Another survey reveals the seemingly never ending chasm that is the art of marketing integration.
In these proverbial hallowed halls (and other hallowed spaces) I have put pen to paper on numerous occasions about the word "integration" and in particular marketing integration.
In my quest to bring to light the glaring need and accommodating dearth of I have gone so far to:
- Compare Schoolhouse Rock with Marketing Integration - "I'm thinking of creating a different version of the interjections video and replacing it with the word integration and changing the chorus to something like, "Integration shows you get it, are not clueless, is generally done by very few companies, even though their customers say they want it."
- Suggest I see a licensed medical professional to deal with my marketing integration fixation - "So I'm thinking I may need to see a doctor or someone in the medical profession for it is becoming quite apparent that I am addicted to integrated marketing communications or at the very least I am obsessively compulsive over it.
- Turn into a trivia game of sorts - The Eleven Letter Word That Continues To Elude All CMOs And Marketers
- Wonder aloud if marketers would be better suited looking for the Holy Grail than spend their time on trying to create an integrated marketing strategy.
Now while I cannot promise this will be my last article on marketing integration - it won't be. I can tell you a) it will be my last one this week and b) I have some pretty heady proof as to the power of marketing integration as it relates directly to the bottom line.
A headline, chart and excerpt from a recent article on MarketingCharts.com:
Multichannel Retailers Struggle To Create A Seamless Brand Experience
You'll see at the top of the list 59% of retailers, when asked, identified coordination with other channels to create a seamless brand experience as their #1 challenge followed by optimizing inventory deployment across all channels (52%) and understanding and accommodating how different consumer segments engage (49%).
As for the excerpt, you'll notice a reference to The Multi-Channel Retailer's Reality in a Post-Amazon World, a study put out by SAP and Retail Systems Research:
"71% of 'Double-digit Winners,' whose annual year-over-year growth is 10% or higher, identified channel coordination as their leading challenge. By comparison, only 47% of laggards (growth under 3%) cited the same challenge. As the researchers posit, 'this dramatically underlines how much Winners understand their multiple channels can be leveraged as a real and differentiating strength from online-only powerhouses - providing they can one day execute.'"
Now look, I realize this is only dealing with retailers so you may be out saying 'Steve, thanks for this info but I'm not in retail so it doesn't apply to me."
To that I say "you better believe it applies to you!"
You really think that only retailers who truly understand marketing integration see double-digit growth? Of course not.
Any brand, business or company that delivers an integrated message to their end user, no matter who it is, is going to be more successful than the brand, business or company that doesn't.
This line says it all: 'this (those companies that have identified channel coordination as their leading challenge) dramatically underlines how much Winners understand their multiple channels can be leveraged as a real and differentiating strength."
The defense rests.
Source: MarketingCharts.com
Named one of the Top 100 Influencers In Social Media (#41) by Social Technology Review and a Top 50 Social Media Blogger by Kred, Steve Olenski is a senior content strategist at Responsys, a leading global provider of on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions.