It’s always shocking to find that a major retail brand doesn’t have a mobile app. Meanwhile, it’s equally stunning when a small business has built a killer mobile experience for its customers.

But when you understand the role omnichannel plays for retail and other major industries, the shortcomings of the big-box retailer are much more confounding than the smaller company’s assertiveness in building a better mobile presence.

How do you describe marketing mistakes? Just ask five marketing experts and you’ll hear at least 50 examples of what people do to mess up their marketing programs.

So much about marketing depends on your product or service. While every industry is different, there are some basics that apply to all industries.  Often a given error is not about the tactic, but about the implementation.

As marketers, we constantly strive to improve our results. And when it comes to learning – and proving – efficacy, something as simple as A/B testing is paramount. A/B testing, the process of using two versions of a marketing piece (web page, email, etc.) to see which one performs better, offers us the ability to tweak very small details in our programs to see incrementally larger results. But, like many marketing strategies, A/B testing can provide mixed, or even inaccurate results if not properly executed.

Retail and ecommerce companies are at a crossroads. Many storefront retailers are realizing their growth limitations as locations shut their doors. Companies that once saw omnichannel retailing as a “nice to have” marketing strategy now realize its critical importance to survival.

Challenges to overcome in moving to an interactive marketing model

There are several key movements in the marketing technology are that are driving solutions today. One is the proliferation of web-based marketing tools. Many vendors have developed or are developing tools in the personalization, ad management, web measurement, e-marketing, and campaign management areas. These tools have significant overlap, often solve a tactical short-term problem, and don’t provide support for the entire marketing process – thereby falling short of improving the bottom line. This generates significant confusion in the industry and leads organizations down a solution path that might lock out future business alternatives.

Overview

This three-part series explores various attempts to exploit interactive marketing techniques, defines interactive marketing, and investigates how this new marketing technique recognizes the customer’s role in the customer-company relationship. Part 1 can be found here.

Overview

This three-part series explores various attempts to exploit interactive marketing techniques, defines interactive marketing, and investigates how this new marketing technique recognizes the customer’s role in the customer-company relationship. The article explores the risks and challenges in shifting the organization, process, and technologies to support interactive marketing, yet outlines several strategies for achieving this transformation and the resulting benefits.

When I meet with a client, one of the first questions I ask is, “Is your current focus on online data, offline data, or both?” Understanding how a company looks at online data (or offline data) is helpful in determining not only their core competencies but where the opportunity is to help them fill any “gaps” to ensure that the organization is able to meet its goals. 

Don’t come to me with vanity metrics. I won’t listen to you. Whether you’re on my team and giving me a program update or a vendor trying to sell me something, I won’t be impressed by inflated metrics or data that doesn’t tell a story. And most CEO’s won’t settle for it, either.

Amazon’s Echo and its competitors were at the top of shopping lists this holiday season. And now, social media is buzzing with videos of mishaps and rants from frustrated parents whose kids are ordering expensive toys by voice demand. But if you get past the giant teddy bears in your living room, Echo and other IoT devices carry an important reminder for marketers: know your customer.