Ask Impact: Managed Marketing and IT Collaboration

While each of Impact’s managed services owns their own set of solutions, sometimes, members of these teams come together to tackle complex projects for customers. Two of the teams who regularly work together are the IT and marketing teams, and in this video, two representatives of these teams sit down to explain what they do and why customers should consider multi-service projects.

Full Video Transcript

MH: Hello. My name is Matt Hale, and I am a Design and Marking Specialist from Impact Networking.

CZ: And I’m Cory Zwickel, one of the Managed IT District Managers.

MH: Today, we’re going to be answering some questions. Cory, how do Impact’s Managed Marketing and IT teams collaborate?

CZ: I think it all starts with proactivity, right? Having conversations before we know we have to have a conversation. So part of the Managed IT offering is a vCIO service. They become a part of the leadership within the organizations we partner with,

so being able to take that information from those meetings and immediately engage with an ES99 team member to talk about future needs that the organization is already talking about, that’s gonna be one of the biggest ways we focus on it.

MH: Perfect.

CZ: So, Matt, what are some of the challenges that we face when it comes to cross department communication?

MH: Well, I think with everything, in relationships and in business, it’s communication, and communication that, I think, is a challenge is because people don’t understand the tone and the messaging that someone else may have, so I think it’s really important to, you know, like you said, hop on those Teams calls to have that face-to-face communication, to really understand what someone means when they ask the question.

MH: Okay, Cory, what benefits do clients get from these team collaborations?

CZ: I think it’s the holistic approach that we take at Impact. The conversations, they’re never coming from just one side of the spectrum. We want to include the marketing team and the ES99 leadership into the conversations about projects we’re doing for IT because they might interface with some of the marketing campaigns that they have.

MH: At the end of the day, you know, the client is first.

CZ: Yeah.

MH: And so, any way that we can provide value or benefit to the client, the better.

CZ: Yeah. Matt, what are some of the examples of products or solutions that have come out of the partnering of ES99 and Impact’s Managed IT department?

 

MH: There’s a lot of things. I would say the biggest one would be Purple AI. And Purple essentially is a tool that sits on top of the Wi-Fi that gives predictive analysis and data for the customers who are on that Wi-Fi network; that not only helps the marketing department be able to market to customers in the specific venue better, but it also provides a better experience for those customers within that venue.

CZ: Yeah, it’s all about the customer experience.

MH: How do sales specialists from these teams work together throughout the process, Cory?

CZ: It all starts at the beginning. Our entire process at Impact is to do an assessment to understand the needs of the organization, and that’s where our collaboration starts. Before we even get to that step, we’re meeting on a weekly basis in the offices to talk about active assessments and conversations we’ve had with prospects, being able to bring people in that have a different point of view before that contract conversation even starts, That’s exactly where we have all of our strengths.

MH: Perfect.

CZ: Looking at it from a marketing standpoint, what are some tips that you can offer for creating more successful collaboration between IT and marketing?

MH: I think it goes back to communication. You know, as much, as often as we can communicate among our teams to provide the most value to our clients, the better, because our clients are number one, and if we look at it in a selfish point of view, then the client’s gonna fail, which ultimately gives us a bad brand, right? And we don’t want that, so I think first and foremost, client focus and communicate on a regular basis so that we have their needs in mind first.

MH: This has been great, Cory. Really like the suit as much as I like your presence. Thank you so much for joining me and answering some of these questions for me.

CZ: I couldn’t agree with you more, Matt. It’s always good to hear the marketing side of things here at Impact. This has been Ask Impact.

 

About Ask Impact
The Ask Impact series brings together members of the Impact team to talk about our services, areas of expertise and what goes into working at our growing company. Watch the full series here.

This video features Cory Zwickel, MIT District Manager, and Matt Hale, Design and Marketing Specialist, in Indianapolis, IN.