The Future of Marketing Integration in South Africa

As modern consumers form part of the always on, always connected world, marketing efforts need to continually shift in order to accommodate them. The buyer journey throughout the years has evolved from fact to face interactions with sales clerks, to simply researching and purchasing something online.

There’s been a surprise trend during 2018 that’s taken this evolution by surprise. Consumers are returning to the one-on-one conversations with sales clerks in brick and mortar stores. Whereas purchasing moved from offline to online, it’s now making the move back again from online to offline.

What does this mean for businesses attempting to market themselves successfully in 2018? It means quite a lot. Let’s take a look at how this impacts your business’s marketing efforts:

• Organisational shifts are unavoidable
• Consumer journeys have to span across silos
• Multi-platform buyer journeys are important
• There needs to be cross-departmental collaboration
• Business needs to engage its consumers in an always on, always connected world

What Does the Modern Consumer Journey Look Like?

Up until now, the marketing department has always been in charge of consumer collection and retention. However, going forward, this won’t be the case. Most lessons in brand have taught us that every aspect of business has to represent the company in a single light to consumers.

While we’ve all heard this, we now have to start implementing it. We’ll need to make sure #SilosMustFall if we want our marketing efforts to be successful. Each silo and business department in companies have to provide customers with the same:

• Quality
• Message
• Look and feel
• Brand promise
• Customer service

Stay Front of Mind in Your Consumer’s Mind

To put it into context, this needs to span across sales, marketing as well as ExCo level and internal engagements. This ensures that the customer experiences the same service and message throughout each point of their buyer journey. The reason for this is because customers have the ability to start their journey at any point today, and not necessarily at the start that was set out for them in your marketing strategy.

As today’s consumer is always online, and always connected, they’re always on the hunt for instant gratification. This means you need to engage with them every step of their buyer journey, or run the risk of losing them to a competitor. Ensure you capture those consumers that might not have started at the correct starting point of the buyer journey, as set out by your marketing department. This also ensures your company stays top of the buyer’s mind throughout their journey