Overcoming the Silo Effect in B2B Marketing.
Have you ever asked your team for some insight into say, your latest product nurture campaign, only to be met with a series of blank stares swiftly followed by blind panic and a response along the lines of: “erm, it’ll be ready in 3 days…”?
You’re not alone.
Why though? It’s not like you’re asking for the answer to “P versus NP” (Google it, unless you’re a math genius and already up to speed). You just need some information for that last-minute management meeting and a few facts to back it up. You’re sure the campaign in question was successful, even the sales team said so. And you know the data that will prove it is out there somewhere. It must be. It’s pretty much Marketing 101 in fact, so why that killer 3-day lag?
It’s all down to something we call “The Silo Effect”.
The information is there. You know it and your team knows it. The problem is that it’s spread across the 20-odd different platforms used in delivering the various elements of the campaign. Want to verify and then output it all in the credible, accurate, accessible format the management team need? It’s going to take time.
Unless…
Watching the recent update on Google Duplex, Google CEO, Sundar Pichai’s comments got me thinking.
“Done correctly”, he said, “(Duplex will) save time for people and generate a lot of value for business.” And he’s right of course. But with AI (Artificial Intelligence) suddenly everywhere in marketing (think about the ways in which it’s probably already impacting you and your organisation.) the key to making it save that time and generate that value– the real fundamental in avoiding The Silo Effect in fact – lies in ensuring it’s “done correctly”.
You need your marketing technologies to start talking to one another; to work together. To enable compelling, storytelling campaigns that align with your objectives in more natural, intuitive ways. To inform and drive your strategies via immediate insight, analysis and in-depth understanding. To start answering the commercial questions now being asked of us all, every day. To help you transform marketing from a perceived cost centre into a revenue engine respected throughout the business.
And the thing is, there’s no need to wait for AI to come of age to do all that.
The future may very well feature all manner of AI-based assistants (and assistance). Making our restaurant reservations. Booking our travel. Organising our lives. Perhaps even saving us the time and generating the genuine business value cited by Pichai.
But with #MarTech you don’t need to envisage this ideal, you can already leverage it. Doing so – getting the right information to drive the right results – is simply a matter of engaging the right team and the right #MarTech stack. And you can do that today.
Want to eradicate #TheSiloEffect? Try employing some Authentic Intelligence.
