Despite the challenges of the past 12 months, marketers have yet again proven their incredible ability to adapt to an ever-shifting consumer landscape. Their resiliency has seen them meet rapidly changing expectations, all while continuing to innovate.
In order to track these changes, Salesforce has curated an ebook filled with insights and best practices from marketing leaders and experts around Australia and New Zealand. The following provides a small taster of what’s inside.
Personalisation and real-time engagement
The modern customer has high expectations about the types of experiences they want when engaging with businesses. In a world where practically anything can be completed at the tap of a button, marketers must both meet and exceed the unique needs of their customers.
While digital channels such as chat-bots are improving all the time, it’s important not to forget the more ‘human’ side of the customer journey, says MYOB’s head of marketing and digital, Jane Betschel: “Make it a priority to learn when and why your customers are likely to seek out certain types of information in different channels, and then leverage that knowledge to support campaign activities.”
Creating cohesive customer journeys across channels and devices
Creating a frictionless customer journey is easier said than done, with journeys rarely taking place in straight lines. The success of marketing campaigns depends so much on making sure the right message is getting in front of the right person at the right time. However, when customers are constantly switching between devices, and researching both online and offline, it can be tricky to keep up.
It’s critical that marketers appeal to personal tastes and buying habits, but also acknowledge that tastes can be incredibly nuanced, says Ezra Mcinnes, managing director, The Wine Group. “To start, pick some buckets that unite the most people in your customer base. For us, it’s as simple as red wine drinkers versus white wine drinkers. Identify the most successful paths taken by customers in those large data segments, and then dig into the key factors that make those pathways so influential to further refine your customer journeys.”
Improving ROI, attribution and reporting
After the confusion and disruption of the pandemic, marketers are realising the true value of trusty, reliable data. Marketers of today must go beyond qualitative insights or ‘gut feelings’, and instead unpack their business’s hard data via quantitative analysis.
In order to complete strong attribution and reporting, marketers must have a deep understanding of what’s driving certain shifts in behaviour. As Justin Papps, partner, head of CMO Advisory, PwC, explains: “The consumer, more than ever, is in the driver’s seat. They’ll decide where they spend their time, what they’re prepared to pay for and what data they’re prepared to share to get their services. The more complex the ecosystem becomes, the smarter the marketer needs to be by blending experience, insight and analytics to drive the best outcome.”
When it comes to better understanding the customer, it pays to keep the barrier to entry low, as Destined’s Tammy Begley tells Salesforce: “In-platform form fills and interactive emails can immediately improve lead-conversion rates as people can complete tasks without having to leave the comfort of their inbox or current platform. In the backend, marketing teams can gain greater demographic insights and activity attributions as everything is centralised.”
Customer data, identity resolution and building audiences
Big data is a big responsibility, and both collection and analysis shouldn’t be taken lightly. Data is the foundation on which you can build anything – as long as you don’t let it pile up in unopened, unloved spreadsheets.
In order to keep data clean and usable, marketers need to have a strong focus on first-party data from real customers, as WPP AUNZ’s chief strategy officer Rose Herceg makes clear: “The only data that matters is clean, real-opt-in data. Keep asking. If they say yes, then you can slowly build some idea of your audience.”
To read all 50 insights from Salesforce’s latest eBook, click here to download today.
Salesforce 50 Pro Marketing Tips for 2021, eBook