I’ve been wondering if the PR role is slipping and if the growth in interactive marketing will make PR agencies largely irrelevant unless they diversify and get wise to online opportunities?

Forrester’s December 2010 US Interactive Marketing Online Executive Panel Survey showed that PR agencies held a respectable fourth place when it came to which agencies are helping with company/brand interactive marketing but the same survey also showed that 68% of marketers were working with at least two or more agencies for their interactive marketing needs (all competing for budgets and control no doubt).

In the 14 months since that survey took place Interactive Marketing has continued to mature and I wonder if the full service interactive agency is growing up and gaining control - leaving the PR agency behind at the kids table.

Why is PR at risk of losing their seat at the interactive table?

While I write frequently about the rise of the Chief Customer Officerwithin firms advanced enough in their customer experience efforts to consider this kind of executive position, I often get questions at a much more basic level, such as: Where do I get started? Often an individual may get mandate from an executive to spear-head creating a greater customer focus at the company.  For those, here are 7 steps for getting started:

1. Put together a cross functional work team of supporters. Getting involvement and buy-in from different functions across the organization is important…a working group can be a source of getting allies across the organization. Build a working group of 10-15 individuals who can help put together some foundational pieces of your customer experience effort. While having diverse functions represented on this group is important, more important at this stage are influential leaders who are put their budgets and reputations on the line in support of the effort. Look for supportive leaderswho are already actively supporting customer focused efforts or are willing to with some direction.   A great source of early supporters is the front line, where customer care and call center organizations interact regularly with customers. In addition to main marketing/branding, sales, support and operations organizations, others you may want to consider early on include market research or Customer Insights, IT, HR, and Legal/Compliance leaders.
    

When commerce platform initiatives kick-off the discussion naturally turns to commerce platforms, order management solutions, content management, search, and many, many other point solutions. Often the question of who will help integrate the solution is left for last. This is frequently a mistake.

In fact, selecting the right services firm can make or break your project, and therefore your business. As commerce programs that reach across customer touch-points get more complex and risky, the process of selecting a services provider has become increasingly critical to businesses' success or failure. Yesterday's relatively simple eCommerce projects have become today's customer experience, business, and technology transformation programs.

These programs are not simple, and require an investment in time, money, and resources. It is not a matter of just wiring up the commerce platform, but instead a whole set of business processes, systems, and strategies will also be impacted. And these skills and expertise are very difficult to keep on staff, requiring companies to supplement with external services providers. Companies now require a multi-disciplined vendor partner to guide decisions upon which rest millions of dollars of revenue, brand differentiation, customer satisfaction, and careers.

When revisiting our 2011 mobile trends, Julie Ask and I concluded that many, if not all, of them were still evolving and relevant. We have placed the main new trends for 2012 into four categories: business, ecosystem, consumer expectations, and technology.

Mobile Is A Key Business Strategy Enabler

Product strategists must work with other roles in the organization to:

• Develop a scalable approach to delivering mobile services. Organizations will need a strategic approach to building and spreading institutional knowledge as well as governance for the development of mobile services.
• Craft a mobile strategy that extends beyond phones. The emergence of tablets in particular will require a different approach than smartphones.
• Differentiate on the delivery rather than the content of mobile services. In 2012, “how” mobile services are delivered will differentiate them — not what they offer.