The Marketing Department is Dead

The traditional marketing department is dead as consumers demand increased personalization and seamless experiences across channels – including brick and mortar stores, websites and apps, social media, emails, customer service, etc.

This is what the traditional (simplified) setup looks like at Borat&Borat, a fine traditional Furniture company.

In this setup, only James, the CMO has a global understanding of the situation. Each member of the team handles his own business, without any indication of how it’s impacting the others.

Now what do you think Adelle from the lead gen team would say if she could easily access the complete profile of every customer who has played the new quiz that Towhid in social media has just launched ?

I would love this. Very much.

The drawbacks of such a linear, rigid structure are being felt from the top down.

Now that marketing programs have developed into more sophisticated campaigns that require multiple touch points to meet the expectations of today’s consumers, internal transparency and collaboration is becoming more critical. In fact, the vast majority – 82% - of CMOs report that an inability to measure cross-channel performance is a barrier implementing an effective cross-channel strategy, and 80% cite a lack of in-house talent. These problems result directly from the team structure.

Ideas and Information Should Flow Easily.

The first red flag in the org chart above is its linear configuration. Effective marketing teams require high-level collaboration that is often scarce on traditional marketing teams.

For example, the lead generation team needs a direct line to the web team to ensure the site is effectively capturing visitor information and that potential customer data is accessible and understandable by the sales team. And what drives visitors to share the data needed by the sales? Content of course. Plus, compelling content needs compelling design from the creative team. A more circular, cross-functional team will be much more effective in driving seamless and effective customer experiences than these disjointed, siloed roles.

Let’s talk about customer service. The team who works with customers on the most personal level should have an understanding of that person’s history with the brand, current promotions, corporate messaging, etc., to provide personalized service that is cohesive with consumer marketing efforts.

And lastly, IT is at the intersection of every job, because this is the team that controls the data.

The web, database and sales teams rely heavily on IT, as too should the advertising team for effective retargeting, social media team for interactive campaigns and so on. And what about analytics? In the CMO study referenced above, 84.6% of respondents say they are either not measuring their cross-channel marketing performance at all or are measuring it using anecdotal, subjective evidence. A team who can effectively analyze customer data and marketing performance is critical to creating campaigns that deliver results in order to maximize marketing investments

But … Don’t rely on IT (as much). They have plenty to do.

Of course, IT is your path to better marketing. There’s no way around it. Unfortunately, given the speed at which business goes, developers can never build fast enough.

So you need to let them focus on more valuable tasks than performing data extractions as excel files for each of your teams. For this IT needs smarter, more integrated tools. They need to be able to give away control of important but tedious tasks to the marketing team or use tools that automate them.

Enter the New Marketing Department

So what does the marketing department of the future look like? The Orchestrator Modelpresented on the Harvard Business Review’s blog is a good first step, dividing team members into “think,” feel” and “do” tasks. Thinkers are the analysts – using customer, market and campaign performance data to drive decisions. Feelers are focused on the customer experience – community managers, customer service, user interface designers, etc. Doers are the campaign designers – graphic artists, content creators, planners/strategists, web designers, etc. Thinkers, feelers and doers are grouped into functional teams based on individual customer touchpoints.

This approach integrates critical functions like analytics and customer service into the marketing department, but it still fails to realize that ALL customer touchpoints need to be integrated. Customers should hear the same brand story and have the same personalized experiences on apps, websites, in stores, on the phone, on mobile devices and desktops, on social media, etc. These functional teams need to work together to provide customers with the personalized, engaging experience they desire.

Unify the Experience

As marketing thought leader Brian Solis is quick to point out, customers see brands, not departments. The key to an effective marketing department isn’t just making sure the right skill sets and functions are part of the team, but breaking down barriers and ensuring cross-collaboration among everyone in the department. Great ideas aren’t departmentalized, nor should your marketing team be.

The second step in ensuring an effective team? Making sure it has the tools needed to make decisions and execute strategies. That’s where Hull comes in. We leverage customer data to unlock previously hidden insights and give marketers the tools they need to create seamless customer experiences quickly and easily. Contact us to today to see how we can become a part of your marketing team.

To find out more please visit hull.io