The "Missing Piece" in Marketing Alignment
Posted by Carrie Baker on Tue, Jul 05, 2011
Reading to my children at bedtime has always been my favorite part of my day – especially after a long and grueling day at the office. But now, as my children evolve into tweens and teenagers, just a quick ‘good night, sleep tight’ is all that is shared as they turn in and read their own Twilight and Potter series.Just recently, as we began making room on their bookshelves for new books, we ran across two of our all-time favorites, The Missing Piece and The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, by Shel Silverstein. We immediately reread them, and as a marketing professional, I was struck by how the story was analogous to businesses trying to find the ‘missing piece’ when it comes to driving organizational alignment and synergy.
Although not bedtime reading, this reminded me of another favorite book of mine, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, by Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch, in which Brian builds a case for the alignment of sales and marketing in organizations in order to produce faster growth by converting highly qualified leads into successful sales.
But as many organizations can attest, this alignment is sometimes difficult to achieve because, as Mr. Carroll puts it, “marketing often sees itself as the strategic player and sales as the tactical delivery mechanism for the strategy; and in contrast, sales often sees itself as the primary driver for the business, with marketing relegated to a sales support role.” Even when this alignment is attained, it is not enough to create and sustain customer loyalty and retention in the long run. Sales and marketing are still missing an integral component to overall success and are left searching for this "missing piece".
In my time here at Vovici, I’ve discovered that the alignment of sales and marketing is just one piece of the puzzle critical to long term customer success. To create and sustain value, organizations must be aligned with the customer’s ENTIRE journey to ensure success EVERY step of the way.
I was fortunate enough to experience this firsthand when Nancy Porte, our VP of Customer Experience was implementing Vovici’s VOC program and creating our Customer Experience Wheel. As part of that process we segmented our customer groups and mapped out their interactions with us. We defined key moments that impacted Marketing beyond the initial marketing campaign and traditional lead generation activities. Whether it is during the onboarding process, training, or other customer support activities, marketing can provide communications that nurture, inform and educate customers. In our case, I was given the opportunity to experience personally how customer marketing is just as important to the overall mix as the traditional lead generation and sales support activities I do every day – which I plan on going into more detail next time.
So remember, in order to provide the best customer experience for your customers and the ultimate support for your organization, make sure marketing is not only aligned with sales but with customer support as well! Marketing is not just about creating new leads for sales and building brand awareness. With relevant nurturing campaigns and communications to customers, Marketing can play a pivotal role in building not just customer loyalty but something much more valuable – customer advocacy – the ‘missing piece’ to long term success.