In the CMO.com article “The New Keys to B2B Marketing Success,” Glen Hartman, global managing director of digital transformation for Accenture Interactive, explains, “The marketing purview has expanded. The relationship with customers is defined by the experiences you deliver across marketing, sales, and service; online and offline; before, during, and after campaigns and transactions. Focus on experiences that tell a cohesive story, create brand engagement, and, ultimately drive both transactions and continuous dialogue. This leads to both short-term, incremental gains and sets the stage for the longer-term nurturing of customer relationship, loyalty, and optimal evangelism.” To tell a cohesive story, sales and marketing teams must be equipped with a clear, compelling and consistent corporate message that encompasses the spirit of the organization and the impact the organization and its products or services have on the customer’s experience.
Because customers are able to access information about a company through multiple channels on multiple devices at any time, there is now continuous and constant customer interaction. Companies that fail to deliver a cohesive story across all channels and throughout every area of their organization fail to create a compelling customer experience. So, the challenge, and the opportunity, is to maximize the return on continuous interaction by developing and infusing clear, consistent and compelling messaging across all customer touchpoints.
