5 steps to a seamless post-M&A brand integration

Mergers and acquisitions can throw your marketing plans into chaos. Suddenly, you need to quickly and effectively integrate a new web, email and social presence for the acquired brand. It’s a high-visibility project with a tight timeline.

Regardless of how often your company acquires brands, it helps to have a playbook to streamline the process. This guide walks you through key steps to lead a seamless brand integration.

Step 1: Assessment and strategic alignment

Clarify the business objectives with executives of both brands

This seemingly obvious step should clarify the guiding principles you need to integrate a new brand effectively. Sometimes, the same word from two different executives means a totally different thing. 

Ensure you know the brand and marketing objectives and how the integration will be measured. If those objectives and success metrics don’t exist, propose them. Get everyone aligned on timelines.

Align the capabilities of the martech stacks of both brands

This is also a wonderful learning opportunity. It’s rare to have totally honest and in-depth conversations with competitors or exemplars. 

Find out what is working, what goals the new team has and what tools they use. I collate this in a spreadsheet, which helps all marketing colleagues better understand opportunities throughout the customer lifecycle. Plus, you start to see overlaps and conflicts with vendors.

Gather the internal stakeholders

Typically, these projects involve product, IT, brand, marketing, customer service and other internal teams. Limit the number of participants to ensure effective communication. 

If the list of participants grows beyond the level for effective collaboration, break the team(s) into workstreams, each with a leader who can represent the group.

Get to know the other team

Beyond shared goals, collaboration and trust are essential to success. Don’t wait for the M&A team to think of this. 

Make a special effort to get to know the new team. Tap whatever company culture assets exist, from buddy assignments to virtual happy hours and speed networking to lunch-and-learn events.

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Step 2: Map the data flow

Data management dictates much of the opportunity

You don’t have to migrate the data at this stage, but you need to know where it all lives, how it gets used and where the integration hooks are.

Think future-forward. Perhaps this project is the leverage you need to get that personalization project approved.

Engage with the privacy and security teams early

Ensure you know how first-party cookies can be used across the two brands and should be collected in the future.

Learn from the data about customer needs and loyalty

Share and compare at least the last quarter’s reports and analysis. Review customer personas for common interests and needs.

Email and social are typically the first channels to focus on cross-selling the two brands. Recommend ways to promote the new product set, and use this early outreach to test messaging that will help you set a vision for the website product content.

Uncover some early analytics and reporting synergies

You can’t succeed without data analysis, but likely the two organizations are doing different things on different schedules with different reporting metrics. 

A combined dashboard can be a good first step, even if it has to be created by hand and provide essential transparency for all teams. 

Reviewing the two sets of reports regularly can be a wonderful way to get to know your new teammates and ideate new campaigns.

Step 3: Set a vision and timeline for the integration

Clarify how marketing will get done in the integrated world

How will the new brands be treated on social and the web? What current and near-future marketing campaigns do you need to support? 

How will you migrate product and brand content? Who will own the shared editorial calendar, and how will you transfer SEO authority from the old site(s) to the new one?

Create distinct strategies for each audience

Customers, partners, prospects, investors, employees and employment candidates. For example, microsites might be needed for prospecting campaigns, while deep product content can live within the site’s current structure. Be sure to establish the future home of customer service content, video demos, and all the blogs.

Set a communications framework for all stakeholders

Be consistent in your communications and meeting schedule. Use email for comms, but keep all your meeting notes and action plans in the project management system. 

Tap whatever collaboration tools are available: Slack, a shared Command Center for documents, scheduled non-meeting work time, and brief update videos for executives. 

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Step 4: Create a project plan

Organize your project plan around the objectives

Typically, I start with each channel (web, social, email, search, paid promotion) and build out critical milestones by the audience. Creating this matrix of channels and audiences also reveals ways to repurpose content, test cross-selling, and align team assignments. 

Working with each channel owner, flesh out the set of tasks. You already know many tasks since you likely have templates for building webpages, managing a content-based campaign, QA’ing a website launch, building a social calendar, creating an audience journey, etc.

Celebrate milestones throughout the project

This is a massive project with lots of stakeholders and plenty of pitfalls. Celebrate often and with an authentic appreciation of everyone’s contributions.

Step 5: Execute flawlessly (and avoid common pitfalls)

Surely, no complex marketing website project ever goes sideways. (Said no one, sadly, ever!) Below are steps to make the process more manageable:

• Be agile. Brand alignment and product strategy will evolve. Prioritize and get alignment before you tackle each section — akin to the carpenter’s rule to “measure twice, cut once.” For example, sometimes, it’s better to wait for the acquisition dust to settle before rewriting the entire new product section. 
• Back-end CMS, personalization, and CRM systems are messy. Our martech systems are the result of thousands of well-intentioned and often isolated strategic decisions made by various past teams and leaders. Be ready for someone to tell you, “No, that cannot be done cost-effectively.”
• Everyone already has a full-time job, including you. Shape the project so that the goals and the team are focused on what a former colleague called “minimum loveable product.” Deliver the core set of features that will delight customers and stakeholders. Then, test and learn to set the next priority. Early success helps you get resources and builds excitement for the next phase.

While it can be a big lift, facilitating a successful brand integration on one of your company’s most highly visible assets can be a big win for both brands and your career. Accept both the risk and reward as an opportunity for growth and innovation.

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