Merkle's recommendations to implement the People-Based Marketing

Merkle has released its seventh installment of the Marketing Imperatives, a guidebook for CMOs. The 2019 Marketing Imperatives prescribe the building blocks of an integrated, successful people-based marketing strategy.

“Placing the customer at the center of the business strategy is a top priority for CMOs, but figuring out how to get there isn’t always clear,” said David Williams, president and CEO, Merkle. “The goal of the Marketing Imperatives is to advise CMOs in pursuit of this goal, providing actionable strategies for how they can reach it.”

The 3 pillars of the People-Based Marketing

Integrate your customer strategy

According to Merkle, a foundation of planning will help marketers build a more complete picture of their desired audience, evolving the marketing strategy into a 360-degree customer strategy. The outcome is a roadmap for personalized engagements across media and channels, spanning the entire life cycle.

Integrate your tech stack

Merkle says that In addition to building this full customer profile, organizations should be focused on fully integrating their tech stack. The resulting data hub is the centralized facility for real-time receipt and distribution of customer data that also allows marketers to execute and modify marketing strategies.

Integrate your execution

Before embarking on this transformation, Merkle recommends that marketers ensure the team has a clear vision of the integrated customer experience and enabling technology platform. This forms the basis of the plan, upon which you layer the people and processes required for execution. Remove the walls between organizational silos, while leveraging their unique capabilities. Clearly define, communicate, and measure every role and goal along the way.