Connecting Teams & Technologies: Where to Start

Marketing, sales, and customer service teams, as well as other internal stakeholders, should feel free to team up and pool their resources. When information silos are broken down and teams collaborate to move customers through the path to purchase, the overall performance of your organization can improve dramatically.

The reasons why connected companies thrive are fairly straightforward. Every group within these businesses is chasing the same general goal and having access to resources from their colleagues is naturally helpful. Customer service representatives who can see a client's whole history with the company are well-positioned to troubleshoot problems quickly. Salespeople collaborating with marketers can create tailored pitches that drive conversions following lengthy campaigns. The opportunities for process improvement are significant and shouldn't be overlooked.

This doesn't mean that connectivity between teams is automatic. Getting from a siloed and limited Point A to a more collaborative and value-driving Point B can seem daunting. Fortunately, there are a few quick changes you can make to start seeing the practical upside of unifying your teams and technologies together. These morale-boosting wins can convince the higher-ups that your company is on the right path.

Create a data sharing framework

Marketing data can have value outside of the marketing department. Companies that take a centralized approach to data storage and access can unlock this potential to bring an uplift in revenue. Yet, with only 30% of companies using a single view of the customer or a lifecycle marketing approach, advanced marketing tactics based on shared data are far from universal. 

Research indicates that centralized data warehouses are a major enabler on the road to digital marketing maturity. Adding a data repository to your technology stack is an excellent first step to greater collaboration, company-wide, especially since it can give teams shared access to a consistent data set and support advanced initiatives across departments.

If your organization was born in the digital age and has already invested in cloud-based technologies, adding new technologies to your martech stack can be a relatively simple and straightforward process. But that doesn’t mean that organizations with on-site data centers can't centralize their data. Depending on the situation, these companies might have the option to link their legacy systems through a data integration or replace their legacy tools with a more modern platform or advanced digital solution.

Favor a collaborative company culture

Having the ability to share information is one thing, but if implementing technology is as far as your collaboration efforts go, it will be hard to get results. Personnel across departments should have a structured way to pool their data and their efforts. This is why projects designed to make organizations more connected internally must take employee training into account alongside IT upgrades. A new piece of software that no one uses to its fullest extent is simply a waste of funds.

The marketing team, however, can be a facilitator for communication and collaboration throughout the organization. Marketing is well-positioned for the sharing of information and marketers can become leaders of ongoing collaboration and brainstorming efforts. Connections to other departments run deep in marketing, and they'll only become more pronounced when employees are free to share information due to technological upgrades.

Since marketers frequently meet with sales, customer service, IT, upper management and other teams, unified strategies are possible to create and sustain. That’s where the invested interest of all team members is key. When it is a conscious effort by all personnel involved rather than a more incidental part of the organizational culture, pursuing shared goals becomes easier.

Get a current picture of your organization's capabilities

Determine how well your company is currently doing, in terms of technology, strategy, and other key elements of marketing? Once you have this baseline, you can start to take your first steps towards improved collaboration between departments. 

Focus on quick wins that support your collaborative marketing efforts and show the impact that your teams are making. These small victories will make sure that you are solving the right issues, with the assurance needed to tackle more initiatives. 

To get a high-level, unbiased view of your organization, you can partner with an outside expert and/or marketing technology consultancy. A professional consultant can help you realize what might be holding your business back, from outdated martech to a lack of connectivity between technologies and/or teams, and provide recommendations for next steps.

When you address the elements of your current operations that can truly improve, quick and impactful progress is possible. Creating a shared data environment may be the boost your teams need. Perhaps you already have the marketing technology systems in place, but your teams aren’t sure how to use them to their greatest capabilities - whatever the issue is, you owe it to your team and your organization to start resolving it.