I just received an interesting comment on my “For Hire” post that asked:

“Are there really any leading authorities – aside from published authors – on integrated marketing and communications? There are a lot of self-promoters who claim expertise in what is usually “the obvious”.

This comment, while obviously an attempt to discredit my experience, made me realized that there are probably many marketing professionals out there that have the same misunderstanding and misperception when it comes to understanding the theory and benefits of true integration.

I want to help fix that.

From the dawn of its time, which would be about 1993, when the “Fathers of Integration” Schultz, Tannenbaum and Lauterborn wrote The New Marketing Paradigm: Integrated Marketing Communications, integration has always been based in customer-centric (putting the customer at the center of the organization) and data-driven marketing. Unfortunately, marketers conveniently ignored the customer-centric, data-driven part of integration. We’ll get to that in a bit…

What Integrated Marketing Is Not

Integrated marketing is not consistent branding and messaging across tactics alone.

Yes, you heard that correctly.

One of the many challenges that The New Marketing Paradigm attempted to address were silos (other challenges included the lack of customer-centricity, planning, and measurement). Messages and branding from marketing, communications, branding, and PR were consistently out of whack with each other—leaving customers and prospects to put the pieces together themselves. Talk about ineffective.

Fast forward. Silos still rear their ugly heads (we see social media putting a spotlight on them), but for the most part organizations have gotten smarter about why it is smart to integrate their branding and messaging.

That said, marketing and communications today still seems to be lead by the basic and simple act of integrating tactics to feed the lead generation beast. That mindset presents new challenges. By thinking that tactics have been integrated across channels it’s a job well done, marketers put themselves at risk of wasting precious resources, time, and budget. Why? Because integrated tactics alone do not deliver on*:

• Relevance
• Receptivity
• Response
• Recognition
• Relationship

Without truly knowing who customers are, when they are open to messages, how they prefer to respond, if they relate to the brand, and how they feel about the organization, it is nearly impossible to be targeted. That is where the data-driven part of integration comes to bear. Without outside-in data, “spray and pray” marketing will continue to be prevalent.

Obviously, I am simplifying this to make a point. It would take a book to dive in deeper!

(*To learn more about the Five R’s and the value they deliver, be sure to pick up a copy of IMC, The Next Generation : Five Steps For Delivering Value and Measuring Financial Returns by Don E. Schultz and Heidi Schultz.)

What Integrated Marketing Is

“GE executives described a stagnant GE when Jack Welch took over as CEO in 1981: “[GE is a company] … with its face to the CEO and its ass to the customer.”

I pulled that gem of a quote from Ranjay Gulati’s most excellent book, Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business.

Which direction is your organization facing? Let’s dive in before your backside catches a chill.

IMC: The Next Generation presents eight guiding principles of integration:

1. Become a customer-centric organization
2. Use outside-in planning
3. Focus on the total customer experience
4. Align customer goals with corporate objectives
5. Set customer behavior objectives
6. Treat customers as assets
7. Streamline functional activities
8. Converge marcom activities (this one we get, what about the others?)

The main struggle for product-centric companies when it comes to integrated marketing is the ability to realize customer-centricity and treating customers as assets.

Understanding Customer-Centricity

In Reorganize for Resilience, Gulati observed the following traits of truly customer-centric companies. They:

• Changed the conversation with their customers to one that is more outside-in and focused on how they can help address customer-articulated needs;
• Became problem solvers, not sellers;
• Focused on the set of customer problems they want to solve and are less concerned with the means and more focused on the ends;
• Developed a culture where customer centricity and outside-in behavior is their way of life.

Jay Galbraith describes the same tenets in his book, Designing The Customer-Centric Organization. Customer-centric companies focus on:

• Personalization and customization for the best customer solution
• Strategy supporting the most profitable, loyal customers
• Structure based on customer segments, teams and P&L
• Rewards given to employees who save customer business
• Sales bias on the side of the customer

Integrated Marketing, It’s “The Obvious,” Right?

We hear about the success of the same companies repeatedly. You know who they are: Dell, IBM, Cisco, FedEx, Lafarge, Best Buy, Target, and Southwest. There is a reason for that. The pool of customer-centric companies with truly integrated marketing is more like a puddle.

It has been with purpose for the past year that I have blogged about integration. I truly believe in integration and the value it delivers (how can the evidence be disputed?). As well, I have helped companies with integration in my career and know that it works.

(Note: integration is tough work and it’s not easy to become truly customer-centric, but that isn’t an excuse to move forward with it.)

For those marketers solely guided by revenue generation and shareholder wealth, try this stat on for size:

“…customer-driven companies were significantly more successful than shareholder-driven ones, providing a 36 percent advantage in shareholder returns, compared with their industry median; shareholder-aligned organizations provided only a 17 percent advantage.” – Reorganize for Resilience

Who wouldn’t want those returns?!

Your Job Moving Forward

The next time an agency or consultant is offering integrated marketing be sure to request a plan that is truly integrated (especially the five R’s)  and data-centric and see what you get in response. If it’s  full of tactics that have been “obviously” integrated with lack of regard for much else, you know what to do.

Integrated marketing: it’s the not so “obvious” marketing… after all. (Sort of like the “other white meat.”)

P.S. If you truly want to understand integrated marketing and it’s benefits, pick up the books mentioned in this post along with Kellogg on Integrated Marketing.

[Image Source: hypebeast.com]

“No company will tell you, ‘I don’t want to be customer centric,’ but do you know the difference between taking an inside-out versus an outside-in approach?” - Ranjay Gulati

An organization’s goal for being social with customers is, presumably, to gain a better understand of what customers want and need. Typically used to warehouse customer data, marketing campaigns, and customer service endeavors, CRM systems now must also capture the social interactions of customers and prospects as well. It is those social interactions— in a natural setting—that will provide organizations with untarnished insights.

More importantly, by drawing the customer closer, the organization will find a refreshing ‘outside-in’ view that leads to budget, resource, and time savings when it comes to new product or service development, customer service and marketing communications.

While Inc. magazine declares 2011 to be the year of Social CRM, we need to question whether or not most organizations have the culture to be social let alone allowing their customers to become an integrated part of their business through social CRM.

Is social CRM bringing  companies & customers together in harmony today? Not for most organizations. There is a long road ahead for social CRM to becoming the norm. But when properly constructed and utilized, it is a road that will pay huge dividends—for both organizations and customers.

While it may not be recognized today, the insights social CRM provides are the customer and market dynamics nirvana that most organizations (and marketers) seek.

Social Media Examiner: What is Social CRM?

“In [social CRM] the customer is actually the focal point of how an organization operates. Instead of marketing or pushing messages to customers, brands now talk to and collaborate with customers to solve business problems, empower customers to shape their own experiences and build customer relationships, which will hopefully turn into customer advocates.”

Jacob Morgan: How CRM and Social Media Evolved to Social CRM

“The voice of customers across the social landscape is forcing organizations to take steps to deliver on the original promises of CRM. It’s a great opportunity. Organizations now have the capability (and the mandate) to listen, interact, and respond to their customers and prospects. They also have the capability to create, facilitate, and enable customers and other stakeholders to interact with each other. Social has opened up new infinite opportunities for innovation, co-creation, and customer responsiveness.”

Ray Wang (Altimeter Group): Research Report: The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM – The New Rules of Relationship Management

“Customers continue to adopt social technologies at a blinding speed and organizations are unable to keep up.  Social technologies continue to proliferate. Because the conversations about organizations increasingly occur outside of the organization’s control in social channels, organizations need to:

1. Discover where the conversations are happening in this new social world.
2. Identify who’s influential and if they are customers or not.
3. Assess friend or foe status and their willingness to engage
4. Determine a tiered approach to engagement or re-engagement.
5. Tie social channels to business value and objectives
6. Bring the social channel back to existing CRM systems.
7. Reallocate resources to support Social CRM efforts

This is the basis for the groundswell in Social CRM. But keep in mind, Social CRM does not replace existing CRM efforts – instead it brings more value to existing efforts and should complement the uber CRM strategy.”

Conversion Marketing Forum: Social CRM and customer-centricity: the social media experts’ point of view

“Adapting a customer-centric philosophy is always something that has to take place throughout the company. A lot of companies struggle while trying to do so, for instance because of departments within the company that act like independent silos from one and another. Customer-centric thinking asks for support from the management, uniform data, integration of platforms and processes, but especially cross-divisional cooperation.”

Conversionation: Social CRM: social media and communities in customer relationship management and marketing

“[McGovern and Zhivago] further write that ‘thousands of customer interviews have convinced them that the ‘company’s list’ and the ‘customer’s list’ are always significantly different – including the items on the list, the specific characteristics of the items on the list, and the priority of the items on the list’.”

Gartner: Social CRM Projects and the Curtain of Doubt

“You will face a wall without slicing up Social CRM into addressable bits. But if you do convince yourself that you do not need everything to be momentous, that there can be greatness in a grain of sand, then you will push through that curtain of doubt and create a self-sustaining culture of measuring each tiny milestone.”

Inc Magazine: 2011: The Year Social CRM Goes Mainstream

“The challenge is that most companies have been wired from the ground up to operate in a world of company-controlled communication, and they’re simply not equipped to engage in conversations. But, the rules have changed,” says Greg Gianforte , founder and CEO of customer experience solutions provider RightNow. ”To be truly conversant with social customers, companies are rewiring their operations to be more customer-centered, more relationship oriented, and more transparent. They’re collaborating across departmental silos, working beyond the capabilities of traditional CRM tools, and weaving social into business as usual. “

The good news is that true Social CRM offers companies a seamless and real-time view across the many different channels that customers converse in, new and old alike (e.g.,Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, chat, phone), Gianforte says.  “With this view, companies can truly get to know and proactively care for their customers, ultimately fulfilling their brand promises, the social way.”

[Image source: Chess Media Group]

Happy reading!

This past weekend I had the pleasure of being introduced to Ron Shevlin, his blog Marketing Tea Party, and his recent post “The Problem With Customer-Centricity.” (Hat tip: Valeria Maltoni.)

Given that I am a proponent for customer-centricity, I could not help but add my thoughts to Ron’s post since it is at the heart of what I practice and believe as a marketer. As well, I am seeing the trend for customer-centric becoming destined for buzzword bingo and I would hate for it to become meaningless well before its benefits are recognized and experienced.

Ron offers a well thought-out case for what customer-centric is and why it may not in the best interest of an organization (be sure to read all of the comments, too). After thoughtful analysis, Ron arrives at this bottom-line:

“… All this talk of customer-centricity is an utter and complete waste of time. The term means nothing. There’s no common definition, no definitive way to measure it, and therefore, no real proof that a company that claims to be customer-centric is any better (for any of the stakeholders) than any other firm.”

The problem with this premise, however, is that customer-centricity was not been properly defined (the definition from Business in Berkshire is probably the closest definition) nor had the origin of the theory (which is integrated marketing communications circa 1994) been shared.

In order to understand why customer-centric is an operational practice, it is important to understand its history.

A Bit of History

In 1994, Schultz, Tannebaum, and Lauterborn defined what it meant to be integrated and customer-centric with their book “The New Marketing Paradigm.” The paradigm shift they discuss is shift away from mass marketing, removing internal silos and marketing from a customer perspective (including two-way communications).

Since customer-centricity has its roots in IMC, the most correct definition I have seen to date:

“Using outside-in thinking, Integrated Marketing Communications is a data-driven, customer-centric approach that focuses on identifying consumer insights and developing a strategy with the right (online and offline combination) channels to forge a stronger brand-consumer relationship. This involves knowing the right touch points to use to reach consumers and understanding how and where they consume different types of media. Regression analysis and customer lifetime value are key data elements in this approach.”

[The key? Data and relationships.]

From Marketing to Operations

After reading the above definition, you might be wondering how one makes the leap from marketing communications to operations.

Integrated marketing communications is about connecting with, listening to, understanding, and analyzing (communications) customers and delivering (marketing, product development, operations) on their needs and wants, hopefully in a meaningful way that serves both the customer and organizational goals. Perhaps that seems overly simple, but really, it should be that simple.

When I think of an analogy for customer-centricity, I liken it to the customer as the brain and marketing as the heart (and not in an emotional mushy way, but as lifeblood to the organization). I mean, after all, you can’t do much without a brain and heart and the two rely on each other to sustain life.

Marketing from the Outside-In

This is where the Four C’s (Customer, Convenience, Cost, & Communications) come into play. I would posit that they should perhaps not completely replace the marketing mix (Product, Place, Price, Promotions) just yet—who is ready for that?!—but lead them.  Therefore, from an operational perspective, nothing goes to market without it meeting the needs/wants of the customer at a cost, convenience to buy and with communications that are acceptable to the customer.

Planning

As I have said repeatedly, planning is essential for success. With smart and strategic planning comes measurement and ROI. An organization needs to intentionally plan to be customer-centric. It’s hard work and a complete change in mindset, but it’s possible (read Gulati’s book for examples like Best Buy, Cisco, Target and more).

Reality

The reality is that, unfortunately, customer-centric is becoming a buzzword because organizations struggle with focusing on squarely on customers. Short-term gains override long-term value and developing customer loyalty. Is it any wonder that organizations lose 50% of their customers every five years and rely on the ‘marketing machine’ to refill?

Resources

Perhaps you have some time on your hands or you really do care about your customers. If so, here are resources to help you get started:

• IMC: The Next Generation (Schultz & Schultz)
• Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business (Gulati)
• Turnaround Strategies for Customer-Centric Operations (Roman)
• Building the Customer-Centric Enterprise (Imhoff, Loftis, Geiger)
• Building Customer-Brand Relationships (Schultz, Barnes, Schultz, Azzaro)
• Strategy from the Outside In: Profiting from Customer Value (Day, Moorman)
• Customer Culture: How FedEx and Other Great Companies Put the Customer First Every Day (Basch)

I am sure for some of you I haven’t made a strong enough case–that would take a book. But, what do you think? Should organizations literally bring customers into their operations? Give them a seat at the table per se? Are organizations ready for this?

[Image: McGill]

This weekend I was reading an article in the Fall Harvard Business Review OnPoint magazine (How to Get Your Message Across edition) called “Five Ways to Sharpen Your Communication Skills” by John Baldoni. The article was interesting, but what was more interesting was the comment they selected to share in the Reader Comment section after the article.

John shares these five tips:

1. Know the fundamentals (Understand the written and spoken word.)
2. Think clearly about what you will say (Don’t use PowerPoint as short-hand for thinking)
3. Prepare for meetings (Take the time to think about what to say before you say it.)
4. Engage in discussion (Debate. Hear all viewpoints. Don’t engage in group think.)
5. Listen to others (Discussion is meaningless if no one is listening. “Measure what you treasure.”)

Sounds like everything we learned in kindergarten, right? Still many marketing, public relations and communications pros struggle with these basic elements when it comes to communicating with customers, stakeholders and other employees.

The comment, from Gretchen Anthony, is indicative of this very situation businesses are challenged with:

“One of my favorite quotes on the subject of communication is attributed to George Bernard Shaw, ‘The problem with communication… is the illusion that it has been accomplished.’

To Baldoni’s final point about the need to measure and demonstrate effective communication, we as leaders in our organizations miss this point time and again. How do we know if we’ve accomplished our intended communication goals (and realistically, are we even setting communication goals)?

Where formal measures are lacking, the gut-level measure of trust kicks in. A team, organization, business unit or organization leader who appears to have the trust of their team is most likely a leader who demonstrates a commitment to effective communication. Look to the trusted leaders within an organization and you’ll often see demonstrated the communication skills that work within that organization.”

I’d like to focus on the measurement part of the article and comment. As smart communications pros, we can and absolutely should measure if our message is being communicated properly, but more importantly we should measure if it is being understood.

Five Quick Steps to Make Sure Your Message is Being Understood

1. Analyze Current Data (Collected data about market segments, stakeholders, employees, etc.)
2. Benchmark Current Levels of Message Understanding
3. Develop a Plan that includes an Outtake Objective (For the message you’d like to be understood)
4. Implement the Plan (Be sure it includes measurement. Note: This slide deck is for social media measurement, but the principles can be used for traditional communications as well.)
5. Test to Make Sure The Outtake Objective Was Achieved (or Not)

If this seems too simple, then I’ve done my job here. The point is we tend to overly complicate what is a basic process that works. Where it does get complicated, of course, is when people come into the equation. Corporate politics always have a tricky way of rearing their ugly head, don’t they?

Some additional challenges include not understanding customers enough to know if they fall into the “I’ve tuned you out” category or the “I like what you have to say, it’s relevant to me” category. This is where step one is crucial.

There is also often a communication failure internally. Communicators and management fail to honestly try to understand how employees feel about their position within the organization. Sure, employees are given options to receive internal communications, but are you sure it’s what they need to hear? Are they comfortable and secure enough to tell you the truth?

Is there a communication gap between organizations and the stakeholders that can help spread our messages to others? Benchmarking can help you to understand if there is and what the plan needs to include to close the gap.

What would you offer when it comes to understanding if messaging is being understood? What has worked for your organization? What examples (successes and failures!) would you share?

[Image Source]

[Originally posted on Serengeti's Endless Plain blog on 9/16/10. I have edited some of the contents for this post.]

A post by Dawn Westerberg, “Social Media, Customer-Centric, and #IMCchat,” prompted a long response from me, so I thought I’d share my thoughts here too.

If you read THoM, you might already know that every Wednesday night I co-moderate a chat on Twitter called #IMCchat (that’s the Twitter hashtag, if you want to search Twitter), which stands for integrated marketing communications chat. If you are new to Twitter or if you haven’t been on a Twitter chat yet, I highly recommend checking them out (here’s a list of Twitter chats that Meryl Evans keeps up-to-date). Chats are a wonderful way to ask questions or engage in conversation around a topic that is of interest. It’s also great to learn, get advice and share information.

On the September 15th  #IMCchat we discussed customer-centric organizations, what defines an organization that is customer-centric and examples (Best Buy, FedEx, Fiskars).

Dawn asked two main questions in her post:

• Regarding the music industry… If the notion of customer-centric is that the customer drives the product or service delivered is that always a good thing?

• Regarding social media… Is there a danger of “listening” too closely to social media if those participating are only a tiny percentage of your total customer base?

Here’s my response:

Clarifying Customer-Focused vs. Customer-Centric

As Anna Barcelos (IMC chat co-moderator) mentioned, in a ‘customer-focused’ organization, they provide products and/or services that customers want but do not drive ALL operations around the customer. For example, Apple.  They build products that customers love, but the customers don’t get a say in the functionality of those products.

A customer-centric organization puts the customer at the center of the organization (think of a circle with the customer in the middle, then the next circle surrounding the customer circle is the company. It’s not the top-down management chart we are used to). From that perspective, all operations are focused on the customer. An example here would be Fiskars. Through their community, the Fisk-a-teers, Fiskars taps into the community for new product ideas (Engineers call themselves “Fiskaneers”) and allows key members of the community to test products before they are manufactured or even are considered for the market.

[NOTE: To read an in-depth case study on Fiskars, I highly suggest reading Brains on Fire’s new book, aptly titled, Brains on Fire.]

See the difference?

Being Customer-Centric in the Music Industry

Regarding the music industry, being customer-centric would revolve more around the music producers and less around the musicians. For example, if I were a customer-centric music producer I would make sure (based on data) that I was producing artists my customers wanted to buy (vs. pushing a product), but more importantly, making that music available the way customers want to buy it (convenience vs. distribution) and at a cost (versus price) they are willing to pay.

For example, I love Putumayo (a producer of world music) and I used to buy a ton of their CDs. But all of these years later they still only sell offline at shops and boutiques or via their site. Because neither are convenient for me these days (I buy via iTunes), I am no longer a customer.

Using Social Media to be Customer-Centric

As for listening via social media, it’s correct to assume it’s too limiting. Especially if an organization (B2B or B2C) isn’t engaged. However, we need to consider social media beyond Twitter and Facebook. We can’t forget about communities (private or public), like Fiskars’.

Also, it’s important to understand that social media allows for the collection of data organizations were never privy to in the past. And I don’t mean collecting Twitter handles and putting them into the CRM system. I mean analyzing the collected social data for trends, connections, preferences, etc. (i.e. Audience Research. Something the team at Serengeti specializes in from a social media perspective).

For example, when organizations use that “social” data (whether it’s on Twitter via a blog post or a conversation with customer service) to “hear” the same complaints over and over about how a product or service works, it’s an opportunity to tap into those customers, get their feedback and fix the problem. That’s being customer-centric.

Do you own or work for a customer-centric organization? Do you have any samples of organizations you think are customer-centric? Which type of organization would you rather do business with?

Feel free to join into #IMCchat. It’s every Wednesday night at 8pm ET.

[Image Source: respectalliance.com]