* This article is sponsored by and produced in association with Oracle to promote the Oracle Marketing Cloud white paper ‘Modern Marketing Essentials Guide: Cross-Channel Marketing’, which can be downloaded free.

There are more than three parts in a car, of course, but here’s a simple way of thinking about cross-channel marketing in a world where cross-channel marketing capabilities vary wildly. 

Organisations vary greatly in where they fall on the great cross-channel continuum. From a state of total chaos where efforts are duplicated, triplicated and your content and social teams don’t recognise each other in the hallway, to a fully co-ordinated state of cross-channel bliss. To everything in between.

Regardless of where your cross-channel marketing stands, this practice requires an evolving strategy. A white paper released by Oracle Marketing Cloud suggests there are three core points to remember in order to be able to improve your cross-channel marketing activities.

1. Data is in the driver’s seat

Research by Forrester asked marketers about their biggest challenge with cross-channel marketing programs. The top answer: understanding customer interactions across channels.

A single customer or prospect of yours could have 10 or more IDs that can stem from emails, social handles, or device IDs? Think about that for a second. It’s no wonder marketers have trouble understanding customer interactions across channels and having access to a unified customer view based on in-house data.

The Oracle Marketing Cloud white paper recommends that the key will be for marketers to work either with their in-house teams or external vendors who can offer a solution that enables marketers to accurately connect their audiences across channels, devices, browsers, and environments to form a single view of a customer and deliver the most relevant experience when they engage with your brand.

2. Attribution is riding shotgun

The main objective of an attribution model is to offer a simple mathematical formula to measure the impact of each marketing communication at different touch points throughout the conversion path.

Google defines an attribution model as, “The rule, or set of rules, that determines how credit for sales and conversions is assigned to touch points in conversion paths.”

Forrester defines cross-channel attribution as, “The practice of allocating proportional credit to all marketing communications, across all channels that ultimately lead to the desired customer action.”

ROI analysis across multiple channels is still in its infancy. Marketers can’t yet easily track the direct impact of traditional TV and radio ads, combined with a consumer’s or prospect’s interactions with emails, display ads or other digital marketing campaigns. But what can be tracked today are conversion rates when select channels are combined. Customers are happy too because they’re getting messages that resonate and are delivered through the channels they use most.

The Oracle Marketing Cloud white paper warns that measuring results from cross-channel campaigns won’t be possible, however, without strong leadership in the marketing department.

3. The experience is the engine

Simplistic journeys fail to build long-term relationships, therefore one of the major issues in cross-channel marketing is around automating the customer experience. It’s nearly impossible to do at scale using legacy automation tools because of the binary way in which a customer experience is typically configured – eg. a customer purchases, they get one message. If they don’t, they get another.

Another issue, according to the Oracle Marketing Cloud white paper, is around the data utilised today to message customers and build personalised experiences. It generally doesn’t look at customer channel preferences or device usage, often being limited to simple purchase history.

If it’s take for granted that customer experience needs to be consistent and orchestrated across all channels, then this problem isn’t just a marketing problem, or even just a technology problem. Whether you blame org charts, management, software licenses, or politics, the teams, processes and the technology used to reach customers operate in silos, suggesting a business-wide approach is necessary to tackle the issues strategically.

To learn more about building stronger marketing, download the Oracle Marketing Cloud white paper ‘Modern Marketing Essentials Guide: Cross-Channel Marketing’, in which you’ll learn how to take your first steps down the path to engaging relationships.

FEATURED RESOURCE: Oracle Marketing Cloud has made the white paper discussed in this article free for download. You can access ‘Modern Marketing Essentials Guide: Cross-Channel Marketing’ here »