Integration as a key trend in marketing is nothing new and my purpose in this article is not to add to the more than enough spiel already available on this subject. All I am attempting is to build a case for why it is moving up the corporate priority list and will become among the key fixtures on the boardroom agenda sooner or later. Considering where social media and market maturity is in India today this maybe sometime away and hence this is still in the realm of prediction. But I am confident that it’s only a matter of time with the dice having started rolling already.
Let me start with the typical needs of various corporate functions:
• Sales seeks quality demand generation.
• HR demands better employer branding and higher employee engagement.
• PR and corp. comm. need brand equity/corporate reputation to be grown and enhanced
• Customers seek listening, more personalized engagement and responsiveness
• R&D seeks better customer insights
• Managements demand innovation, happier customers and higher revenues
Now, let us look at the other side of the spectrum:
• Sales and marketing need to be more integrated and work closer
• Effective R&D needs closer working with customer support/service or increasingly constant flow and inter-discussion of customer data, analytics and insights
• To attain better employer branding and engagement HR needs to work closely with the PR/corporate communication/marketing communication teams
• Leadership increasingly needs to engage across and be accessible
And now add social media, growing influence of mobile etc. to this. What emerges is that integration is no longer just a marketing trend but a larger organization impacting concept. Interestingly, we are not just talking about integration of channels and tools but beyond.
It is also not just about consistency of messaging across channels and platforms which has been quite spoken about. It truly goes beyond and needs a different or separate function or mechanism within the corporate structure.
Here are three ways I foresee or forecast boards or managements to head:
1. Marketing will grow into the strategy or evolve into the strategy role (at the Paul Writer IT services marketing summit earlier this year, the CMO of Cognizant had a brilliant presentation making the case for marketing to own not just marketing strategy but business strategy as well)
2. Strategy/corporate planning teams in companies where it is entrenched, evolved, will lay claim to own this in order to align and tune corporate/business strategy in a dynamic manner and thus being able to wrench for their firms a distinct competitive edge
3. It is neither an evolved marketing team nor the internal strategy/corporate planning team which owns this but aseparate team only devoted to and focused on this.
My gut feel arising from observation of the current Indian business landscape, the evolution of marketing/strategy/corporate planning functions are that marketing has a good chance to wrest the initiative and own this increasingly important and strategic focus for any business. Here is why:
• Corporate planning and strategy functions are more insulated than marketing
• Both functions don’t own or supervise or have a direct role in social media strategy and marketing of the brand/organization while marketing does in many organizations in some form or other
• Both have not invested in understanding of the new media or digital tools
Without doubt, I am clearly stating or assuming that understanding of the fast changing social, digital and mobile landscape is a key requisite and advantage for any corporate function or team or professional. It is a key driver of the integration trend and it is where the customer becomes a potential employee, a potential shareholder, a potential brand ambassador and more.
Being in the consulting, branding and communication space, I am biased in favour of marketers getting there but to do so they will need to do some of the things outlined below quickly (not a comprehensive one since that would be another article):
• Get rid of the siloed structure of the marketing organization which does not fit with the converging marketplace and messaging platforms
• Sharpen their social/digital skills, understanding and expertise and do so constantly
• Look at new models (on the supply side there has been some innovation to aid this – more and more PR firms integrate social listening, blogger engagement and social media marketing into their offering, there are outsourced marketing services providers and online platforms crowd sourcing design etc.)
• Structure the marketing teams differently – separate resources assigned for integration or the holistic view, another for analytics over and above those who manage programs and partners
Before I wrap up, integration brings new opportunities and challenges, but, also makes not just the marketer’s life but the lives of every professional involved in that value chain, more exciting. Imagine being able to influence or increasingly contribute to business outcomes, improve bottomline, contribute to innovation (new product) or even a healthier corporate reputation, etc. All the very best.
This article was published in Marketing Booster.
Image courtesy of Suwit Ritjaroon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
