Marketing in the New Era

As marketers know, a great metamorphosis is underway that is changing how companies reach and engage with customers. Traditional marketing tactics and channels are being displaced by digital initiatives that are faster, more intuitive and more relevant to today’s consumers.

These changes are a direct response to a rapidly evolving consumer landscape, one in which consumers are empowered with unprecedented access to information, social networks and choice. If you can’t attract their attention or pique their interest with your marketing efforts, someone else undoubtedly will.

It’s time to enter the next era of digital marketing management.

THE FUTURE OF MARKETING

To handle the massive amounts of consumer data generated every day, savvy companies are turning to integrated marketing management (IMM). These solutions leverage technology and take a systematic approach to customer segmentation, attribution management, integrated messaging, inbound/outbound campaign management and other industry techniques.

Achieving success requires three essential components:

Strategic planning and workflow. Proving the value of marketing requires aligning campaigns across all channels with organizational goals. This creates a collaborative environment among marketing, sales, customer service and outside agencies to help identify what’s working (at what cost) and how well individual efforts are meeting consumer needs.

Advanced analytics. A sharp consumer profile comes into view through data from the Web, a call center, email, social media and mobile channels—sometimes in the course of a single transaction. One option is a private digital marketing cloud that relieves the burden of managing custom-tailored IT system interfaces and multi-source, multi-format data to deliver a clearer consumer focus.

Multi-channel campaign execution. Digital marketing management should include a messaging center that functions as an integrated part of the platform, rather than an add-on solution....