3 Examples of Brands Doing Real Cross-Channel Marketing

Whether you call it cross-channel or omnichannel marketing, as a consumer, I love it. I love that I can connect with brands how and when I want. I love when my mobile search results show me nearby store inventory. I love opening an email with a discount code for the items I left in my online shopping cart. It makes my life easier, and I feel like a VIP who’s getting the red carpet treatment. 

As a marketer, I hate cross-channel marketing, or rather, I hate how hard it is. Using cross-channel marketing to delight customers and show your competition who’s boss is a thing of beauty, but it comes at a price. 

Cross-Channel Isn’t for the Faint of Heart

Every consumer has their own preferences and takes a unique path to purchase that involves a variety of devices and channels, both online and offline. In fact, Google reports that 90% of people switch between devices to complete a single task, using at least three devices per day. This behavior makes tracking and attribution incredibly complex, which makes creating cohesive and personalized journey for every prospect and customer a challenge.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Many leading brands are creating awesome cross-channel journeys that give customers the one-to-one experiences they’ve come to expect. So what are they doing right, and what can we apply to our own strategies?

Here are three cross-channel tactics from brands we can all learn from:

3 Cross-Channel Tactics from Real Brands

1. Factor Offline Engagement into Personalization

Marketers have to create a personal experience that reflects the consumer’s needs, preferences, and previous behavior. It’s all about creating consistency—something that tells the buyer that we know who they are.

Many brands are doing this though email, re-targeting ads, and web personalization. Leading brands, however, are taking it a step further and creating cohesion between online and offline channels. One of the easiest ways to do this is to customize the caller experience based on online activity. If a prospect has shown interest in a specific product, they shouldn’t have to repeat this information over the phone. Make sure your call center or sales agents have real-time access to the caller’s complete engagement history (what they clicked on and when, preferences indicated, items purchased, etc.) so they can pick up the conversation without missing a beat.

Cross-channel marketers aren’t only customizing the caller experience, they’re harnessing data from phone conversations to personalize the next step in the prospect’s journey. For example, Vivint, a home security and automation provider, re-targets callers who didn’t make a purchase with a targeted offer. They also send follow-up emails based on what happened and what was said during a phone conversation. This tactic can not only be used to capture unconverted callers, it can be used to cross-sell and upsell current customers.

2. Offer Easy Ways to Connect and Engage

Good marketers put their customers first, regardless of the challenges it may pose to their tracking and attribution efforts. Being cross-channel means being where your customers are and making it easy for them to take the next step, whether that’s finding inventory information, getting a personalized price quote, or reading customer reviews.

Tuft and Needle, a direct to consumer mattress company, does this really well. They do social advertising, and re-targeting, and their website offers a variety of ways to connect: you can visit a store location, call them, chat with a live representative, sign up for email, and they even encourage you to leave their site to read real, unsolicited customer reviews. There are no single, generic paths to purchase here.

3. Blend the Online and Offline Experience

Brands that nail this will have an enormous competitive advantage, especially retailers. Today’s mobile consumers are shopping on mobile and in store, even frequently doing both at once. Use mobile to enhance the in-store experience and don’t be afraid to encourage mobile users to visit your location or in-store visitors to shop on your mobile app—it shouldn’t be a competition between your store and website or app.

Nordstrom does a great job of blending mobile and offline experiences. When shoppers search for a product, Nordstrom will display search results with the closest store location and inventory information. Shoppers can buy online or simply go to the nearest store.

Not only is Nordstrom a great example of an online-offline experience, but it’s also an example of a brand giving their consumers options to connect in a way that is most convenient.

I know cross-channel marketing sounds like an obnoxious buzzword, but in truth, it’s the reality of today’s customer journey. If we want to win the hearts of our customers, marketing has to be just as cross-channel as they are. I know it’s hard, but it’s also pretty exciting and the Modern Marketing Essentials Guide to Cross-Channel Marketing is here to help!

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Learn How to Take Your Digital Advertising Strategy Mobile

How many times a day do you pick up your smartphone? If you’re the average iPhone user, Apple says you slide to unlock around 80 times in a 24-hour period. Android users unlock their phones around 85 times a day—no word on what those extra five unlocks are.

80 times a day. If the average person sleeps around 7 hours a night, they get 17 hours of waking time per day. That means we’re picking up our phones over 4 times an hour. That’s more than every fifteen minutes. Should I even bother putting it back in my pocket? Or just graft it onto my hand?

So marketers, riddle me this: Odds are the people you want to reach have a screen on their person that they look at 80 times a day. They fill every idle moment of their day consuming content on that screen.

Why are we still calling it the “second screen?”

Why are we still thinking of mobile as a nice-to-have add-on for our digital advertising strategy?

As Brian Solis (Principal at Altimeter Group, Can Probably Literally See into the Future) said in a recent AdAge article: “Someone has to take the lead in bringing mobile to the forefront of digital design. Investing in a mobile program just to check the box is no longer good enough. The reality is that mobile is now the first screen.”(Emphasis mine)

So what does a first-screen mobile advertising strategy look like? Read on to learn the minimum requirements for mobile, and the specific attributes your strategy should have to succeed.

The Minimum Requirement: A Seamless Mobile Experience

The end goal of your mobile advertising strategy is to pull people to your assets: a piece of content, a landing page, a shopping page. So before you start advertising on mobile, your site has to be mobile-friendly.

But that doesn’t mean doing just enough responsive design to have Google bless your site as mobile-friendly. What I mean is that it’s possible for your customer to do everything you want them to do, take every step of their journey with your brand, on a mobile device. As our Account Manager and PPC Lead Michael Bak puts it:

“We all know that we need to be mobile friendly. But many times I’ve seen advertisers forget that the customer’s journey doesn’t simply end at the landing page. You need to make sure every aspect of the customer journey is mobile friendly: the shopping cart experience, the asset, the area of the site you’re funneling that consumer to. Make sure you’re asking your customers to take the next step. And make sure that next step is part of a seamless mobile experience.”

So before you start implementing a mobile advertising strategy, make sure those who demonstrate their trust by clicking on your ad are rewarded with a positive experience.

What Does a Mobile Advertising Strategy Look Like?

Mobile screens are unique in that they’re more personal, more intimate, and more user-customizable than marketers are used to (or comfortable with). You know what I’m talking about; you’re a consumer as well as a marketer. We’re used to ignoring advertising on mobile. We’re good at mentally erasing the banner ads at the top of apps. We click X on interstitials before they even load. And the ads we can’t mentally block, we can now use software to actually scrub away.

That’s the downside of mobile. It’s a screen people spend a whole lot of their lives looking at—but they’re emphatically not looking at what you want to show them. That truth informs all the following aspects of a successful mobile digital advertising strategy:

It’s Social. What are people doing most of the 80-85 times they unlock their phones? Why, checking their social media for updates, of course. That’s where they want to be—so that’s where you should be, too. Promoted, targeted posts on your audience’s preferred social media channels are an easy way to get guaranteed mobile-friendly, less-likely-to-be-ignored advertising.

It’s Visual. With their big screens and powerful processors, modern mobile devices are made for visual content. You don’t have to set up your own VR studio just yet, but images and at least some video are a must. Facebook and YouTube are both developing tools to make video creation easier; you can bet the output from those tools will be optimized for mobile. Take it from Lowe’s’ millions of plays on Vine, or FedEx’s 46,000 followers on Instagram: mobile platforms + social + visual content = awesome.

It’s Native. Like I said earlier, we’re getting very good at unseeing the kind of banner ads and interstitials that might have attracted eyeballs a few years ago. These days, native ads have a much better shot at being seen. Mobile native content (on apps like Facebook, Buzzfeed, and Reddit) has multiple advantages: It’s immune to ad blockers, it’s already optimized for mobile, and it finds your audience on the apps they already use (more on that later). 

It’s Useful. Remember when all an advertiser had to do to rake in the dollars was put a mini-game in their banner ad? You know—help the monkey collect bananas, punch the boxer, shoot the baskets? Yeah, that’s done with. Now there’s plenty of opportunities for people to mindlessly tap and swipe. To get their attention, you actually have to offer something of value. Make it entertaining, make it emotional, make it hilarious—make it worth their while.

It Not All on Your Site (And Especially Not Your App). We’ve talked about having a solid mobile-friendly site. The logical next step seems like developing your own app, to really provide the best user experience. But the average smartphone user spends most of their time in just three apps. Do you really want to gamble on your app breaking the top three? It makes more sense to find which three they use, and publish there.

It’s…email? You heard it here first (unless you heard it first somewhere else): Email is a mobile advertising strategy. Way back in 2014, 65% of email was opened first on mobile, and you can bet that number has gone up. Email is the perfect diversionary activity after all the Faces have been Booked, the Tweets have been Twitted, and the Snaps have been Chatted. If you can consistently deliver valuable content via email, you can grow your audience regardless of their demographic. From Millennials to Baby Boomers, mobile has breathed new life into email as a marketing tactic.

Quick, to the Mobile-mobile!

Last year, Google announced that more searches are now being made on mobile than on desktop. Internet traffic from smartphones and tablets is slowly eclipsing all other forms of traffic. That’s not to say we should cut non-mobile users loose and leave their money on the table, of course. But it does indicate that mobile is far more than the secondary consideration many marketers have made it.

How is your organization developing a mobile advertising strategy? Let me know in the comments.

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Which Channels Do Customers Trust for Branded Content?

You know that when it comes to getting an unbiased, credible, and trustworthy review of a product or service, you’re most likely to turn to family and friends.  But what about branded content? Are blogs a reliable source of information? Can social media be trusted? Where are people getting their brand information and how much of an influence do different media channels have?  Let’s take a closer look.

What Is Branded Content?

Previously, the idea of “branded content” was so new and innovative that it didn’t really fit into any single category. It’s not the same thing as advertising, but it is anything that makes people think about or associate with a brand. Confused yet?  Here’s a better way to simplify it.

Avi Savar, creative head and founder of Big Fuel, a social media and brand growth firm defines branded content as the difference between “people stories” and “product stories”.  He explains, “Traditional advertising is about delivering features, benefits, and a USP through a product story, and then finding creative ways to connect that to people.”

He continues by saying that, “Branded Content is sort of the reverse of this. It’s about starting with people stories first, so what are the things that can help brands connect with the hearts and minds of their audience, and then thinking about how you can creatively link that to your product.”

One example of branded content in action is the following video ad from Chipotle. This ad actually won an award for its creativity and was designed to align Chipotle with responsible agricultural practices in the consumer’s mind, rather than cheap burritos.

Chipotle wants people to envision them as more than just “cheap burritos”

Other well-known examples of branded content include the famous Volvo epic split campaign, which in addition to getting the “Wow!” factor from a wide audience, gets its core audience (truckers) to ask “How can those trucks go in reverse so smoothly like that?” Another is the Dove Real Beauty campaign, where a sketch artist drew images of women based on how they described themselves versus how others saw them.

Although, in the example of Dove, the campaign originally aired in 2013, it’s still being viewed today and with nearly 67 million views and over 75,000 users subscribed to Dove’s YouTube channel, anyone can easily look at this branded campaign and see how it touched people’s emotions.

Branded Content and Media Outlets

Acquity Group looked at which media outlets customers were more inclined to trust when it comes to branded content. As it turns out, some sources have a surprising amount of credibility:

Facebook comes out on top, followed by print newspapers, email and television. Rounding out the bottom are Snapchat and blogs.  It’s worth noting that according to the study, younger respondents aged from 18-30 were more than twice as likely as baby boomers (aged 52-68) to give Facebook the top rank among branded content.

In case you were wondering, older consumers gave the newspaper their most trusted vote. As for advertising influence, TV and social media alike were near the top, while older Americans found print and direct mail of greater influence.

Who’s Doing the Sharing?

Now, before you rush off to create a cavalcade of Facebook ads featuring your company’s branded content, you should know that people are far less likely to share a post directly from the company itself. Instead, they’re most likely to share a product link when it’s recommended by family or friends:

Family, friends and acquaintances hold high sway over consumers’ purchasing decisions

What kind of “brand content” Facebook posts are we most willing to share. The all-encompassing “funny video” still gets the most shares, but it’s closely followed these days by content that is designed to support a cause or organization.

With branded content, you’re essentially borrowing the customer’s time and thanking them by making them feel something – laughter, insight, amazement.  Although the ads referenced above are designed to make you think, the company behind them is secondary to the story they’re sharing.

And if more people become invested in that story, they’ll want to tell others, and the cycle continues.

Now you’re probably wondering, “branded content sounds great – but how do I make the most of it?”

Content marketers are already struggling to squeeze ROI out of their campaigns in a way that’s meaningful to managers and executives alike, so here’s how to start making branded content work for you:

Getting Started with Branded Content

First off, Facebook only allows branded content from verified pages – meaning you’ll need to have that coveted “blue checkmark” next to your name (or a grey checkmark if you’re a business) in order to take advantage of this type of promotion.

The link above describes how to go about verifying your business account on Facebook, or if you’re an individual, how to see if you’re eligible to be verified.

Once you’re verified, you can get started with branded content by going here.  Nearly any type of content can be tagged as branded content, including photos, videos, text (with and without links), live videos and more.

How do you know it works? Because you’ll see not only the company name being mentioned, but also the key “with” – and then those tagged in the post:

Now, any time the post is shared, those tagged in it will also benefit from the exposure. It’s a win-win.

What’s The Difference Between Branded Content and @Mentions?

Excellent question! The difference between branded content and your typical @Mention is that the brand which posted the page gets analytical insights that wouldn’t ordinarily be available in an @Mention.

It’s important to mention here that if you’re tagged, you’ll still get to see the post’s organic and paid engagement, sort by organic versus paid or fans versus non-fans – and otherwise see much of the same data as the owners of the branded content themselves. So although it’s not specifically coming from your page, you’ll still get to see a lot of the details that a simple mention wouldn’t have.

Now, tie this kind of content leverage in with your own UTM parameters and conversion goals and you’ll be able to see precisely how well your branded content is performing and converting.

Squeezing Every Drop of Trust and Credibility Out of Branded Content

Let’s face it, you’re already creating content. Why not take to the channel consumers trust the most and make your content work even harder for you?  You’ll be getting vastly more exposure when coupled with influencers in your industry and getting people to take action on your content in ways that a typical ad just can’t match.

What are your thoughts on using branded content? Has your company used this method effectively to increase trust, brand recognition and awareness among your target audience? Share your thoughts and impressions in the comments below

About the Author: Sherice Jacob helps business owners improve website design and increase conversion rates through compelling copywriting, user-friendly design and smart analytics analysis. Learn more at iElectrify.com and download your free web copy tune-up and conversion checklist today! Follow @sherice on Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+ for more articles like this!

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6 Social Media Publishing Best Practices

It is a challenge to define the audience for a guide to social media marketing today. Some of us have been using social media personally and professionally for more than 10 years. Or as my colleague Jeff Cohen put it a few months ago. 

"It is 2016 and we are still talking about social media marketing. Believe it or not, there are still companies that have not embraced social media as a means to improve marketing, customer service, lead generation and product development. They may come around in time."

Regardless of where you fall in the social media marketing chain, there are best practices and things to remember when it comes to social media publishing.

1. One Size Does Not Fit All

You know those studies out there that proclaim to tell you what is the best day and time to post to Facebook or Twitter to achieve maximum engagement? Forget them. You and you alone will know what works best for your audience, especially if you are properly reviewing your social listening data. Your audience may engage the most on weekends. And global companies need to take multiple time zones into account.

2. Cadence Consistency

One of the biggest mistakes brands make is not establishing a consistent cadence of publishing. It is vitally important to have a consistent message going out via
the social media platforms that work best for you and your brand. See the next section.

3. Platforms Aplenty

There is a veritable plethora of social media platforms to use, including the big boys: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The key is to know what platforms work best for your audience—what platforms help you achieve your goals. Don’t dive right into Snapchat for example. Test it out. But if it’s not the right fit, it’s not the right fit. Period.

4. Be In Sync With Marketing

A huge part of social media publishing is to share content that your company created. And the best way to do that is ensure your social media publishing calendar is aligned with all content and demand generation marketing objectives.

5. Data

Metrics and social media can be complicated. But they don’t need to be. Just determine what key performance indicators (KPIs) matter to you most in terms of aligning with your overall goals and go from there. If over time, your KPIs change, fine. Then change them and measure and track accordingly.

6. Mobile, Mobile, and More Mobile

According to comScore, 76% of all time spent on social media channels in the US is logged with a mobile device. Canada and the UK are close behind with 70%. This should come as no surprise. Your website and blog should be optimized for mobile, but make sure your share buttons are too.

Social Drives the Relationship

Modern social media marketing is still marketing. So if you understand your audience by listening, publish content that resonates, engage them, and measure your success, you will make great social strides in this digital world.

Download The Guide to Social Media Marketing and learn how to raise your game on social media.

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The Invisible Influences that Surround Us

The Invisible Influences that Surround Us written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Jonah Berger

Most of us believe we are in charge of the decisions we make throughout each day. To some extent we certainly are, but many of the decisions we make – what to wear, what to eat, what to buy, what to say – are driven by forces at the subconscious level.

It can be useful to understand this behavior from a consumer point of view to better understand how and why people decide to buy one product or service over another.

My guest for this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and bestselling author. His newest book, Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior explores the subtle, secret influences that affect the decisions we make—from what we buy, to the careers we choose, to what we eat.

Having been published in top-tier academic journals and recognized with a number of awards for both scholarship and teaching, Jonah is an expert on word of mouth, viral marketing, social influence, and trends.

Questions I ask Jonah Berger:

• During your research, did you discover some ways that you personally may have been influenced – with or without your knowledge?
• With respect to invisible influence, what role does storytelling play to create influence?
• You dedicated a chapter in your book to “Why favorites are more likely to quit” – can you elaborate on this?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

• How to understand the science of influences and ways to use it to your advantage 
• How mimicking others can make you more persuasive
• How imitation isn’t always what results from social influence – sometimes there can be reverse effect causing people to avoid your product

Learn more about Jonah Berger and the helpful resources he offers. Click here to find out more about his book Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior.

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What Marketers Can Learn from Fortune 500 Companies Mastering Instagram

With more than 500 million monthly active users and counting, Instagram is growing fast and showing no signs of slowing down. According to eMarketer, Instagram usage is expected to grow 15.1% this year, compared to the 3.1% growth expected for the social network sector as a whole. In addition, eMarketer said the platform will add 26.9 million new users over the next four years.

What does this mean for marketers? It means that now is the time to explore the platform’s potential for your brand. And looking to some of America’s biggest brands—the Fortune 500—can give you some great insights and inspiration for building your own Instagram strategy.

Fortune Magazine’s annual Fortune 500 list ranks American companies by revenue. In its 2016 The Fortune 500 Instagram Report, TrackMaven analyzed how these top American brands are using Instagram to uncover the components of top performing posts, the most competitive and effective posting times, and offered up specific examples of brands doing it right. They looked at a year of posting data to compile the report.

While this report dives into how the big dogs are using Instagram, the beauty of social media is that it’s accessible and effective for even the smallest businesses. Below are some key findings from the report and some tips that can help guide your big or small brand’s Instagram efforts.

#1 – Instagam adoption among Fortune 500 brands has doubled.

According to the report, TrackMaven found that 50% of Fortune 500 companies are using Instagram, which is up from 24.6% in 2013. In addition, a 2015 study conducted by the University of Dartmouth found that Instagram usage by Fortune 500 companies now surpasses Google+ and Pinterest.

With teenagers and millennials being the most active on Instagram, coupled with the huge growth of the platform in general, I think it’s safe to say that Fortune 500 companies are pivoting their strategies to focus on the next generation of consumers—meeting them on their turf.

Instagram may not be a viable social media platform for every brand, but it should certainly be considered. Determining whether its a good fit will ultimately depend on who your ideal customer and audience is, as well as your business objectives.

#2 – It’s all about engagement.

In the report, TrackMaven wrote: “For America’s biggest brands, Instagram is a sheer engagement game, not a reactive, community platform.”

What exactly does this mean? I believe TrackMaven is suggesting that in order to find success on Instagram you must be present and actively work to draw your audience in. Throwing up any old photo and expecting people to show their enthusiasm with a like or comment isn’t part of a good strategy.

Be authentic and provide your audience with quality photos and videos that will jump out at them as they scroll through their feed. As for measuring engagement, start with looking at the likes and comments your posts receive, and compile a list of characteristics that your top performing posts have in common. There are a number of free (and paid) tools such as Hootsuite, Simply Measured and Locowise that can help you gain some great insights.

Also, if you notice that comments are tough to come by, but you’re getting good engagement through likes. Don’t worry. The big brands are seeing that, too. During its research TrackMaven found that 98.9% of Instagram interactions came in the form of likes or “double taps,” with the remaining 1.1% representing comments.

#3 – Ask questions and use hashtags.

According to the report, Instagram posts that included hashtags or question marks saw a marginal boost in engagement over those that didn’t have either. In addition, posts that had exclamation marks actually detracted from engagement.

Asking your audience questions is a great way to encourage engagement and hashtags provide a way for people to find your content, so including them is a must. To find relevant hashtags, search Instagram natively or take advantage of a database such as Hashatit or Hashtagify.me.

#4 – The best dates and times to post.

TrackMaven’s research found that Tuesday through Friday were the most common posting times for Fortune 500 brands, with Thursday being the most competitive and accounting for 17.11% of all posts. In addition, 88% of posts were published between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.

The bottom line? There’s a lot of competition during business hours on weekdays. Consider taking advantage of less competitive times, like weekend days. While you’ll probably have less eyeballs on the weekend, you may get better engagement. According to the report, Fortune 500 brands saw the most engagement on their posts on Sundays.

Examples of Fortune 500 Brands in Action

Nike

TrackMaven ranked Nike as the “Most Popular Brand” on Instagram, boasting 50 million followers and counting.

“Nike’s Instagram popularity is fueled by brand recognition and stellar Instagram content; the brand averages 469,842 interactions per Instagram photo, twice the average engagement seen by the Starbucks in second place with 212,140 average interactions per post,” the report said.

Nike uses both colorful images and videos to get the attention of their followers—as well as the athletes they work with and everyday people to inspire fitness. Below is a great example of using a regular person to relate to their audience and inspire engagement.

Follow Nike on Instagram.

Publix

Publix was given the title of “Most Impressive Instagram Growth,” after launching its account in late 2015 and growing their following to over 30,000 by May 2016. From snack ideas to shoutouts to dads on Father’s Day, Publix connects its posts and products to the regular things that are happening in people’s lives.

Here’s an example of offering up the idea of an impromptu picnic on International Picnic Day, that garnered more than 500 likes and a couple dozen comments.

Follow Publix on Instagram.

 

Foot Locker

Foot Locker tied with Live Nation for the honor of “Most Avid Instagrammers.” According to TrackMaven, Foot Locker averaged nearly 3.5 photos a day during the year of study. Many of the posts are product driven, but they also highlight current events in the sports world or pop culture. The example below combines new products with current events, announcing the launch of “Ghostbusters” gear before the reboot of the classic 80s movie hits theaters.

Follow Foot Locker on Instagram.

 

Live Nation

As the winner of “Most Avid Instagrammer,” Live Nation led Fortune 500 brands with the most video posts across the year of study. As a company that puts on music and entertainment events, they bring their audience a sneak peek of what they’ll experience at an event, along with intimate artist interviews.

Follow Live Nation on Instagram.

 

Disney

While Live Nation produces the most Instagram videos, Disney gets the most engagement on their videos–with more than 7 million video interactions on their video content during the year of study. This video plugging Disney’s latest release “The BFG” posted just two days ago and has already earned more than 224,000 views and more than 660 comments. Their videos can be cute, sweet, funny and most of all, reflect the magic that happens at Disney.

Follow Disney on Instagram.

 

Starbucks

Starbucks took TrackMaven’s “Best All-Around Instagram Account” honor for its large audience, awesome engagement and posting frequency. For me, I think what is so brilliant about their strategy is that it can put a delicious drink in your hand during any activity, holiday or state-of-mind. Take for example this recent post on Independence Day. Not only is the image beautiful and patriotic, but even the drink flavor matches the season and the sentiment.

Follow Starbucks on Instagram.

Download the full 2016 The Fortune 500 Instagram Report.
Are you currently using Instagram as part of your social media marketing mix? What tips would you share with other marketers? Tell us in the comments section below.

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Are Three Quarters of CMOs Wrong About Customer Experience?

Customer experience (CX), to absolutely no one's surprise, is at or near the top of the list of priorities among CMOs across the globe. There is no denying the importance of delivering the optimal CX to every customer, every time. 

However, inherent in CX itself is a list of priorities as to what makes for a great CX; what qualities if you will, compromise the best CX. Well, according to a recent article on Marketing Charts, when asked to name their top 5 attributes and elements of the customer experience over 170 senior marketing leaders chose these: 

The top five identified in order were: (in descending order)

5. A person to speak with regardless of time or location.

4. Clear, consistent messaging and information across channels. 

3. Knowledgeable staff ready to assist whenever and wherever the customer needs.

2. Consistency of experience across channel.

1. Fast response time to issues, needs or complaints. 

So Why Is This Wrong?

Before I get to that, it's important to put the word "wrong" in the right context, as it were. 

The word has many meanings, many of which such as "not in accordance with what is morally right or good" have nothing to do with the context here. However, one of the meanings of the word does: "not correct in action, judgment, opinion."

The reason I say this is not because I think providing fast response times is not important. Far from it. It is incredibly important. The reason I use the word "wrong" is these surveyed leaders are not placing enough importance on cross-channel and the need - the vital need to provide a seamless, cross-channel customer experience. 

It’s no secret that the best customers are the ones who engage with brands across multiple channels. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the brands who deliver value to customers across channels see strong growth.

How much growth?

• Companies with strong cross channel customer engagement see a http://ift.tt/1RMLdk8http://ift.tt/1RMLdk8 in annual revenue.
• Cross channel customers who shop on more than one channel have a 30% higher lifetime value score than those who shop on only one.
• Then add in the fact that, according to Forrester, cross channel retail sales in the US alone will be nearly $2 trillion by 2018—and you can see why delivering a strong cross channel experience is paramount for success.

Today’s consumers are demanding: they have become more unforgiving of a poor customer experience and expect interactions on their desktop and mobile devices to be responsive, intuitive, and easy to use. Marketers understand that delivering the most relevant experience is the key to gaining continued satisfaction and loyalty from their digital consumers.

Oftentimes, however, when it comes to marketing to consumers there are two dynamics. On one hand you have what consumers say they want out of a customer experience. On the other hand, there is what they actually receive.

What they want are experiences that are personalized, contextually relevant, and consistent—regardless of online or offline channel or lifecycle stage. What they too often get, however, are experiences that are disconnected, not contextually relevant, and inconsistent across channels and lifecycle stages.

So by all means continue to place a high value on the need to provide fast response times and human interaction as a whole.

But there is no denying the fact that ours is a cross-channel world and to deliver the maximum customer experience across all these channels you need the right technology. 

Download The CMO Solution Guide to Leveraging New Technology and Marketing Platforms and hear directly from your fellow CMOs as to what they look for in a martech solution. 

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