Forrester: Marketers must adopt an orchestrated approach

Despite growing demand for personalisation from consumers, most marketers are still operating in silos and using mass marketing techniques to engage customers. 

That’s according to a new report into marketing communication, commissioned by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Responsys, which surveyed hundreds of marketers in the US and UK.

The study predicted that 50% of customers will be ‘ultra-connected’ by 2014 as a result of the rapid increase of tablets, smartphones and social networks, and consequently demand superior customer experience that is both consistent and timely.

Additionally, the survey found that 82% of customers research a product before purchasing whilst 54% of customers hope to be sent deals online and desire long-term relationships with brands through various marketing channels.

Therefore, marketers must engage with customers using a customer-centric methodology, rather than a campaign-centric approach, said the report. Forrester advised that businesses must adopt an orchestrated approach to deliver customer experiences through various channels, and defined marketing orchestration as “marketing transformation.”

“It flips the traditional marketing model on its head by first starting with what is the right journey for each customer versus what is the product I want to sell to people through a discrete campaign.

“Marketers who implement this strategy not only gain the benefits of greater profitability, marketing efficiency, and higher customer satisfaction, they also deliver sustainable competitive advantages to product development, merchandising, sales, and even customer support through insights derived from orchestration,” said the report.

As well as engage customers via a customer-centric methodology with a consistent response across all channels rather than batch-based and calendar-based marketing campaigns, the analyst firm also advised brands that they must use marketing orchestration to build long-term relationships.

Scott Olrich from Responsys said: “One of the biggest challenges cited by today’s marketer is how to coordinate and integrate their marketing across touch points and time. Marketing orchestration is a strategy that we’ve seen deliver tremendous results for some of the most successful brands out there.

“As marketers champion these post-campaign era transformations in their own departments, they’ll have the chance to not only break down silos within their marketing organisations but also their companies at large.”