The business of persuasion is a nuanced process; as one marketer I knew used to say, 'not just a quickie in the car park'.
Once upon a time, we had AIDA: awareness, interest, desire, action. It's a simple mnemonic and a useful one, helping us to visualise the process a person went through in becoming a consumer. Spreading our efforts across those different points of influence would achieve a transformation into a customer.
When the web came along, though, we saw that although these stages might still exist, punters were now going through them more rapidly; sometimes all in one go - from ignorance to purchase in a few clicks. This was attractive, but it posed tough organisational challenges.
We had grown used to these distinct steps and built suppliers, organisation and measurement around them. PR, advertising, media, point of sale, digital; all had their own agencies, and often their own managers within the marketing department.
The gaps and misalignments in execution between disciplines were unsatisfactory before, but when the persuasion cycle-time accelerated, they became glaringly obvious. Some 16 years into the evolution of the web, it's still common for organisational issues to be the key obstacle to business success online, with 32% of respondents in a recent Blue Latitude/Econsultancy survey citing silos and structure as key barriers to digital progress in their business.
One bank I know gave its target for new current accounts to its head of digital, reasoning that since he controlled the website (as the bank saw it, analogous to a kind of branch network), he had the greatest influence on sales and should therefore be accountable for this.
Hitherto, the bank's media budgets had been controlled by the marketing department. Consequently, they were given control over the paid-search budget - a field they knew nothing about; but which was the biggest source of new leads to the website.
Immediately we can see that there's a conflict here. The head of digital is answerable for sales through the website, but has no influence on the effectiveness of the single most significant driver. The marketing department has the budget, but no interest in how effectively it is spent. Its principal concerns were to pay low fees, and hope the search agency wouldn't take up too much of its precious time.
The consequence was that the search activity for the bank was badly mismanaged. A search for 'sperm bank' would bring up its brand name, and it regularly went offline at critical sales periods owing to budgeting failures.
It's in the nature of budgets that command over them is totemic to executives, and this marketing department resisted all attempts to wrestle it away.
The same dynamic is frequently experienced by social media agencies. Often they will present to a business, to an enthusiastic response. All in the room are keen to act on the recommendations, but who should handle it? And who should pay?
Months can go by while the debate continues about which silo will handle the remit and which budget will pay for it.
In another business I worked with, at least six separate customer databases were maintained, resulting not just in the absence of a single view of the customer, but in a manifestly excessive number of emails to customers. Churn rates were terrible, but the cost in lost opportunities was far greater.
All these silos are just having quickies in the car park. But digital channels expose our real relationships as never before, and these incidents should ring alarm bells with the board; because there's no faster way to erode value.
Andrew Walmsley is a digital pluralist
30 SECONDS ON ... Digital marketing acronyms
- What better way to persuade your colleagues that you're a cut above the competition than by peppering your conversation with acronyms? Use our handy - if informal - guide to help you.
- SID - possibly refers to the man who greets you at the security desk, but more likely to mean shopper ID.
- SEP - no, not the month you dread coming back from a summer holiday. It's search engine positioning.
- RON - this isn't the bloke who brings the sandwiches in. It's run of network.
- FFA - a double expletive for how few sales you've generated? No, it's a free-for-all link list.
- HB - do not embarrass yourself by asking if this is part of the stationery order. HB is for pencils, but it's also for HotBot.
- ROS - if you hear the phrase 'who's got Ros?' - don't panic. No one has abducted the cleaning lady. It means who's got the run of site.
- SAS - your colleague is unlikely to be in contact with special forces, but may indeed ask to call up the assistance of the Shareasale affiliate network. Don't confuse the two.
- ASP - the thing that killed Cleopatra? Not unless she was killed by an application service provider.
- TOS - come on, even schoolboys know this means terms of service.
- FAQ - these phonemes may leave your mouth every time you put the phone down on your client, but it's only a verbal self-reminder you need to make a list of frequently asked questions.