Over the past twenty years, I’ve had the privilege of speaking with marketers at companies big and small, some at the forefront of relationship marketing and others in the process of transformation. I’ve seen marketing evolve from “batch and blast” and a one-size-fits-all approach to more targeted, one-to-one messaging across channels. Advances in data management and technology have helped facilitate this shift, but many marketers have been slow to use these resources to their full advantage.
There are several challenges I’ve seen marketers face time and time again:
1. Effectively using data collected via marketing channels such as email, display, and social media, as well as demographics and overall descriptive analytics
Collecting enough insights on customers isn’t usually the challenge I’ve seen marketers face—they have everything from clicks and unsubscribes to bounces and conversions. Hoarding has been the big issue: many companies have data on-hand that’s irrelevant to their overarching goals. Marketers have to evaluate their business objectives and activate the information they have, as in, analyze and implement the data that supports their multi-channel marketing initiatives. For instance, they can personalize campaigns based on characteristics and behavior of specific audience segments—when and how they purchased, number of people in their household, average income, and so on.
2. Accurately attributing value to specific marketing channels
Having organizational silos and multiple marketing vendors/agencies can make it difficult to give the right amount of credit to digital, direct mail, or any other channels that drive a company’s customers to take action. Audiences have become increasingly fragmented and much to marketers’ chagrin, consumers don’t usually convert after just one stellar email or ad and instead take a cross-channel path to conversion. Quantifying the value of marketing touch points and allocating (often limited) resources appropriately can be tricky. A lack of coordination can create internal confusion and in the end, a disjointed experience for consumers. Various owners of the customer relationship have to collaborate in order to provide a seamless customer experience.
3. Denying that mobile is here to stay
Mobile isn’t going anywhere. Results from Yesmail’s email benchmark report show that mobile clicks accounted for 45% of all email clicks in Q1 2015, a 10% increase quarter-over-quarter. What’s more, mobile devices comprised nearly a quarter of email-generated revenue.
Do your customers have to pinch and zoom on their devices in just to read your messages? It’s better late than never to start catering to consumer device usage through responsive or at least scalable design. It’s important to embrace mobile since many consumers carry smartphones and tablets on them at all times—on their desk at work, in their pocket, etc.—so your brand is essentially always within arm’s reach. Is your marketing ready for the always-on customer?
Authored by Michael Fisher, President, Yes Lifecycle Marketing
Source:Yes Lifecycle Marketing
