{"id":110022,"date":"2014-07-22T20:09:34","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T03:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.integrate.com\/2014\/07\/22\/integrated-marketing-needs-integrated-systems\/"},"modified":"2014-07-22T20:10:36","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T03:10:36","slug":"integrated-marketing-needs-integrated-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/integrated-marketing-needs-integrated-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"Integrated Marketing Needs Integrated Systems"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Marketing<\/a>If you\u2019re like most marketers, your marketing operation has an increasing number of marketing tools and systems, a plethora of processes and a boatload of data being generated. And, there seems to be a new piece of technology creating more data and requiring new processes every week. While marketing technology holds tremendous promise, it doesn\u2019t create nearly its potential value if it\u2019s NOT integrated.<\/p>\n

Why? Your prospects and customers are informed by multiple sources, channels and types of content, and they likely have very little interaction with you on your own turf. You\u2019re responding with marketing initiatives that utilize integrated channels, content and offers to engage and nurture your prospective customers. Yet, the systems and tools we\u2019re using to acquire the full picture are often siloed. Disconnected systems result in inactionable data that hamstrings our efforts to make meaningful connections with customers and drive business value.<\/p>\n

The natural response is to buy a system that does it all \u2013 it slices, it dices, it\u2026. But that\u2019s simply not reality for a large majority of marketing organizations due to both legacy systems and the pace of new technology<\/a>. The \u201cmagic bullet\u201d system does not exist (please share if you have info to the contrary). With investments in marketing tech expected to reach $20 billion by 2017, according to the Gartner Group, now is the perfect time to take a look at your need for integrated systems.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s dive in to learn from the past and map a plan to move forward in an integrated marketing world.<\/p>\n

We have seen this movie<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the past 20 years, I\u2019ve learned to strategically and tactically apply technology to deliver business value on escalating internal and external expectations. As publisher of InformationWeek, I watched the proliferation of software solutions play out in the IT industry as companies moved from simplistic, yet centralized computing to an era in which every department invested in its own specialized technology. The technology may have made the department productive, but it didn\u2019t unlock value across the business. All tools, systems and departments had to be reconnected, re-integrated. The cycle is inevitable, so why not integrate from the get-go?<\/p>\n

In my days as CMO of UBM, we worked hard to transform legacy systems (and processes) to modernize a media business, including consolidating 24 databases into one and connecting online, social, email and media processes and customer info. The true value was only realized when the systems (and thus the data) were connected to better understand the prospect\/customer and how best to discover, engage and nurture them (what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not!).<\/p>\n

Marketing systems integration takes center stage<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the new reality in marketing today. Marketing departments, under pressure to generate pipeline, personalize customer experiences and increase lifetime value, are implementing multiple systems, tools and technologies. Sometimes marketers are replacing legacy systems and sometimes new systems are simply added to the mix. At a roundtable I moderated earlier this year, the average mid- to large-size marketing department had more than 15 unique systems to operate marketing, including email, social, content, web, PR, data, etc. The largest had more than 50. The lesson here is to learn from our past, integrating both existing and new systems as you bring them online. The mantra should be: \u201cWe won\u2019t invest, unless we can connect.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Integrate, I experience this every day as we work with marketing teams to power integrated prospect acquisition programs<\/a> by automating and integrating systems and fragmented data sources. Based on our learnings, I\u2019ve crafted a set of steps to increase marketing performance and bottom line via integrated marketing and systems.<\/p>\n

A check list to integrate:<\/p>\n