While CMOs have been talking about delivering a seamless multichannel experience for years, the fact is most companies are still failing. And not without good reason.

Complexity has grown significantly.

There are more stakeholders, technologies, channels and touch-points involved in the customer journey than ever before. Add the explosion of customer data, message testing and personalization in marketing campaigns, and you have a potential disaster on your hands.

What do we mean by disaster? Complexity left unmanaged turns into chaos. Chaos is defined as “complete disorder and confusion.” Given the results from a recent study jointly conducted by InnerView and FocusVision, chaos is not far from the truth. The study found that marketing organizations are struggling to create one consistent message across all customer interactions.

In fact, nearly 60 percent of companies agree their brand story is getting diluted before it reaches the buyer.

A report published by IDC also speaks to the multichannel message consistency challenge that CMOs face. “Today’s vendors have so many communication channels at their disposal that there are any number of ways to really mess things up.” The report states that CMOs must answer critical questions when it comes to delivering a consistent story throughout the customer experience.

  • Are your customers being addressed the same way in your sales and marketing communications?
  • Are your customers receiving consistent messaging whether they are online or offline?
  • When customers engage with your sales team, call center personnel and customer support teams, are those experiences consistent and connected?

In the experience economy, marketing leaders have no option but to answer these questions if they want to effectively manage multichannel messaging. They must also face this very simple fact:

Delivering a clear, compelling and consistent multichannel story reaches far beyond marketing and well beyond automated personalized messages. It requires every customer-facing area of the business and every partner involved in the customer journey to be “on message.”

OnMessage is the B2B communications consultancy executives call when it counts. When strategic shifts in the business take place, when financial performance is on the line and when the message absolutely must deliver material business results. To learn how we can help you discover, develop and activate a clear, compelling and consistent story throughout the customer experience, schedule a briefing with one of our experts today.

That’s Your OnMessage Minute.