What are the benefits of a silo? In farming, silos work. They stand alone to deliver one specific product: a type of grain. Different grains serve different purposes, so it's important to keep them separate. What does a silo mean in business? Let's find out.
What is Silo Marketing?
In business, especially marketing, the silo metaphor is not seen as a benefit, but rather a challenge. It is applied to organizations within departments, units and functions that lack the means or motivation to work in an integrated fashion. Sacrificing that collaboration puts the business, and its departments, at risk.
How Can Silo Marketing Impact a Business?
Silo marketing can reduce the efficiency and integrity of a company's communications. Sheer volume leaves each channel competing for consumers' attention. As a result, the impact of each message is diluted or silenced in the sea of other messages. In addition, departments and agencies working independently often resist sharing data. Silo marketing can lead to lost resources as separate teams perform the same tasks, such as developing similar ideas or conflicting campaigns.
Besides the lack of collaboration, there are many other challenges that stem from marketing silos, including disjointed customer experiences, misaligned messaging, and poorly planned brand strategies. Aligning the goals of marketing initiatives with the needs of your customers and clients is imperative.
Do you see the silos in your department?
It can be challenging to step back and identify where barriers need to be broken down. Marketing departments tend to be very segmented with both external and internal communications with agencies and within the business. Identifying the key pitfalls with silos and discovering what you can do to eliminate these obstacles is an important step on the path to success.
Here are some tips for different areas of your business:
Brand Vision
One of the most important marketing initiatives is to define and establish your brand. Unfortunately, with many different silos your brand is at risk of becoming diluted, or having no clear vision at all.
Lack of Collaboration
In marketing, there are many moving parts involved with each campaign, so collaboration is key. When teams don’t work together toward a common goal, the strategy will suffer. Another risk of the lack of collaboration is that some teams may be working toward the long-term strategy, while others are seeking short-term satisfaction. As a result, the short-term teams may damage the brand or the messaging in order to boost sales.
Consequences from the Top Down
As with any poor business practices, the origin of the problem usually starts from the top. Oftentimes, silos are the result of a disjointed leadership team. When teams decide not to share information with one another, it will cause long-term issues for the organization as a whole. It is essential to create effective and long-term solutions that are realistic or the organization.
When the data about all of the different aspects of a company’s digital marketing strategy is siloed within different tools, teams, and services, it is impossible to interpret and apply that information to make informed decisions about the strategy.
What can you do to remove silos in your marketing department? By using an inbound marketing company, you can break down the barriers in your company and create a seamless approach to marketing.
Establish a Unified Vision
Pitting the departments in your organization against one another with not end well for either team. It will jeopardize resources, productivity, and morale. Experts suggest facing the issue head on. Create a core understanding between executive leadership as well as larger teams. By eliminating the “my department” mentality and creating an organization where everyone works toward one goal, you set your business up for success.
Motivate with Teams
Incentivizing your employees is beneficial – if the structure is set up correctly. As we discussed previously, pitting departments against each other will only hurt the organization. Creating a goal structure that helps different departments set goals that intertwine with the larger mission of the organization is helpful.
Analyze Execution
While establishing goals is important, measuring them is just as crucial. The leadership team needs to establish a timeframe to work toward a common goal and then measure the success.
While eliminating silos is a large undertaking, it’s fundamental to the success of your marketing organization.
To learn more about how partnering with an inbound marketing agency can help you break down the barriers, check out our case study!
