In this webinar we will be delving into the state of cross-channel marketing today. The key focus will be on the main challenges companies and marketers currently face and how they can overcome them.
Drawing on insights from Experian's 2015 global survey of over 1,000 digital marketers worldwide, this webinar will explain and showcase some of the key findings as presented in the recently released 2015 Digital Marketer Report.
Concentrating on how the report's findings can help you unlock your cross-channel marketing potential, the content of this webinar will provide key and actionable advice on how you can ensure your brand stays ahead of the competition.
To download the report visit experian.co.uk/digital-marketer-report-2015
Experian Marketing Services intelligently brings brands and customers closer together through the world’s most flexible and comprehensive cloud-based marketing platform. Built from the ground-up leveraging 30 years of data-driven global marketing expertise, the Experian Marketing Suite helps leading brands identify customers across channels, optimize every interaction with them and engage with customers in an intelligent manner across the most appropriate touch points.
James Introduces himself and explains the role of Experian Marketing Services and his specific team – thereby establishing himself as someone who really knows his stuff.
A few examples of why cross-channel marketing is important. Highlighted by some consumer recognisable examples (anecdotal) of when it has gone wrong.
Mostly around not understanding behaviour.
We are coming up to our anniversary and this year I decide to ensure that I don’t forget it like last year and instead really impress my other half. I have been browsing online and found some perfect jewellery to impress her with. After a bit of research I select the item I want and place an order through Amazon.
Continuing my browsing I see that the Digital Advertising has picked up my intent and the cookie dropped on my machine is now triggering advertising on affiliate websites such as the Guardian and Facebook. Unfortunately my wife, who is at home browsing on our family iPad, is also getting the same advertising and is wondering why her Facebook feed is now full of adverts for expensive necklaces.
Even worse, later the next day I receive an offer for the same jewellery range that I have just purchased. I’m now in trouble with the wife and upset that the brand didn’t offer me the 20% discount when I purchased the necklace.
If we look at what’s happened here, we’ve interacted with the brand through several distinct channels. The brand website, 3rd party sites and an affiliate partner (amazon). In each case the systems in place are working absolutely as designed, they are detecting my intent through my browsing habits, targeting relevant advertising at me and facilitating the sale. Unfortunately they are all doing this independantly.
What should have happened is that during the purchase cycle the system should recognise that I’m a first time buyer and offer me the discount, before the purchase it should remind me of my intent and after the purchase it should focus me on either related products or scrub me from the target list for that product.
Jewellery example
A husband searches online on the shared desktop to buy a gift for his wife.
He then receives retargeting and advertising for similar products – when he is not the target audience
His wife sees retargeting and/or follow up comms and either
A) knows what her husband has bought her (it may have been a surprise)
B) thinks husband is having an affair
Shopping retargeting example – there are plenty of examples in the retail sector
After making a purchase you receive an email communicating the latest deals – one of which is the product you just purchased at a cheaper deal than you were offered.
After making a one off or infrequent purchase (say mobile phone cover) you are retargeted with adverts for more phone covers – how many do you need?
You receive a text message telling you about a deal but when you visit the website you can’t see it
We understand that brands aren’t going to achieve true customer-centricity overnight. For your brand, this is a journey, and every journey begins with where you are today.
We’ve developed a methodology and framework to help you get you from where you are today to achieve that customer-centric vision. We call this our Marketing Sophistication CurveS.
As both a tool and framework, the curve enables organisations to assess the state of their marketing operations accurately and identify the steps necessary for creating individual marketing experiences around the customer. While it’s important to begin with the end in mind, the first step is recognising the need for change with the organisation. The curve offers marketers help with the first critical step in that process: an understanding of where they are today and what they need to do tomorrow and beyond.
From what we’re seeing, 90 percent of marketers struggle to move beyond single-channel marketing programmes to optimize their marketing across channels or around the customer.
The cross-channel reality is that messages aren’t coordinated. According to our recent state of cross-channel marketing report, only 4 percent of brands have an integrated customer journey across channels.
A staggering 67% admit that their marketing is siloed.
A Forrester study revealed that the reality is mostly email +
These are the top five channel pairings marketers are integrating today. Even the highest combination is still only integrated by just over half of marketers.
But in today’s new landscape, customers don’t just want a great experience – they expect it.
So the key to true cross-channel success and creating intelligent interactions with your customer every time, is customer centricity.
Based on the reality of what we’re seeing we wanted to dive in deeper to see what challenges were holding marketers back from creating customer centric organizations, and orchestrating cross-channel campaigns. We also wanted to look at the priorities of the year ahead to see where senior leaders plan to focus.
We surveyed more than 1,000 marketers from around the globe and this is what we learned…
These top barriers have not changed much compared to last year, which isn’t surprising as they are difficult issues to overcome and marketers are likely still working through them.
The biggest shift we saw is that data linkage moved from the fourth position to the top of the list.
And this is the first key to unlocking your cross-channel marketing potential.
Marketers must be able to identify customers regardless of channel or device.
This Single Customer View is imperative because identifying your customers through every single interaction they have with your brand is the only way to take control of their journeys and ensure your are providing a positive cross channel experience.
Having accurate, enriched data linked together in a central location for a complete customer view that can be executed on to meet the company’s goals is required in order to commit to your customers.
And while 99% of companies understand this is important to their business, only 24% of companies say they have a single customer view today.
Without this they cannot be a truly customer centric organisation.
Marketers must be able to identify customers regardless of channel or device.
Having accurate, enriched data linked together in a central location for a complete customer view that can be executed on to meet the company’s goals is required in order to commit to your customers.
And while 99% of companies understand this is important to their business, only 24% of companies say they have a single customer view today.
Without this they cannot be a truly customer centric organization.
The key challenges that have arisen are all to do with the difficulty of managing campaigns across channels.
Only 35% of marketers around the globe report working on fully integrated marketing teams, meaning 65% work on teams that are at least somewhat broken out by channel. This siloed structur.
While integrating marketing teams is not the only structural challenge marketers need to conquer, it is certainly indicative of greater organisational issues at play. If the marketing department itself is not aligned around the customer, it would be a stretch to imagine that the organisation as a whole is so aligned.
Which makes breaking down these silos our 2nd key to unlocking your cross-channel potential.
Often times if teams aren’t aligned, neither is data or technology. Groups might be working with disparate partners and technology, and have their data in multiple systems that don’t integrate with one another.
If organisations can break down silos they’ll be in a better position to meet the demands of the cross multi-channel consumer.
Remember, siloed departments and the inability to link different technologies were top challenges to creating a single customer view. And that complete view in a central place is what allows data to be actioned on in a way that can meet the company’s goals.
This is an example of two customers who bought the same product (in this instance a new mobile phone).
two customers may look identical from a behavioural perspective. Yet when a high definition profile of each customer is revealed, two very distinct profiles emerge.
These two customers are clearly different, and though they purchased the same product, the brand will want to tailor future communications very differently if it hopes to retain both as loyal customers.
In the era of the multi-channel consumer, the purchase funnel is gone, replaced by surround-sound purchase opportunities where the consumer gets to choose how, when and where he or she wants to discover, learn about and purchase products and services.
In fact, the majority of today’s consumers use more than four different devices on a daily basis.
That makes the job of maintaining relevant and effective communications with customers exponentially difficult, yet many marketers still run campaigns channel by channel, as if nothing has changed. As a result, marketers increasingly find themselves either speaking when no one is listening or speaking in a disjointed manner.
Which leads us to our third key. Marketing automation, or using the most appropriate technology to orchestrate and manage timely customer interactions.
When we asked senior marketers about their biggest challenges and priorities as leaders we found things like branding, customer acquisition, profiling and data top their lists of challenges. For the most part those challenges fuel the top priorities, but there are some discrepancies to note.
For one, marketing automation – 5th for challenges – overtakes customer acquisition into the 3rd spot in terms of priorities.
The good news is that senior leaders realise the requirement to provide exceptional customer interactions, and that the right technology facilitates every part of the process from data collection and management, to attribution, to execution.
The not-so-good news is that data linkage is 4th for challenges but moves to the 6th position in the list of priorities.
We caution marketers not to lose sight of that first key – data linkage. Without accurate, enriched data, brands won’t be able to successfully execute on the other items listed as higher priorities. Intelligent interactions are powered by data.
And the way to do that is with the three keys we’ve outlined.
Identify your customer. Again, marketers need that single customer view. They must be able to identify their customers regardless of device or channel so they can create intelligent interactions. It’s the only way they can avoid costly mistakes like the camera company and build loyalty and advocacy with their customers.
Create cross-channel teams. Customers don’t care that an email team is separate from their mobile team. They want a consistent experience as they interact with a brand – again no matter what channel or device they prefer.
Operate campaigns from a single loaction/platform. And last, but certainly not least, all marketing activities need to be managed from a central location. Disparate data centers, partners and technologies make it impossible for marketers to put the customer at the center of their strategy. They won’t be able to track what’s working and what’s not and will have a difficult time optimising interactions at all, let alone in real time.
The transition to cross-channel marketing is a long and potentially complicated one. Yet it needs to be done.