Marketing integration builds relationships for life

Relationships are at the core of everything that we do at Inspired Marketing. If you consider the opportunities that you have had in life, you will realise that they have typically come from relationships that you have formed. This means that we all prosper from fostering better relationships with each other.

You may be wondering what relationships have to do with marketing integration…. 

At their most basic level, relationships are about creating connections between people. Likewise, integration is about connecting one form of technology with another. People connect with other people and this is often enabled by different forms of technology connecting with each other.

As the number of people, connections and technology grows, things can become a bit chaotic. That is why marketing integration is key. An integrated marketing platform gives you a single source of truth for all your relationships. It is the place where everything comes together, incorporating accurate, reliable data and feedback. 

Here are 6 ways that marketing integration helps you to build lasting, solid relationships with your clients and colleagues:

• Stability

Integration ensures conformity and stability in your communication and messaging. It’s difficult for a customer to form a solid relationship with you if your brand sounds and looks vastly different on social media and e-mail, when compared to your website and blogs. Trust deepens when you are reassuringly similar on your various communication channels. This doesn’t mean you can’t change and innovate. A fresh approach can be very effective – it’s just important to implement this across all your channels simultaneously, which is why integration is a must-have.

• Accessibility

Accessibility is vastly improved when integration is applied effectively. Imagine you want to stay in touch with a friend, but you only have their e-mail address. Any contact you have with them would be contingent upon them engaging with you via e-mail. But if you also have their phone number and you’re connected on various social platforms, reaching them becomes far easier. When marketing integration is at play, the effort required to maintain this relationship is identical, as the same message is automatically relayed via all your channels. Integration also ensures that any changes to a client’s information are applied across all channels immediately. This means there is no chance of losing your connection with a contact on any of your communication mediums.

• Getting the details right

In any relationship, it’s the finer details that really make a difference. Consider this example: If you know that a friend has a dairy allergy, you wouldn’t bake them a cheesecake for their birthday. Similarly, if a customer has indicated that they don’t like to be contacted after hours, then it’s important that your messaging honours this request – across all channels. Integration can ensure that details like these are applied uniformly, so that they don’t fall through the cracks.

• Internal benefits

Integration also benefits the way you manage internal data. When a sound marketing integration platform is in use, the relationships within your organisation can operate optimally and the formation of ‘silos’ in different departments (such as marketing and sales) is eliminated. When your internal relationships are healthy and productive, everyone benefits as you are able to serve customers better.

• Time

We all know that good relationships can be time consuming – it takes time and effort to make relationships last. The good news is that integration across your marketing channels allows you to maintain excellent relationships, yet still save time, as reporting and monitoring functionalities are vastly streamlined. There will be a single, integrated report for each customer, reflecting their responses to all your communication initiatives. Manual, repetitive tasks are automated, which means your team members have time to reach out to valued customers in person.

• The personal touch

Personalised reporting on all your contacts allows you to analyse your relationship with them and consider what you can do better going forward. You will gain a solid understanding of their needs and purchasing habits and can respond in a manner that benefits both parties. These actions are what will set you apart from your competitors and give you the edge.

It’s evident that better relationships with clients and between colleagues can create many new opportunities for your business. Make sure you get the most out of them by integrating all your communication on one platform that provides accurate and real-time information. 

Find out more about how we can help you with this here: Third Party Integrations – Inspired Marketing – Marketing Automations