Connected Marketing: What Sets It Apart and How To Implement It

Digital commerce has been a lifeline, a safety net, and even a source of entertainment for consumers since early 2020, but it has not always been a satisfying experience. Organizations have struggled with rising expectations in terms of customer experience, supply chain challenges, and a creeping sense of customer ennui caused by digital transformations that result in experiences highly similar to competitors.

Rather than piecemeal new strategies and solutions to overcome these hurdles, forward-looking companies are taking a new approach. Connected marketing allows CMOs to integrate data across their organization for better visibility into real-time, hyper-personalized customer journeys and continuous optimization. 

What Is Connected Marketing, and What Is Driving It?

Connected marketing, also sometimes referred to as holistic or interconnected marketing, is a relatively new term that reflects marketers’ efforts to keep up with a fast-changing technological and relational landscape. It is a framework designed to deliver omnichannel customer experiences. Omnichannel marketing integrates desktop, mobile, in-store, and other channels to deliver seamless customer experiences. On the other hand, connected marketing helps brands differentiate those experiences via hyper-personalization and more targeted content delivery in real-time across channels and throughout the customer journey at scale, no matter where the customer is in their journey. 

Connected marketing increases organizations’ marketing efficiency and effectiveness in an increasingly complex and competitive environment. We see four disruptive forces driving this complexity. 

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One, consumer behavior has changed in ways that appear to be permanent and widespread. According to a study by Pew ResearchOpens a new window in 2021, about 30% of U.S. adults are almost constantly online, a jump from 21% five years ago. The shift from in-store to digital shopping since March 2020 has driven growth in immersive experiences and raised customers’ expectations. Now, a majority of consumers will see the world as all-digitalOpens a new window , with no divide between virtual and physical experiences, according to Forrester.

Two, the market environment is volatile, which requires organizations to be agile and ready to pivot. That requires making supply chains more resilient without dulling their competitive edge. That also requires understanding exactly what customers want, where to find those items, and how to deliver them to meet buyers’ expectations. 

Three, CMOs increasingly need to ally with leaders in other departments, such as sales, product development, and IT, to access, analyze, and act on the data they need to make effective marketing decisions and keep up with changing customer behavior and market conditions. A centralized source for unified data that all departments can access helps marketing as well as sales and customer service. 

Four, budget pressures and ROI are factors for many organizations. In the B2B space, for example, Forrester predicts that although Martech’s portion of marketing budgets will rise from 19% in 2021 to 25% this year, 75% of automated personalization efforts will lack the customer insights to hit ROI targetsOpens a new window . 

Connectivity addresses all these challenges by fostering online-offline convergence, closer sales and marketing collaboration, and agency integration with in-house marketing teams. With fully connected data and processes across the organization, CMOs can streamline marketing management while accessing the data and cross-departmental insights needed for innovation and growth. 

Key Elements for Connected Marketing Implementation

Successful connected marketing starts with unified, comprehensive customer data. That data tells organizations how their customers want to interact with their brand. Data-driven brand management aligns meaning and appearance across customer interactions with the brand.

The next element is responsiveness. The marketing organization needs to support seamless, purpose-driven, cross-functional collaboration across the in-house marketing department, other departments, and agency partners to keep up with evolving customer experiences and customer interaction goals. 

With the right data and responsive teams in place, the next connected marketing element is Martech, which can integrate, unify, and distribute customer data to team members and employees across the organization in real-time. For example, the marketing department should collect data on engagement, conversions, and other relevant KPIs. On the other hand, the support department uses customer histories for personalized service and upsell opportunities or provides a personalized next best offer or next best action in real-time. The product team can help iterate and innovate with data it receives on usage and customer feedback.

Together, unified data, responsive teams, and marketing automation form the foundation of effective customer activation. This is the continuous distribution and optimization of brand-consistent content that’s tailored to the customer’s needs at each stage of their journey for maximum impact. 

A key element in connected marketing is emotional connections. It is a proven fact that a consumer’s emotional connection to an ad has a bigger impact on their purchase decisions than the actual content of the ad. Successful brands focus on creating an instant emotional connection with the consumer. The marketing team should create this emotional connection through storytelling across channels.

See More: The Benefits of Igniting Social Commerce With Omnichannel Customer Experiences

The final element in a well-designed connected marketing program is the ongoing production of relevant marketing content based on data analysis and feedback on customer engagement and impact. Depending upon the brand, their audience, and their voice and tone, that content might include educational content like webinars and downloadable buyers’ guides, whitepapers, entertaining social media videos, and engaging 3-D product experiences. It can also include other content tailored to meet the customer where they are and give them what they are looking for. Data on content performance should flow back into the unified data system so that there is continuous analysis and adjustment of the content program to serve customers better over time.

Connected marketing can be an ambitious program to plan and implement. However, the results are worth the effort and investment. For CMOs and organizations that want to differentiate their digital experiences, increase customer engagement and loyalty, and drive growth, connected marketing is a strategy worth considering now.

Have you used connected marketing to solve your digital commerce problems? What difference have you seen? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .

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