A new report published by Zenith states that many brands are unable to enjoy growth via their e-commerce platforms as their sales and marketing teams function in silos.
The report, entitled Five Commerce Imperatives for Marketers, states that brands have separate sales and marketing teams and these teams usually have different objectives. Marketing teams have to connect with the right customer at the right time and use reach and awareness metrics for this purpose. On the other hand, sales teams have to meet their sales targets and they should do so using short-term sales metrics.
However, to ensure that customers enjoy end-to-end service, brands have to make sure that sales and marketing teams work together. This is the only way to optimise returns from online sales.
Zenith Australia’s CEO Nickie Scriven stated that marketing and sales departments function in isolation. More than that, there is no importance levied to consumer experience on earned and paid channels and to the customer experience on channels owned by the brands.
More often than not, consumer marketing and customer communications operate independently of each other, pointed out Scriven, and as a result, there is a disconnect between the brand promise and brand experience that consumers and customers experience.
Brands should connect consumer data and insights with customer data and insights to ensure that they come up with a customer experience strategy. To ensure that this happens, it is necessary to break the silos in which marketing, sales and service operate.
Zenith has shortlisted five key areas that brands should focus on to maximise return on investment from e-commerce.
These are breaking down the silos between sales and marketing, working with retail partners to ensure optimal online shopping experience, identifying retailers that offer the maximum growth potential and collaborating with them, enhancing partnerships between the brand and retailers through optimal usage of data and technology solutions, and developing digital marketing solutions to promote the brand and its products.
