The CMO Struggle For True Marketing Integration Rages On

Posted: 06 Sep 2016 07:17 AM PDT

Since February of 2011, the CMO Survey which is sponsored by the American Marketing Association, Deloitte and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, have asked chief marketing officers the following question: How effectively does your company integrate customer information across purchasing, communication, and social media channels?

Survey participants are asked to respond via a scale of 1-7 with 1 representing "not at all effectively" and 7 being "very effectively."

Oh yeah before I forget, this survey is conducted twice a year, in February and then again in August. That is significant, trust me.

What's 4 Got To Do With It?

Here's the results of this one question since February 2011.

With this most recent survey completed this makes eleven straight times the response average has not equalled or even surpassed 4, which in very unscientific terms means for five years CMOs, on average feel they're doing, well an average job of integrating across all channels.

This result truly astounds me. Especially when you consider that the average is actually dropping since August 2014.

Singles Only

No, this section is not about the latest dating site or the next chapter meeting of your local community association. This is all about the inherently important need for your organization to have a single customer identity that unites behaviors across all channels into one comprehensive profile.

Today, certain technologies can link all the unique cross channel identifiers of a customer back to a single unique identifier. Once you have a single unique identifier, you can really know who your customers are across all channels, and begin to:

Personalize interactions based on channel preferences and behaviors.
Reach a more precise level of targeting and segmentation by using cross channel behavioral information in real time.
And most importantly, integrate cross channel communications and speak to each customer with a single voice regardless of channel.

Many marketing technology vendors can execute on some aspects of personalization. And some might even be able to help marketers target their customer better. But the ability to actually use personalization and targeting to integrate cross channel communications differentiates Modern Marketing solutions from other, less comprehensive alternatives.

By unifying cross channel identities and creating campaigns on a scalable cross channel program canvas, the right technology empowers marketers to reach new levels of digital sophistication.

The problem is today there are seemingly an infinite number of technology options out there to pick from. How can you possibly know which technology works best for you?

Fortunately for you we're here to help.

Download The CMO Solution Guide to Leveraging New Technology and Marketing Platforms and learn directly from your fellow CMOs as to how they decide which technology is right for them and their company.