the phone, face-to-face or through your content.
A customer-centric strategy means that handoffs from one channel to another (e.g., a URL from a direct mail piece that sends the customer to a page on your Web site) need to be seamless as well and part of a unified experience that the customer has with your brand. A customer-centric strategy means that marketing, sales and customer service work together to ensure that all the “parts” work harmoniously and transparently to help your customers complete what they set out to do.
Where to Begin?
If a customer-centric integrated approach to marketing sounds complicated, you’re right—it can be. Depending on the size of your company, it’s often hard enough just to manage your messaging and creative to ensure consistency across channels, let alone tackle customer-experience issues. But the rewards of pursuing a customer-centric integrated marketing strategy are plentiful in the form of increased trust and respect, competitive advantage and the perception that your company really “gets it.”
Let us know how ACS Creative can help you achieve your integrated marketing goals.
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