{"id":4210,"date":"2016-04-15T16:52:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T16:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=4210"},"modified":"2023-10-18T17:35:57","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T17:35:57","slug":"real-time-channel-orchestration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/ca\/blog\/real-time-channel-orchestration\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fastest Way To Achieve Real-Time Channel Orchestration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It doesn\u2019t take long to hear the difference between an orchestra that\u2019s well-rehearsed and one that isn\u2019t. When every musician is playing well with the rest, the most complex symphony will sound easy \u2014 and enjoyable. If the horn section is out of sync with the percussion, the wind instruments or other sections, however, the audience may feel like scrambling for the exit.<\/p>\n

Something similar can happen in marketing, when small and medium-sized businesses hit their customers with the same message over email, on their web site, via social media or through a call campaign. Even worse, a customer may turn down a sales pitch or an offer through one channel and continue to be marketed through others. If customers sense the left hand of a business doesn\u2019t know what the right hand is doing, they lose trust, and may even consider working with an alternative supplier instead.<\/p>\n

This is why marketing experts tout the merits of \u201cchannel orchestration.\u201d Forrester Research<\/a> defines it as follows: “an approach to marketing that focuses not on delivering standalone campaigns but instead on optimizing a set of related cross-channel interactions, that when added together make up an individualized customer experience.”<\/p>\n

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A more simple way of thinking about, as Marketing Profs has pointed out<\/a>, is when companies move towards an ongoing conversation with customers that\u2019s more fluid and helpful than a one-off email blast or call centre script. It\u2019s not always easy to pull off channel orchestration, even for the largest organizations, but firms of any size have better odds if they walk through the following steps.<\/p>\n

Spot (And Stamp Out) The Silos<\/b><\/p>\n

Think of this step as the moment the orchestra starts assembling for a concert rehearsal. Marketing is often seen from an external vantage point \u2014 what an organization is publicly telling its customers through ads, white papers and other content. However before settling on the best way to orchestrate the various channels to reach customers, SMBs should conduct an internal audit of sorts to ensure the various team players have insight into how one other work. Even if you\u2019re not a large enterprise, start with the following examples and make sure you over-communicate:<\/p>\n

Email: <\/i><\/b>If marketing messages are created to promote specific products, services or offers, do other parts of the marketing department receive it and know the calendar before they\u2019re sent? How can they build on these messages?<\/p>\n

Social media: <\/i><\/b>Smart companies ensure they are not only actively talking across services like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook but doing a lot of listening. Depending on how this data is captured, however, to what extent does it reflect the kind of questions that are being directed to the call centre or to the product marketing team that might be speaking at an event?<\/p>\n

Advertising:<\/i><\/b> If you have a team booking ads, what does the team developing web site landing pages know about the kind of sites they\u2019re running on? In most cases online ads should be offering analytics about who\u2019s seeing what, and this should permeate the plans being developed by everyone else on the team.<\/p>\n

Assess And Optimize Your Channels<\/b><\/p>\n

When musicians start warming up, it can sound somewhat chaotic but if you listen carefully it\u2019s a moment when each member of the orchestra shows off how well they can play a scale. Marketing departments may have multiple channels in place, but channel orchestration won\u2019t achieve much if the channels are individually weak. Do an honest review of how you work across email, social, call centres and other customer touch points and determine:<\/p>\n