Public Relations Strategery

This post originally appeared in MediaPost.

True omnichannel marketing is about understanding how the dominoes fall across the entire organization, not just in marketing.

Congratulations on your integrated marketing plan, your omnichannel marketing strategy, your paid-earned-shared-owned media strategy — you’ve now completed the bare minimum of what customers expect.

Just because marketers have finally started to consistently create integrated cross-channel plans doesn’t mean we should toot our horns too much. After all, we’re the ones who embraced channel-specific media plans over integrated strategies and working with dozens of specialized agencies instead of one or two integrated agencies-of-record. The fact that we’re now unpacking these silos, because customers have demanded a more consistent experience, is simply the beginning.

This was a problem of our own doing. And rather than focusing on the real challenge — creating a consistent brand experience at all touchpoints — we focused too much on the how rather than the why.

Over the last few years, I’ve worked with plenty of clients, spoken at dozens of conferences, and connected with hundreds of colleagues. Unfortunately, a common thread has emerged – every customer touchpoint has become specialized and sophisticated. And while that’s made each channel more efficient and effective, it also results in a fundamental fracturing of the customer experience. In our rush to optimize every tweet, email, and click, we’ve created inconsistency and unpredictability not just for customers, but for people in the organization too.

When someone talks about “omnichannel marketing,” they’re usually talking about the channels marketing controls — social media, digital, TV, print, PR. The list goes on. Unfortunately, just because it doesn’t fall under marketing doesn’t mean it’s not a marketing channel. If you want to create a true omnichannel plan, you better make sure you’re also addressing channels that are supported by other departments. The following questions don’t have easy answers. But guess what? The customer doesn’t care about your politics. They care about the experience.

• Before you start brainstorming the next big campaign, are there other departments doing something incredible that could be proof points?

• How are you going to use internal communications to activate employees?

• Have you equipped the customer service team with new talking points?

• Does the investor relations team have new messaging for the next quarterly report?

• Does the new campaign impact the advocacy issues your government relations team is tackling?

• Are operations committed to making marketing a reality on a day-to-day level?

• Is the C-suite aligned with how you measure success?

• Is sales using the content you created? Or are they using what they’re comfortable with instead?

• Can your IT team even create that microsite you’ve proposed?

• Have you spoken with PR about any potential public backlash the campaign may face?

Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix for cross-department collaboration challenges. The reality is it requires more human-to-human communication and conversation. It can’t be fixed via a memo from the CEO or an employee town hall meeting. It can’t be fixed with a steel cage wrestling match between the CMO, the CIO, and the CSO either. What it requires is a fundamental shift in marketing strategy. And marketing cannot be the sole owner and creator.

This may seem obvious but it’s become abundantly clear, to both employees and customers, that more often than not, “omnichannel strategies” really mean “consistency across a few different-channel strategies.” Let’s start creating true omnichannel strategies that address all of the channels available to us.

I finally got around to reading “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch.  If you’re not familiar with Randy’s story, read about it here or watch the video below.  I highly recommend this if you’re about to have a child,  already a parent, if you’re a teacher, or if in any way, you’re responsible for the welfare of someone else – it’s a fantastic reminder to focus on what matters.  There’s a ton of great lessons in this book, but as I was reading it, one story in particular stuck out – the $100,000 Salt & Pepper Shaker.  This story resonated with me because it not only made me think of all the companies and brands that have earned my loyalty over the years, but also of the the interactions that I have had with our government, be it at the Post Office, at the DMV, as the Social Security Administration, the IRS, etc.

Here’s the summary of Randy’s story –

When Randy was 12, he was walking around Disney World with his sister. He and his sister wanted to thank their parents for the vacation so they pooled their money together to purchase ceramic salt & pepper shakers as gifts. Unfortunately, in his excitement to be at Disney World and to give his parents the gift, young Randy drops them, shattering both. Someone saw this incident and suggested that he take them back to the store and ask for a replacement. This was a foreign concept to Randy – why would they replace them? He broke them. It was his fault.  Nevertheless, he went back to the store and explained what happened. To Randy and his sister’s surprise, the Disney store manager not only replaced the salt & pepper shakers free of charge, he apologized for not wrapping them up well enough!

Years later, Randy looks back at that day and sees the beginning of a love affair with Disney that has gone on for decades. You see, that one seemingly insignificant gesture made Randy and his parents see Disney on a whole new level, and as a result, they have enthusiastically supported the Disney brand to the tune of more than $100,000 in tickets, food, and souvenirs.

At the end of this chapter of the book, Randy tells the story of how he still serves as a consultant to Disney and at the end of his meetings, he ends by asking,

“If I sent a child into one of your stores with a broken salt and pepper shaker today, would your policies allow your workers to be kind enough to replace it?“

The executives “squirm at the question” because they know the answer is “probably not.”

We all have stories like this – the mechanic you still go to because he corrected that other mechanic’s mistake for free; the barber who, upon finding out that you didn’t have enough cash to pay him after cutting your hair told you “not to worry about it because you’ll pay him next time;” the guy at Best Buy who took 20 minutes out of his day to answer every single question about plasma vs. LCD TVs that you had.

Now, can you think of a story like that involving a government institution?  If you are a civil service employee, how would you answer the question? Are your organization’s policies such that you would be able to spend ten extra minutes with a heartbroken customer to fix their problem?

If I were the head of a government agency, I would bring in the folks from Disney to talk to all of my managers and public-facing employees about the importance of customer service in government. A government agency that uses solid change management techniques to teach every employee to truly embrace principles like “the front line is the bottom line,” and “Two Ears, two eyes and one mouth, use them in that ratio” would do more to bring about “Government 2.0 than any new policy, memo, or technology platform could ever do.

We talk a lot about Government 2.0 being citizen-centric, but that’s not going to happen via some technology platform or memo. That’s going to happen when we make the citizen our customer, our bottom line and we extend that to include both online and offline interactions. There’s one phrase that Walt Disney used as the key to Disney’s customer service program – “exceed guests’ expectations.”

Where in your agency’s mission mission does it say that you will try to “exceed citizens’ expectations?“

Watch the full video of Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture” below.