Building A Bridge Across Marketing, Sales & Service For A 360 Degree View Of The Connected Consumer

Modern Marketing Engine podcast hosted by Bernie Borges

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Today’s consumer is digitally connected across multiple devices. When interacting with a brand, the consumer expects personalized communication that speaks directly to them. Bernie’s guest on this episode discusses how to bridge marketing, sales, and service to deliver a great experience to the modern consumer. Niki Hall, CMO of Selligent an intelligent digital marketing technology platform designed to create holistic marketing campaigns shares how creating an Omni-channel marketing communication plan results in a better customer experience resulting in higher engagement and higher conversions with consumers.

Succeeding in the digital age requires an integrated rather than siloed view of customer engagement. The information that the sales and marketing departments obtain should be available to those in customer service and in real-time. Listen in as Niki shares how this is not only possible but also preferable from the consumer perspective. She shares how Selligent has created a solution for intra-department integration that buyers love because it creates a relevant experience.

This episode is brought to you by Gong.io, the number one conversation intelligence platform for sales. Gong helps you achieve revenue success, skyrocket rep performance and gain critical market intelligence. Get powerful visibility into your customer conversations with Gong. Head to www.gong.io to get started. Why Brands Should Bridge The Gaps Between Sales, Marketing, and Service

The modern connected consumer expects much more than previous generations when it comes to individualized communication. Consumers want to be spoken to individually. When brand messaging is clear and consistent across all digital channels, customers feel heard.

Then enter intelligent platforms like Selligent Marketing Cloud that allow businesses to harness customer data and share that information across internal departments. Brand messaging becomes consistent and individualized content and timing helps consumers connect with the right product or service with just the right information in the moment. Today’s consumer is constantly marketed at, using shared data allows businesses to market to their buyers in the moment, ensuring the communication is timely and relevant.

Breaking Down Silos With AI

Niki shares a couple of poignant examples of how various brands use AI to break down the silos of marketing, sales, and service. Most notably, she mentions how Coollue, a Dutch retailer similar to BestBuy, uses AI to create a seamless customer experience. Prior to integrating AI, the customer would make a purchase, but then a breakdown would occur when they had questions about how to use the product.

With AI-powered intelligent marketing technology, Coolblue tracks the buyer journey, and within moments of receiving their shipment, the customer receives an email with a how-to video on the use of the product. Coolblue has experienced a 30% reduction in returns and a 28% increase in cross-sell conversions. They also converted many of their customer service agents to inside sales reps because the customer had fewer customer service related questions. How cool is that?!

How To Keep Up With The Expectations Of The Connected Consumer

As AI becomes more prevalent, the question becomes how do brands keep up with the ever-rising bar of consumer expectations? Many brands have turned to more personal means of communication. The key is making sure the consumer receives targeted communication that connects with the consumer’s specific interests in their journey with a brand.

The increased efficacy of digital marketing technology as consumer data gets smarter enables brands to segment their buyers. For instance, one UK retailer sends out coupons at the exact time a buyer is looking to purchase. This is possible only because of the ability of data mining platforms to zero in on buyer intent cues.

Implementation Is The Key To Engaging The Connected Consumer

Having information about the consumer is not enough, brands must use the information effectively to create an experience the connected consumer will love. By empowering customer contact centers with access to consumer interaction history, the conversation turns from one of fact-finding to providing solutions which leads to a happier customer. To do this, CRM,, website, SMS and email medium must all communicate and share customer information, which is where intelligent marketing platforms come into play.

The connected consumer is everywhere. We all have multiple sources of input and data that we interact with every day across multiple devices. The role of today’s modern marketer is to pull that information into a relevant conversation with the consumer. This requires breaking down the silos of marketing, sales, and service by enabling them to sync up in real-time to create great in-the-moment consumer experiences.

Featured on This Episode

• Niki on LinkedIn
• Niki on Twitter: @nikihall
• Selligent on LinkedIn
• Selligent on Twitter: @selligent
• Selligent on Facebook
• Selligent on Instagram
• Selligent on YouTube
• Coolblue’s website

Outline of This Episode

• [01:27] Welcome to the show Niki Hall, CMO of Selligent.
• [02:31] Niki provides information on Selligent and her role there.
• [03:25] Why should brands build a bridge between service, sales, and marketing?
• [05:08] What role does customer data play in relevant marketing?
• [08:50] How does AI fit into breaking down silos?
• [10:33] Learn how technology seamlessly impacts the customer experience.
• [14:36] How to keep up with increased customer expectations as the bar gets higher.
• [17:44] Brands must learn how to process and filter the data provided by the consumer.
• [20:18] What is required to implement the information provided by intelligent platforms?
• [22:15] Bernie begins his summary of the conversation.
• [26:51] Connect with Niki.

Resources & People Mentioned This episode is brought to you by Gong.io, the number one conversation intelligence platform for sales. Gong helps you achieve revenue success, skyrocket rep performance and gain critical market intelligence. Get powerful visibility into your customer conversations with Gong. Head to www.gong.io to get started.

• Selligent.com
• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

Connect With Bernie and Modern Marketing Engine

• https://www.Facebook.com/modernmarketingengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://instagram.com/bernieborges
• https://Twitter.com/MMEnginePodcast

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