CMOs: 3 recommendations to do marketing under the age of media convergence.

Media convergence has fundamentally changed how people receive and react to information from the outside world, it has empowered consumers to become smarter and have more initiatives towards information. Moreover, all sorts of information flushed online and created a rather messy environment, there are too much information flouting around consumers that has resulted in a creation of information protective barrier around each individual. As a graduate student in Northwestern university Medill studying Integrated Marketing Communication, I came across two articles addressing the phenomenon of media convergence.

From the article ‘What You Totally Forgot In Your Content Marketing And It Is Costing You All Success’ on The Social MS,  Susanna Gebauer emphasized the importance of content marketing in a media convergence age. The article explained how to create a successful content marketing campaign that involves efficient planning and organizing, precise goals, an in-depth understanding of the company’s target audience, and a powerful promotion plan.

Graph source:https://news.bpmsupreme.com/how-to-build-an-online-presence-as-a-dj-chapter-i-build-a-website/

The other article, ‘What today’s shopper want, and how omni-channel retailers can satisfy them’, on the website of marketing profs, Barry Feldman talked about the importance of becoming an omni-channel retailer under the age of media convergence. Retailers need to meet the need of customers wherever they are—on mobile, desktop, in-store, browsing with apps, or on social media in order to create a full circle and curate loyal customers. 

Based on these two articles, as an IMC student and marketer, I have three 3 recommendations to share to CMOs nowadays to deal with media convergence.

Content is King - Use content marketing to lure people out in the messy environment of media convergence. 
The best way for marketer is to create genuine, solid, interesting, useful contents to lure out customers into a roadmap of purchasing action. No matter how messy the media environment is, the quality of content always matters, as long as people are still searching things on the internet. And, quality content is the sword that can break the barrier and the one with the ability to travel through the complicated environment.

WOM marketing - Let people to trust you by using other people’s voice. 
Also because of this, consumers don’t know whose voice to trust, so they tend to ask their friends and families’ circle for advices. Also, more importantly, they went to online communities to find answers either, to read the opinion from the experts and KOLs within the community. Word-of-mouth marketing is the best solution towards this problem. Use referral programs and encourage people to share on media channels with some incentives. Also, find out several KOLs in the related communities who hold most rallying points, and let them market for you.

Omni-channel - Identify what people want, and to build an omni-channel strategy to satisfy them. 
By the impact of Media convergence, people can expose to the information in various ways and channels from everywhere, mobile phone, website, or maybe from mobile phone to website. The goal is to predict and streamlining all possible touch points across all media channels and screens to create an exceptional customer experience. And this requires an omni-channel approach, so that companies can connect the dots and continue the customer journey under the messy and chaos environment media convergence created.

With these three recommendations in mind, CMOs can do a lot easier job in the age of media convergence.



Rachel Wang is a graduate student at Northwestern University studying Integrated marketing communications, who is very passionate about the media landscape and marketing tactics. In her free time, she loves to explore new trends about media and marketing to always stay alert and on track. Her dream is to be a future CMO in the FMCG industry. Feel free to connect her at LinkedIn and Twitter.