For today’s digital marketer, being tempted by the latest marketing technology tool or platform could have dangerous repercussions, both to customer engagement and the company bottom line.
In addition, a CMO should be demanding transparency from their partners, says Rakuten Marketing Australia’s managing director, Anthony Capano.
“There are a lot of emerging technologies entering the Australian market – some are good, but others are falling short of the mark,” he claims. “Testing should always be considered. However, the best way to avoid long-term budget impact is to ensure partners that are selected allow real-time reporting and visibility into results in order to track true ROI.”
Capano also recommends marketers introduce an attribution solution that can break down the customer journey from offline to online, and from first to last click.
“Investing in attribution is all about using data to determine the true value of marketing campaigns and will help CMOs understand the various touchpoints used throughout the path to purchase,” he says.
“Attribution models are great for the bottom line of any business, as they accurately assign value to each channel that plays a role in the customer journey, whether that’s through an affiliate link, display ad, social networks, or SEO. Leveraging this data allows marketers to be more astute with their strategies and budgets, ultimately producing better results.”
According to Capano, technology that can be tracked and convert across devices will be crucial. Again, that requires attribution models that provide a holistic view into digital activity.
“What will also be a trend in 2016 is actually understanding the touchpoints beyond digital channels, and therefore integrating offline customer journeys with online,” he says. “This is to ensure we don’t ignore offline channels when assessing overall campaign and channel performance.”
Experts agree that in order to avoid being distracted by the latest tech fad, it’s important to be clear on your core business strategy so you’re aligning your marketing tech efforts appropriately.
“It all really evolves around the customer and you understanding how you want to interact with them,” Stagnaro says. “From the time you’re trying to attract them, to the time they are interacting with you in the sales process, to the time you’re deploying a service or solution with them.”
As a result, marketers needs to align programs and technologies around finding out how to smooth out interactions with the customer. This means having systems that support customers throughout the entire journey, as well as ensuring everybody in the organisation understands who that customer is, she says. It’s also about capturing all those key pieces of information that can serve the customer well.
“You need to think about all the places your customer wants to interact with you and your brand – and where you’re going to have the most impact,” Stagnaro adds. “It is critical to respond to customers quickly in the digital age. In fact, there was an MIT study that said firms that contact the customer within the hour are seven times as likely to qualify them, as someone who responds an hour later.
“Time is of the essence and you need to have the systems in place to allow you to get the marketing systems and sales systems to work in concert. Teams need to function as cohesive units with the technology supporting those real-time turnarounds.”
Forrester’s Teo adds CMOs should take a good look at how they can better engage with their customer through contextual marketing.
“Contextual marketing is about having a continuous cycle of interaction with customers on every touch point of the customers' journey,” he says. “You need to build a deeper engagement with them guide them to the best interaction with your company.”
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