Driving Strategic Value Creation through Access Creation & Integrated Marketing

I have been in the marketing industry for over two decades now. After working at Oracle, Microsoft, Meylah, and Women in Cloud I have personally experienced consistent changes in how marketing programs and campaigns shape the society.

For a couple of years, a new term in marketing is gaining momentum, Integrated Marketing. Integrated marketing is defined as a new framework for driving advocacy, loyalty, and revenue by integrating all the marketing channels that span across digital and print.

What I have seen is customers are always looking for answers in multiple channels and communities to make the right choices to invest in solutions and/or products.

While developing integrated marketing strategies what I have learnt is, to create strategic value for customers across multiple channels and communities the activities need to focus on access creation that drive outcomes such as customer connection, engagement, and transaction. So here is a simple framework to create strategic value through access creation and integrated marketing solutions. Strategic value is created when you can provide three core outcomes:

1. Access Creation is about creating access for others to see opportunities that will transform their lives. 
2. Enabling Engaging Opportunities for people to consistently have access to enjoy their transformed lives.
3. Leveraging integrated marketing to help customers easily take actions and realize their potential.

Let's go deep into each one of them:

ACCESS CREATION

Let's define Access. Access is me is like a magical key between two people that can open any door or break any glass. People create access when they know how they can support the idea. And when you get access, you feel confident to take action to get closer to your dreams and serve the world.

Access is invisible. It looks like an invitation to meet people, invitation to join community and networks, an invitation to partner, and an invitation to exclusive programs.

Personally, I believe, creating access is a key element to unlocking any success or opportunity. In order to ensure growth and success in any marketing campaign, there needs to be a process for creating access. Examples of access creation look like:

• Invest in healthcare access for people with disabilities
• Create economic access for women
• Making COVID19 testing kit accessible
• Enable education access for unprivileged community
• Provide technology access for rural communities
• Provide funding access to female entrepreneurs, and many more.

Here is a simple HOW to step to create access:

1. First, understand what problem will you solve when you create access
2. Second, articulate the strategic outcome when the access is created
3. Third, create solutions that create access
4. And finally, deliver solutions that create strategic value through access

The question you should be asking is, ‘What is the Access I am creating today with the integrated marketing program that creates a transformation for the customer or partners I serve?’

For example, when you talk about gender equality, the metrics need to focus on equal access to all opportunities across the company starting with the board, leadership, workforce, supplier network, channel network, and vendor networks. You have to look at gender inclusion holistically and ensure you set the right metrics. When that is clear you proactively create integrated marketing programs to achieve the outcomes. When you focus on creating access to outcomes you will move the needle on gender equality.

ENGAGING OPPORTUNITIES

The second part of value creation is enabling opportunities for individual transformation. They experience value in 3 ways:

1. Connections - People love to meet new people. They love to explore new ideas and solutions. The experiences need to consistently enable new connections. It can be done either via an event or any other programs that foster connections.
2. Engagement - Everyone craves to engage at a deeper level because ongoing engagement drives trust and empathy. This requires constant involvement to drive meaningful transactions between people.
3. Transaction - When people get engaged, they usually explore a win-win opportunity to collaborate on. This results in a transaction that is either financial or social. This is drive the outcomes everyone looks forward to achieving.

IMMEDIATE ACTION

The final step to creating Strategic Value Creation through Integrated Marketing would be to plan and take action. I think taking the right actions is important to ensure the success of the marketing campaign. Some of the common challenges marketers face while taking action are, 

1. Broken Data Pipelines - When you bring a campaign to life after working in the background for so long, you need to have sufficient data collection points planet to document the impact and access created.
2. Budget Allocation - If you do not know what the journey map for access and value creation looks like, then you do not know where to spend the money. If resources are not allocated where it needs to be to ensure the success of the campaign, the goal remains unpursued. 
3. Limited Skills - To do integrated marketing effectively, that creates access, engagement and connection so people take action with you leading to a transaction, takes skill, and there is a scarcity of that skill in the market right now.

Hence, most of the marketers are struggling in the market to ensure consistent growth and success with their marketing campaigns. If you decide to go through this journey, you must ensure you connect elements to survive and succeed in this journey to make a difference.

After having spent over a decade in the business as a marketing thought leader, I have realized that one can connect with people at the click of the button, but creating strategic value for people requires skill which is more than just clicking a button. 

Hence, only a few people have been able to master it, and those are the people who are standing out in the market today. Strategic Value creation is what results in a transaction resulting in either monetary, brand amplification, or social access benefits for the company, whereas connection just ensures a larger audience. Therefore, strategic value creation is what builds a scalable Integrated Marketing Program.

This blog summarizes a BrightTalk Session. If you wish to watch the full session on Strategic Value Creation through Integrated Marketing, here is the BrightTalk Session.

If you get a chance check out my TED talk that focused on access creation.