When a rider wins, most focus on his driving skills or the capabilities of the car; or both. But in fact, the race is won or lost thanks to a large team, hard work which ensures the safety and success of the driver. Engineers, meteorologists, technologists, crew chief, tire carriers, tire fitters, doctors, coaches, and many others. Like any team working on a common goal, all these people need cooperation and well-built communication. It is often overlooked that the success of teams is not achieved by individuals, but is the result of the effective collaboration of several people working in unison.

The same can be said about cross-channel marketing teams. It's easy to focus on the end result — providing an excellent user experience with an interface that manages engagement, conversions, and revenue, but more importantly, actually - something that is sometimes downplayed or underestimated — the team behind building that interaction.

At a recent Adobe summit in Las Vegas, Bruce Swann (senior product marketing Manager at Adobe Campaign) and Tony Arbelaez (senior email marketing Manager at Expedia Group) talked about how they formed a powerful cross-channel marketing team to support the Travelocity brand. Teamwork is critical in Travelocity. According to Tony: "each member of this team depends on each other, it concerns clear business communication, schedules of launching campaigns and audience segmentation."(“Our team relations on each other to communicate clear business rules, campaign delivery schedules, and audience segmentation.)

In their speech at the Summit (Optimizing Your Team for Cross-Channel Marketing), Tony and Bruce identified 5 key roles that are usually underestimated, and explained why they are so valuable and how you can support them.

• The operator of the database in the first place, he is responsible for the collection of proposals, maintenance of profile, promotion users and collection of responses via email, for your records. It also helps maintain and improve the data architecture in Adobe Campaign, create new tables/schemas, extend existing schemas, and create import/export workflows.

• Campaign developer is primarily responsible for the overall operations of Adobe Campaign, which includes maintaining a database of Adobe Campaign, development of email content and the development of new campaigns and workflows. The skill set should include strong analytical skills, JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.

• Content Manager - is responsible for providing legal assurance of the terms and conditions and General email communications that include topics, text content, and images. The content Manager works closely with the design team to ensure that the same brand style is maintained in the various proposals to be sent by email.

• Campaign Manager - the main campaign planner, including for all merchandising emails. It creates different test scenarios for the continuous growth of campaign performance. He is also a Manager to communicate with all contractors who are associated with the creation of e-mail content.

• Strategic analyst - he/she is responsible for the weekly analysis of campaign effectiveness-measurement of user reaction data of each campaign (transitions, clicks, unsubscriptions) regarding forecasts and trends. It closely follows the content tests and the most effective content to the campaign Manager and developers to make changes.

For high-level campaigns to function, collaboration is essential. Well-established communication of the right team allows you to plan and run campaigns at times faster and more efficiently, thanks to communication and cooperation.

In addition to the main functions, there are also non-statutory recommendations for the team to work at a high level. For example, you should take into account the personal qualities of team members, such as the ability to analyze and solve problems on their own, effectively cooperate and communicate with others, project management experience.

In addition, marketers should determine their readiness for cross-channel marketing by assessing the status of their core business, in order to understand whether they are ready to adopt and develop new campaign strategies. When they are ready, they will be able to use the campaign management tool to improve customer service.

Finally, marketers should consider the importance of organizational design, there Are three considerations at the expense: the organization should take into account the advantages of the cross-channel center, all teams of experts are divided into professional areas that create, disseminate and standardize specific skills across the company. This approach will help to share results and knowledge between teams, as well as increase the capacity of each team member. Cross-engagement teams are inspired when an organization is working on improving the customer's user path, resorting to a collaboration of internal interaction performers in different parts of the path. A flexible approach is useful when there are cross-functional modules focused on individual projects that support a larger business goal and work using agile methodologies.

With the constant speed of changes in marketing, those marketers who see changes in processes, technologies or trends as opportunities for their business development, rather than as separate processes that need to be managed, are likely to succeed.

Using this approach means understanding the set of skills, technologies, and goals of your organization, as well as how they affect each other. Create a team that has a different set of skills, that You trust and that you prefer to communicate well. This optimizes your team and helps you start achieving your most sought after goals.

Translation and adaptation of Bruce Swann article.