“The King is dead. Long live the King.” is a traditional proclamation made following the accession of a new monarch. Translated from the French “Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi!” the phrase signifies a changing of the guard, a transfer of power from one generation to the next.
Borrowing from this tradition, it’s high time we declared, “Campaign management is dead. Long live campaign management.” In fact, in its strictest sense, campaign management died quite some time ago. This “old guard” of campaign management tools focused on segmentation and list selection for outbound campaigns, with an emphasis on offline channels.
However, new communication channels, changing market conditions, and rising customer expectations have rendered these tools obsolete. In response to this new world order, a new generation of campaign management tools has risen to power. Encompassing significantly more than their predecessors, these new campaign management “kings” successfully have successfully unified:
- Offline and Online – New campaign management tools are digital natives, meaning they were built from the ground up to support digital channels (email, mobile, etc.), in addition to traditional offline channels. Unlike the old guard, they offer native digital message execution.
- Outbound and Inbound – The new kings unlock the tremendous value of inbound, customer-initiated interactions—while ensuring absolute consistency with outbound communications. These platforms include a central offer catalog and real-time recommendation engine that’s shared across all channels, inbound and outbound.
- Planned and Triggered – Recognizing the importance—and benefits—of orchestrating messages and offers around customer behavior, new campaign management tools support event-triggered messaging in addition to planned campaigns, their traditional bread and butter.
- Promotional and Transactional – The new kings can seamlessly manage promotional and transactional (e.g. order confirmations, shipping notifications, etc.) messaging programs. Like inbound/outbound, the central recommendation engine ensures offer coordination. Moreover, contact strategies and fatigue can be managed at the relationship level.
- CRM and Loyalty – In addition to relationship marketing programs, new campaign management tools support customer loyalty programs—from the marketing communications to the actual program management (points engine, earn and burn, etc.).
- Channel and Device – While channels have been the traditional conduit between brands and consumers, the new kings recognize the increasingly important role of the device. Among other things, they allow brands to leverage geolocation data to drive highly targeted offers and mobile apps to deliver personalized push notifications and in-app content.
- Social and Everything – Old campaign management tools are severely lacking in social marketing capabilities. The new kings have brought social media seamlessly into the cross-channel fold, allowing marketers to acquire permission via social opt-in, collect and analyze social profile data, and deliver coordinated 1:1 messages across social media and other channels.
Of course, the result of bringing all of these things together is better customer experiences and, in turn, better business results. Coincidentally, while “roi” is French for king, it’s also the acronym for Return on Investment, which is king in the business world. Thus, when proclaiming the new kings of campaign management, the saying “vive le Roi” holds double meaning.
