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What is Convergence Marketing?

 

 

Convergence marketing is a holistic approach to marketing that combines various tactics and channels to reach and engage customers across multiple touchpoints. It is a strategy that focuses on creating a seamless and consistent customer experience, regardless of the channels or devices they use to interact with a brand.

This approach leverages different marketing channels like social media, email, search, content marketing, and advertising and uses data and analytics to track customer behavior and preferences. The ultimate goal of convergence marketing is to create a cohesive and integrated customer journey that results in increased brand loyalty and conversions.

Convergence Marketing Definition

Convergence marketing is defined as “the orchestration of information technology, marketing, and design required to ensure that companies present an integrated, consistent, clear and interactive message across all the media they use,” as defined in Marketing Convergence by Susan K. Jones & Edward J. Spiegel. 

Convergence marketing strategy revolves around the customer, who is at the center, surrounded by various means of communication, content, and technology. Convergence can now be seen with the terms used such as “voice and data,” “fixed and mobile,” “media and entertainment,” “access devices,” “unified communications,” and the list goes on and on.  

We are witnessing the convergence of digital marketing and traditional marketing. Big data convergence is happening between traditional and online marketing, where marketers are gathering consumer data to make marketing more effective. 

Convergence Marketing Advantages 

Convergence is the future of marketing. It is happening at a fast pace, and companies that want to see success need to stay ahead of the pack. Convergence brings about renegotiation between traditional marketing and new digital marketing. Convergence marketing is making it easier to integrate different media, traditional marketing, and digital marketing just so that they can convert the data gathered into more appealing customer experiences.   

Advantages of Convergence Marketing

Here are the top 5 advantages that convergence marketing nourishes your brand with to serve customers better experiences without fail:-

1) Enhance Customer Experience

A Forrester report mentions, "Even a minor improvement to a brand’s customer experience quality can add tens of millions of dollars of revenue by reducing customer churn and increasing share of wallet."

Convergence marketing involves the integration of various marketing channels and tactics to create a seamless customer experience. By combining different marketing strategies, your business can create a cohesive message and customer journey that will yield a customer-friendly environment leading to increased customer lifetime value. 

Due to convergence marketing, customers receive a consistent message across different channels, and because of this, they can move between channels without interruption. Additionally, it allows your organization to track customer behavior and preferences effortlessly, which can be used to revamp your marketing efforts and improve the overall customer experience.

2) Break Organizational Silos

Salesforce's fifth edition of the State of the Connected Customer report reveals that 83% of customers say they are more loyal to companies that provide consistency across departments. 

In many organizations, different departments, such as marketing, sales, and customer service, operate independently, leading to a lack of coordination and consistency while interacting with a customer. Proper implementation of convergence marketing has the ability to break down organizational silos and promote collaboration between various departments within a business.

By adopting a convergence marketing approach, different departments work together to create a unified customer experience throughout the journey, which lead to improved communication, more efficient use of resources, and a more cohesive overall strategy. Breaking down silos enables the different departments to share data, insights, and best practices, directing your organization to more effective marketing campaigns and better business results.

3) Create a Robust Communication System

Convergence marketing assists you in creating a robust communication system that allows your business to reach customers across multiple channels and platforms with much more ease. By integrating different marketing channels such as email, social media, SMS, and similar relevant ones, your business can create a more comprehensive communication strategy that allows you to connect with customers in different ways and at distinct stages of the customer journey. 

Following these activities, you can improve the overall effectiveness of marketing campaigns and increase your brand engagement in a more personalized and meaningful manner with customers. Additionally, a powerful communication approach helps your businesses gather customer data, track customer behavior, and place a system for better interaction.

Related Read:- Customer Communication: 9 Tips For Better Customer Experience.

4) Promote Customer-Centricity

Convergence marketing promotes customer-centricity by entitling your organization to gather and analyze data on the customers' behavior and preferences across multiple channels and touchpoints. It allows your company to tailor marketing efforts to specific customer segments and create personalized experiences that are more likely to resonate with their target audience. 

In addition, by having a more holistic view of how a customer interacts with your brand, you can identify areas where there is a need to improve customer service or product offerings to meet the customers' needs. In short, convergence marketing promotes customer-centric by providing a complete view of customer behavior and demands. Using this information, you can create more customized and effective marketing drives.

Related Read:- 10 Customer-Centric Practices For Greatest Returns on CX Investment.

5) Increase Profitability

Convergence marketing lets different elements of your business combine in a manner that assist you in reaching and converting the target audience conveniently. With the enforcement of this marketing in your business system, you can attain higher conversion rates, increase customer retention, and ultimately increase revenue. Additionally, by streamlining marketing efforts across different channels, your brand can reduce marketing costs by eliminating unnecessary or duplicative efforts, which further improves profitability. 

In summary, convergence marketing can lead to increased profitability as it provides complete knowledge regarding customer conduct, using which your company can create customer-focused interaction solutions that enhance their experience and deliver a smooth journey throughout. 

Related Read:- 7 Ways Customer Experience Improves Your Bottom Line.

Tools to Enhance Convergence Marketing

To perform effective convergence marketing, you can leverage different technologies that ease complex operations and deliver desired results to your organization and customers.

Tools to Enhance Convergence Marketing

Here are 5 technological tools that will help you deliver a unified message to your consumers to provide them with better services and develop a powerful brand recognition strategy:-

1) Customer Experience Analytics Platforms

A customer experience analytics platform collects, analyzes, and acts on customer feedback across various touchpoints, including surveys, NPS, and more, to generate CX analytics reports revealing the nitty gritty of your customers' requirements. 

A suite of artificial intelligence (AI) tools analyzes customer data and provides insights to improve the customer experience and accordingly carry on marketing endeavors. It conducts user research and usability testing on websites, mobile apps, and other digital products and platforms.

2) Social Media Management Tools

Social media management tools are an aid to your convergence marketing program as they allow you to manage your social media marketing, making it easy for you to schedule posts in advance with a content library feature for storing and reposting evergreen content and tracking performance metrics. 

It handles the whole of your social media activities and furnishes you with features such as team collaboration and social listening, which can be used to track mentions of a brand or industry keywords across social media platforms. 

3) Email Marketing Automation Software

Email marketing automation software is a comprehensive platform that offers features such as automated email delivery, lead management, and marketing analytics. 

Utilizing these features, you can target your customers with personalized email campaigns, prompt them to relook and purchase from their abandoned cart, and more. The software makes direct mail marketing easy with basic email elements, such as email templates, contact management, and reporting. 

4) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems

A widely used and highly customizable CRM platform that offers a wide range of features that assist you in efficiently monitoring sales and marketing automation as it provides you with data and insights on your customers, marketing campaigns, and sales performance. 

Further, it allows your businesses to plan, execute, and track the results of marketing campaigns that you can use to increase the effectiveness of your marketing drives and attract more customers. 

5) Content Management System (CMS)

Content Management Systems (CMSs) are platforms that allow your business to create, manage, and publish digital content. These systems can be used for convergence marketing to attract target audiences through customer-facing content. 

A widely used open-source CMS is highly scalable, offering a wide range of plugins and themes to customize and extend its functionality. Using a comprehensive CMS will provide you with great features, such as marketing automation, analytics, and personalized content delivery.

Convergence Marketing Example

One great example of convergence marketing is the integration of online and offline marketing done by Target. Based on the customer profiles built based on big data, Target is able to predict their customers next.

Target wanted to focus on soon-to-be parents as there is a huge market in this segment. Target got very good with its prediction that it started to send coupons at the right time during different stages of pregnancy. It was purely based on the consumer insights gathered with the help of big data. But being tracked so closely did not go well with the consumers.

Target quickly adopted traditional marketing methods as well, where they started giving coupons with educational content that pregnant women liked. Convergence marketing is all about striking the right balance between different marketing mediums, be it traditional or digital marketing. 

Get the Best Out of Convergence Marketing 

Convergence marketing is a strategy that seeks to integrate various marketing channels and platforms to reach customers cohesively and consistently. By using a combination of traditional and digital marketing methods, your business can increase brand awareness, drive sales, and foster customer loyalty. 

Convergence marketing promotes products and services across multiple channels, reaching a wider audience and creating a unified brand experience. It is becoming increasingly important in today's digital age as consumers are exposed to an overwhelming amount of information and advertising. 

Convergence marketing allows your brand to cut through the noise and stand out by creating a consistent message across all marketing channels. By aligning your marketing efforts, you can create a stronger connection with your target audience and ultimately drive more conversions, providing financial benefit to the organization. Therefore, convergence marketing can be considered a powerful tool for devising and executing a successful marketing strategy.

Related Read:- 4 Success Factors For Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) in 2022 and Beyond.


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