Most senior marketers will claim that an analytic based data-driven approach is table stakes. And they’re right. Marketers have access to more information than ever before to inform and improve the customer experience. And while being able to measure and analyze data is a keystone to effective strategy, there is a point at which being too reliant on data can hurt.
We’ve long known that social media is a deep data mine. It’s a space where (digitally speaking) communities gather, where people give of their personal information, and where companies can deepen their relationships with consumers through relevant content. That Facebook, our once favorite cat video- and baby photo-filled distraction from work, has become the central focus of election tampering signals a significant shift in our perception of social media as purely “social.” It is, in fact, a very powerful tool. Our CEO Michael Caccavale and I recently discussed this in more depth.
The key to developing profitable, long-term customer relationships is finding a way to personalize the customer experience. According to a study by Infosys, 70% of American consumers are encouraged to spend 13% more with companies that offer stand-out customer service. In response, marketing is increasingly moving away from mass, push-based marketing strategy to one that learns from and adapts to the consumer.
Nothing can fragment a marketing meeting like the subject of segmentation – and I don’t mean that in a good way. People are using market segmentation and customer segmentation interchangeably and while arguably one shouldn’t exist without the other, they are quite different and need to be treated as such.
The new Star Wars film is finally here, and a lot of folks are committed to watching the trilogy in preparation – because in order to know where you’re going, it’s good to remember where you’ve been.
Similarly, marketers have to the same thing this time of year. After months of grinding out holiday prep, the budgeting and planning process keeps us looking forward. But what happened in 2015 to get us here?
The changing seasons have many of us shifting – our wardrobe, our activities, our focus. The kids are back in school; we’re rounding third toward the end of the year and the colder weather forces us indoors to face the inevitable seasonal closet cleaning. While many of us agree that decluttering feels pretty rewarding, some are taking it to a whole new level.
In the age of ride shares and tiny houses, consumer behavior is changing. And as the upcoming generation is thinking mortgage/marriage/family a little later in life, this leaves a tremendous amount of space to fill. With what? Not things. Experiences.
We live in a multi-channel world. Consumers not only use more than one channel to make a purchase, they often use those channels simultaneously (checking online prices in stores, watching TV while browsing on their laptops) There are many factors that affect the quality of the cross channel experience. Externally, messaging, visuals, and functionality are all critical while internally marketers need to button up things like offer optimization, attribution modeling, and analytics.
Your customer walks in to the store to purchase a widget. Two scenarios could happen:
Scenario 1
The customer walks up to the register and the associate asks if they were able to find everything they were looking for. The customer says yes, pays and leaves.
Or...
Marketers have the opportunity to make smarter, better informed, more strategic decisions about the way they do business and allocate their budgets. That opportunity is a real one and it already exists as untapped potential within their organizations. Their data needs to start meaningfully contributing to the bottom line. Marketing data needs to get a job.
Consumers are connected to the brands they use in more ways than we could have imagined just five years ago. Today, consumers are reaching out to the brands, and no longer wait for brand initiated conversations.
