Integrated marketing is an omnipresent term in North America, especially the United States. Used less frequently in Québec, it nevertheless represents a ‘’fait accompli’’ in marketing. The integration of disciplines, technologies and channels of communication as well as online and offline distribution has become, by the technological advances of recent years, a must for all companies. It’s a no-brainer: Practicing integrated marketing just about guarantees higher performance in your sales and marketing endeavours. But to get to the point of actually applying integrated marketing, you will need to:
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Focus your organization on the customer and not on your offer or way of doing things
B2B companies can no longer afford to put their clients at the end of their processes. Indeed, B2B customers are informed, with specific requirements and needs. Therefore, companies must develop a customer-centric attitude and structure themselves accordingly. This may lead to questioning the evolution of positions such as product manager, or product specialist, and to consider the establishment of new common objectives…
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Connect the sales, marketing and customer service processes by focusing on the customer
This type of structuring involves not only considering the customer at the time of purchase but rather throughout the entire purchasing process, from their search for information to post purchase communications.
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Use tools to support this structure and integrate them to get a 360 degree view of the customer
– CRM solutions
Customer relationship management software will allow you to achieve integration by collecting data on prospects and customers across the enterprise into a single database
– Marketing automation tools
This type of tool is connected or even built into a CRM; it allows the optimization of certain business processes through the automation of marketing actions. It can include:
-Marketing campaign management functionalities such as email campaigns.
-Lead management functionalities, like scoring.
-Marketing monitoring functionalities, such as performance reports.
– Sales automation tools
This type of tool is becoming more and more integrated with CRM. It can maximize team productivity by automating sales force tasks, such as sending personalized offers, contracts, documents and more.
Finally, embarking on an integrated marketing approach leads companies to review their culture and way of doing things. A unified, customer-centric approach can be of exceptional value for your businesses.
Where are you at with your marketing integration?
