How to Apply the Wisdom of U.S. Presidents to Your Martech Strategy for the Win

My fellow B2B leaders, in the midst of our great nation’s political and seemingly never-ending economic unrest, I charge you that now is your time to rise to greatness! How, you say? By incorporating the wisdom of the sages as you leverage your marketing technology to renew your faithful and God-given right to pursue leads, sales and happy customers. This is your duty. This is your call. This is your hour. Seize your moment! In today’s blog, we’ll take a truly bipartisan look at how our former leaders addressed difficult times and rallied the people to muster their strength, unite, and pursue victory. What’s more, we’ll show you how you can apply these same principles to your martech strategies and experience some real crowd-pleasing numbers.

Abraham Lincoln Believed Integration Is Essential

Ask any self-respecting sixth-grade history student what words Abraham Lincoln is most famous for and you will inevitably hear, “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.” Interestingly enough, Lincoln was quoting an even greater leader in his famous speech, Jesus Christ (Matthew 12:25). So how does this apply to your martech strategy? It means you cannot have tech that is siloed or disconnected. Marketing, Sales, Customer Service and all other departments that receive, use and house customer and company data need to recognize that lumbering on with siloed data and exclusive practices will only lead to the downfall of your company as a whole. Yes, we know that you are undoubtably facing “strong personalities” in each department, who see being secretive with their data as a service to their team, but it is a greater disservice to the common good — the customer. In the event that you have to make a few speeches of your own to get everyone on board with uniting tech throughout the ecosystem, here are a few pointers you can use:

• Integrating tech creates a unified customer view. This helps you better understand and meet customer needs, which translates into more loyalty from them and more revenue for you.
  Fact: Sixty-six percent of marketing leaders say building teams [across departments] that solve for end-to-end customer journeys is important.
• Integrating tech enables you to streamline operations. When everything works well together, you can automate more workflows, save more time, and enhance employee happiness.
  Fact: Sixty percent of marketing leaders have a data-driven customer strategy that supports ALL organizational stakeholders.
• Integrating tech saves money and budgets. Tech that is connected enables you to see gaps and overlaps, and optimize use of the tech you have already invested in, so you can eliminate the ones that are redundant or not as useful.
  Fact: Conducting a martech assessment isa great way to findloose change in the corporate sofa cushions that can be put to much better usage, like monthly performance bonuses.
• Integrating tech makes it easier to collect and analyze data. The more access to current data you have, the better your understanding of the big picture and the best decisions to make.
  Fact: Marketing leaders are 1.5X as likely as mainstream marketers to have an integrated marketing and advertising technology stack.

Lyndon B. Johnson Knew the Right Data Is Everything

Clint Hill, who served in the Secret Service for presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford recorded in his book, Five Presidents, that one of Lyndon Johnson’s greatest quotes was inspired by Lincoln: “He walked over to a portrait of Abraham Lincoln and said, ‘You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right.’ He looked up at the president who had weathered the burdens of the Civil War and said, ‘I sure hope I have better generals than he did.’”

If the leaders in your company are going to make wise decisions that are informed by the latest data, they will need to have consistent access to high-quality data. Now, the only way to get and maintain access to high-quality data is to set up automated processes that keep your data clean, complete, accurate, enhanced and current. The great thing about automating this task, is that if you already have all tech integrated, everyone company-wide benefits from high-quality data, including:

• Other departments can better understand and more intuitively serve customer needs
• Leaders have the knowledge, insights and information needed to make smarter decisions
• Customers experience a smoother, more personal and engaging journey
• Rewards such as customer loyalty, growth and revenue generation increase

Gerald Ford Believed Communication Is Key

Whether establishing personal or professional relationships, rallying your teams to advance against the competition, or simply seeking to inspire fellow coworkers to fulfill their potential, communication is the key that unlocks those doors. As former president Ford once said, “Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively.”

Naturally, if you need to communicate important messages about your brand to hundreds or thousands of potential prospects, and still connect with them on a personal level, you will need a professional human writer and an automated approach that enables you to leverage your data to send highly personalized messages and campaigns that win favor with your constituents. The good news is, Sureshot can help you with that. Of course, if anyone in your organization needs convincing of how important highly personalized communications are, just share these recent survey results with them:

• 70% of brands that use advanced personalization have seen a 200% ROI or more
• 76% of customers say personalized messages are essential in their consideration of a brand
• 78% say personalized communications make them more willing to re-purchase from a brand
• 97% of marketers have seen an increase in business outcomes due to personalization

Let Us Help You Win Your Race!

Here at Sureshot, we employ an amazing team of people who are skilled in helping you and your team integrate your martech, do more with your data, and scale personalized communications. If you’d like to see what our solutions can do for you, start by taking our free Martech Assessment.