• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, April 21, 2016

According to a new Salesforce survey, marketers are increasingly focused on customer satisfaction and engagement as their top measures for success. 65% of high-performing marketers say they’ve adopted a customer journey strategy, with 88% saying it’s critical to their marketing success.

The physical and digital worlds are merging, says the report, causing people to expect personalized, consistent brand interactions across every channel and device. This shift is making the customer journey more important than ever before, and ultimately evolving marketers into customer experience designers.

The research shows that 63% of high-performing marketing teams are implementing digital transformations across their organization, compared to 8% of underperformers, says the report. And, 63% of high-performing marketing teams surveyed say they’re excellent at creating personalized, omnichannel customer experiences across all business units compared to 2% of underperformers.

Scott McCorkle, CEO Salesforce Marketing Cloud, says “… the rise of the connected customer is forcing marketing… to manage personalized experiences that engage the customer… and guide them through a seamless journey with the brand…”

Marketers are seeing increased ROI with email, mobile and social marketing. Among marketers who use email as part of their marketing strategy, 80% agree it’s core to their business. 49% of those marketers say it is directly linked to their business’ primary revenue source, a 140% year-over-year increase from the 2015 State of Marketing Report. Additionally, 79% of marketers say email generates ROI, a 48% YoY increase.

75% of marketers who use social as part of their marketing strategy report social is now generating ROI, a 166% increase YoY. Facebook is the most effective social channel according to high-performing marketing teams, followed by Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Instagram.

63% of high performing marketing teams surveyed have integrated their social media activity into their overall marketing strategy, compared to only 20% of underperformers. And, 64% of high-performing marketing teams surveyed have also integrated their email marketing activity with their overall marketing strategy, compared to 19% of underperformers.

Additionally, mobile marketing adoption has risen significantly, including location-based mobile tracking (149% increase), mobile push notifications (145% increase), mobile text messaging (111% increase) and mobile applications (98% increase). 77% of marketers who use mobile as part of their marketing strategy say mobile actively generates ROI, a 147% increase YoY.

Marketers are taking ownership of the customer journey, and their ability to integrate digital marketing channels will determine their performance, says the report. Among high-performing marketing teams that have integrated their digital marketing channels, such as email, mobile and social, at least 95% rate the integrations as very effective or effective.

Concluding, the report notes these significant changes among high-performing marketers:

• 60% of high-performing marketing teams surveyed have integrated their mobile marketing activity into their overall marketing strategy 
• 81% of high-performing marketing teams surveyed align their mobile campaigns to email campaigns
• 65% of marketers surveyed are increasing budgets for advertising on social platforms in 2016, making it the third largest area for increased investment behind social media marketing and social media engagement

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