Dive Brief:

• The Salesforce "2016 State of Marketing Report" found that a majority (65%) of high-performing marketing teams have a customer journey-centric strategy with 88% describing that approach as critical to their success.
• Respondents agreed that ROI is important for email, social and digital channels. More than three-fourths reported that email (79%), social (75%) and mobile (77%) generate ROI. All three channels have seen year-over-year increases in the percentage of marketers generating ROI from those activities.
• Integrated multichannel digital marketing is also driving success. In fact, 95% of marketers who integrate email, social and mobile stating that integration is at least effective.

Dive Insight:

"The rise of the connected customer is forcing marketing to evolve from delivering outbound campaigns to managing personalized experiences that engage the customer from day one and guide them through a seamless journey with the brand," Scott McCorkle, CEO of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, said in a statement. 

The report also pointed to the importance of first-party data for personalization. Most (83%) high-performing marketers use that data – such as an email address or phone number – to segment or target digital advertising, and only 57% of underperforming marketers reported doing the same.

"The results of our research show that high-performing marketers that change their mindsets, tactics and technology to embrace a customer journey strategy will reap the benefits," McCorkle said.

Salesforce Chief Digital Evangelist Vala Apshar explained to Marketing Dive that what really stood out to them from the research is that high performers excel at collaboration, are willing to go where their customers are, and ultimately, are strong at building relationships.

"High performers have adopted a pull rather than push approach – they pull customers in by leveraging tech, data, creative, etc., to make sure everything they deliver is on point," Apshar explained, adding that by being "as cross-channel as your customers," these high performers are able to "go where the conversation is" and "deliver the right message at the right time on the right channel to the right persona."

The research included almost 4,000 marketers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, the Nordics, U.K. and the U.S. with respondents self-identifying as “high performing,” “moderate performing,” or “under performing.”