Marketing automation vendor's founder Phil Fernandez says marketing will become more data driven than ever, but CMOs need to be customer relationship leaders first and foremost
Marketing may have entered the golden age of data, but the future will be about software driving data and marketers acting as customer relationship navigators, Marketo’s founder and CEO claims.
During the opening keynote of the Marketo Marketing Nation conference in San Francisco, Phil Fernandez pronounced the era of mass media and planned email campaigns “dead” and said the future is about engaging and building trust with customers off the back of data.
But while it’s clear CMOs today have access to more data than ever before, diving into that growing pool of information isn’t going to be possible without technology and automation.
Fernandez pointed to self-driving cars as an analogy for what the future of data-driven marketing needs to look like. While there is a wealth of data behind the self-driving car, drivers aren’t trying to get their hands on it or understand what each data point tells them, he said.
“Drivers plug in the destination and let the car doing the driving,” Fernandez said. “We need to have that same role as marketers – with big data, machine learning, predictive analytics – and move to a world where we set the goals for our customers, then let the system figure out how to listen, what channel to listen on, how to make sense of what people are saying, how often to communicate with people, and what channel to communicate with people with.”
Modern marketers need to take a context-based approach and embrace “engagement marketing”, Fernandez said.
“The trouble with mass advertising is we have brought out the nuclear weapons at this point: We keep doing it, but it’s ringing false,” he commented. “We’ve taken the same ideas and put these onto the Web. This isn’t engagement or building a relationship, it’s just irritating customers.
“It will be a long death but this idea of trying to reach consumers by getting louder and more emotional just isn’t going to work.”
Fernandez explained engagement marketing as building long-term relationships based on trust. To do this, marketers need to listen and respond at “every arc of the customer lifecycle”, rather than try and draw their own map based on what they think customers will do, he said.
Modern marketing also isn’t just about securing a purchase, but renewing, upselling and upgrading.
“It’s not just about what we say but how, when, where we say it, and what the cadence is,” he said. “Today we still think about weekly lead nurturing campaigns, but in fact some people may want a lot of communication, or a combination of email and push mobile messages; some don’t want an email that often.
“We have to kill random acts of marketing. We still have to create compelling messages, but we have to come back to building relationships with customers and that takes time.”
Marketing with the Internet of Things
One emerging opportunity that could transform marketing further is the Internet of Things. Fernandez suggested connected devices like the Apple Watch, fitness trackers, digital thermostats and connected fridges are the new marketing channels.
“These will change content marketing,” he said. “Not everything is a conversation; it could just be a touch. Our mission as marketers is how to weave a journey and story across everything in our lives, and share our role with all of these devices and channels.”
This hyper-connected world could even see marketers putting personalised messages on a pill bottle for a particular consumer just as easily as sending an email today, Fernandez said.
“These new pallets are very exciting but requires significant change in way we organise marketing departments,” he warned. “We’ve been creating specialised marketing teams for mobile, social, but are you going to have specialists in pill bottles? We have to find different ways of doing this.
“It takes small steps... and will be more about smiles and winks along the way. We will have to design teams on arcs, not channels, then let the data do the driving.”
That requires a seamless experience regardless of platform or device, Fernandez said.
“None of us want different platforms in different parts of our lives. If we don’t create our marketing programs in context, it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard,” he said. “We’re in a world where there are no secrets and no brand can hide. You have to think about how to take customers to that level of trust, intimacy and advocacy.”
With customer relationships becoming the most important assets to an organisation, Fernandez added that puts the CMOs in a very powerful position.
“You know what makes the customers tick; and that’s very strategic information,” he said. “Our future as marketers is to be the store to the customer and hold the most powerful position in the c-suite.”
Nadia Cameron travelled to Marketo Marketing Nation as a guest of Marketo.
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO Australia conversation on LinkedIn: CMO Australia, join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia, or check us out on Google+: google.com/+CmoAu
In the third and final episode of our 3-part CMO50 video series exploring modern marketing and why it’s become a matter of trust, we’re delighted to be joined by Telstra’s former CMO and now digital services and sales executive, Jeremy Nicholas, and Adobe VP Marketing Asia-Pacific and Japan, Duncan Egan.
Flash back to the classic film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Television-obsessed Mike insists on becoming the first person to be ‘sent by Wonkavision’, dematerialising on one end, pixel by pixel, and materialising in another space. His cinematic dreams are realised thanks to rash decisions as he is shrunken down to fit the digital universe, followed by a trip to the taffy puller to return to normal size.
Why is it there is no shortage of leadership development materials, yet outstanding leadership is so rare? Despite having access to so many leadership principles, tools, systems and processes, why is it so hard to develop and improve as a leader?
As a nation united by sport, brands are beginning to learn money alone won’t talk without aligned values and action. If recent events with major leagues and their players have shown us anything, it’s the next generation of athletes are standing by what they believe in – and they won’t let their values be superseded by money.
