This article is focused on the marketing area of business and how it revolves around teamwork, but the tools used for marketing do not and they should. Successful marketing is all about collaboration. Yet working together across teams, departments and agencies, as well as with customers and partners is getting more difficult as time goes on. Most marketers still depend on the same tools and methods they used in the past 20 years. These tools include email, meetings, phone calls and desktop apps. The tools for communication actually lead to disconnect and are inefficient.
Jive has been working on a potential solution to the outdated marketing communications we have today. They broke it down into sections that they find barriers to marketing communications and how to overcome them. The first section dealt with content without complications. Marketing teams need good clear coordination across all functions. They also need speedy yet synchronized interaction that traditional tools such as email do not provide. They address this by creating a virtual workspace that is real time, meaning everyone gathers online and can see information as it is added and changed on the workspace. Jive is introducing a workspace in order to ask questions and get answers instantly from their team or experts that way information isn’t being tied up on emails and in hard drives and it available to answer or to reference at anytime. This device also gives outside consultants or contractors access to the content development since they play a major role. The virtual workspace also allows he involvement of sales. With the involvement of the sales team their feedback is instantaneous improving the product or overall idea since feedback can be taken into consideration before the final product or idea and it is too late. They will be able to get more effectively involved. This eliminates the massive amounts of emails that are sometimes neglected or overlooked. The virtual workplace also allows people to edit in real time and keep the most up to date version readily available. This gets rid of the duplicate drafts that can get stuck in emails. This virtual workspace answers the problem of communicating content without the enormous amounts of complications.
The virtual workplace was the greatest part of the article to me. I have seen many of these problems and this virtual workplace solves most of these problems. I would love to see this in action especially in those emails where multiple people and multiple drafts are being sent back and forth. It is hard to see what email and draft is the most recent. Also, sometimes the responses are delayed and decisions are made without everyone’s input since they may be away from their email. This also allows for people not in the same geographical areas to have the same input as a group at the main office or company. It is a great idea and can revolutionize how companies do business especially if it is as readily available and popular as Microsoft Office.
The other points in this article tie around this real time virtual workspace. Such as campaigns without pains since the participants in the campaign can be brought together anytime and anywhere. Also it accelerates the planning and decision-making it has a section of structured incomes that show everyone decisions made and the next steps to make. It also tracks steps that have been taken to achieve the goals at hand. Jive also allows editing tools to see who edits the document this also can be used for Jive for Office, which turns Microsoft Office into a real time editing, and collaboration tool. Jive can also pull live data from marketing automation systems directly into your campaign development group so everyone can see the data. The tool also allows all old data to be found and retrieved for later use and reference. This idea of data collection saves time from collecting the needed data manually and manipulating it in excel to be used.
The second most important part in Jive’s real time collaboration idea for marketing is the fact the idea of customer and partner dialogue being made easier to obtain and access. This makes marketing communications into a multi dimensional, bringing in the most necessary people that before collaboration were being left out such as the customers. The article reviews the type of B2B touch points that are not nearly effective as they could be such as social network for customer input and direct contact with sales rep too late in the planning of marketing plans. The sales people being a main input since they are the direct contact to the customer and need the early information and nurturing, the customers can actually become brand advocates and an extension of your sales force with enough information and involvement. The result of these poor communications and collaborations is lost opportunities, delayed deals, and higher sales costs. These online forums and once a year meetings are not enough more need to be done on the side of collaborative communication.
Overall, this article has opened my eyes to how much better marketing can be in the future. It personally affects me since I am a marketing major and would like to be in the marketing field someday. Overall this technology can change my future because customer and sales team can be more involved in campaigns and marketing ideas. Marketing ideas can flow easier because of the communication barriers being eliminated. Saving time and confusion is saving money. This program takes marketing to where it should be, collaborative!
