Digital marketers using data in ‘rear view mirror’ and failing to keep track of customers
A lack of skills, a failure to track consumers and using data in a retrospective rather than forward-thinking way is holding back Australia’s digital marketing industry, according to an ongoing study.
Despite leading the way in Asia Pacific in the adoption of digital, Australian marketers have been told there “is still a way to go” before they unearth its true potential, according the CMO Council’s third annual APAC Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard, produced in association with Adobe.
“We are finding that key areas of digital marketing are progressing and improving. Leadership is embracing digital marketing and we are stepping out of that sense that everything is in testing and piloting,” said Liz Miller, CMO Council vice-president of marketing programs and operations. “They are seeing it as a key channel not just from a competitive advantage viewpoint but also engagement.”
Locally, 52 per cent of chief marketing officers own the digital marketing strategy, compared with only 39 per cent across Asia Pacific, while 62 per cent of Australian firms have a “digital champion” on the leadership team, well above the regional average of 38 per cent.
The study also found that more than eight out of 10 Australian marketers cite engagement as a key driver in the adoption of digital, compared with just 58 per cent in Asia Pacific.
“Part of the reason is that customers are “setting the pace” and are “expecting digital experiences” meaning the industry has no option but to follow, she said.
But while progress is being made, there remain barriers that are holding back the development of digital, Miller said
“Digital now needs to connect fully and integrate completely with social and mobile, that’s a big issue. People do not engage with channels, they engage with brands yet we construct all of our campaigns for customers to engage by channel,” she told Mumbrella.
“We are beginning to see that the customer is now defining where and when they begin their relationship, which is a very different scenario for us. We used to have this naïve belief that because we sent out an email, that started the relationship.
“We are no longer living in a world in which we can kid ourselves that the customer journey is a linear function. Every customer chooses to start and stop and progress their own personal journey. There are lots of different entry points but we still believe that the customer journey is linear because we decide it to be so.”
Too many organisations still operate their digital marketing in isolation from each other, Miller added, describing marketers as “amazing silo builders”.
“It’s a mindset. We have built up all these silos – we are amazing silo builders – where we’ve got an email person, a social person, someone in mobile. And then we have a mobile SMS person, a mobile app person. We create all these buckets but the problem is customers don’t engage with buckets, they engage with brands.
“What we have set up for our customer forces them to reintroduce themselves to us every time they pick a new channel to engage. It’s like walking into a party and reintroducing yourself every time you meet the host. Who wants to do that?
“We have created these experiences where we are telling the customer quite actively that we don’t care about our total relationship, we only care about this moment in time.”
The lack of skills also remains a hindrance with the talent gap “huge” in Asia Pacific and “better but not great in Australia”. Miller cited anecdotes suggesting the skills shortage in Australia is growing “because people who are really good are leaving to go to the US to get to where the action is”.
“Companies are either having to upskill or import talent and it’s costly not matter how you slice that.”
Many firms in Asia Pacific have brought in agencies to plug the skills gap but a habit of “asking the wrong questions” is causing friction.
“What we are finding is that marketers think the agency is filling a strategic void but the agents think they are there to fill a tactical void,” Miller said. “They both end up disappointed because we are asking the wrong questions. It is one of the traps that Australia hopefully won’t get caught in.”
Miller said one of the biggest issues is that data is not being used correctly, revealing that only 7 per cent of marketers believe data can provide a competitive differentiation for their organisation.
“It’s largely because the majority of marketers across Asia Pacific and certainty the majority of marketers across Australia believe that data should be utilised to report on KPI,” she said. “We are justifying what we already buy. That mindset really just forces you to only see marketing through a rear view mirror whereas data should be used to provide information on future spend.
“We are not using data to progressively improve a lifecycle of the customer. We are not saying, ok, I am going to continue to improve the campaign over the customer’s lifecycle. Marketers are lasered into focusing on a moment in time.
“When they are collecting all this data they are collecting campaign data. We are collecting click throughs, likes, web metrics, things that we use to justify campaigns success instead of using data to better understand our key customer segments, to be able to engage and deliver exactly the experiences the customer is expecting.”
Steve Jones
Liz has hit the nail on the head – data is so much more valuable when it’s actionable, rather than just a success indicator! http://bit.ly/1i7EeD9
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As a baby boomer who has been involved in the challenge of retailing for around 40 years, I cannot understand the resources being put in to attempting to maintaining a life long relationships with customers.
We are a nation of retailers and by default price discounters. Most customers only care what’s in in for them at the time of purchase, very few now ever shop at just one location and the primary driver for any sale is the consumer believing they are getting a a fair deal at the time for the product they are looking at purchasing. ,
Serve each of your you customers well, tell them the truth and respect them.
I would challenge this statement
“We have created these experiences where we are telling the customer quite actively that we don’t care about our total relationship, we only care about this moment in time.”
and say that it is the consumer that only cares about this moment in time.
Remember this, as at a local level, we will never have enough marketing funds individually to change this
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How many Aussie FB pages, Twitter accounts, LinkedIN accounts, blogs, email campaigns would make it compared with the rest of the world like USA, Canada, Europe, HK, Singapore, India? Not many though ScienceAlert is one of the good ones from Australia under FB. BuzzSumo is 1 tool which would show that (content marketing connected to social networks and apps like MailChimp). How many are actually good at integrated and cross channel marketing? Again, not many. Like getting conversions from social or search to websites (not just using for engagement) and that includes using a Welcome Page on FB connected to the homepage or even other social media platforms. Another way is to have an About Page on FB connected to the main links under the website. Brings about more interaction with people that brings about leads and contacts. How many connect it to CRM platforms or other cloud platforms? How many use integrated analytics? How many individuals even do their own branding? Real estate agents, doctors and other health professionals, teachers, etc aren’t just ranked but their content is shared with clients and customers via social media platforms and blogs (Zillow, realestate.com.au, Trulia, healthgrades.com, webmd are just few examples) and all of them are into personal branding which helps them in becoming influencers or authorities on sites. Don’t have to a big shot to become these but do need to do marketing/branding/PR/advertising well. NOTE:Outbound marketing/PR/advertising isn’t the same as inbound and integrated and cross channel marketing/PR/advertising as not enough with creativity and yapping as need IT, analytical, journalistic and strategic skills that come out of analytics as well.
90 to 99% of Aussie businesses are SMEs (McCrindle Research) which is why Australia’s a small business nation. How many of them even have a website let alone other things? Not many as can be seen under the directory under the small business forum Flying Solo or http://www.abpd.com.au/ etc.
Twitter is more used for authorities but how many are there from Australia? Not many which both Wefollow and Buzz Sumo would show though there are many other tools to show those.
How many LinkedIN influencers exist from Australia? Again not many + how many influencers on other social platforms or even apps like email marketing? Again, not many and BuzzSumo is 1 of the tools that would show that.
And anyway, if you look at it, Alexa too would show that Australia doesn’t rank well and same goes with Social Bakers. And if one wants to look at brands, well, can look at brandirectory.com of Brand Finance or Interbrand of Omnicom or BrandZ of WPP, again there Australia ranks low. Can also have a look at WORLD LEADING START-UPS – again Australia is down – startupranking.com. Atlassian the 2nd best from Australia has already headed for UK just like many of the innovative firms from Australia.
The other good tools to use are Moz, SEMRush, Netvibes, Hootsuite, Hshtags, SocialMention, Google Analytics, ClickTale or CrazyEgg (heatmaps as Google Analytics isn’t enough), Salesforce, etc.
https://www.facebook.com/BondRealEstate is 1 good example for FB page for CONVERSIONS though not the best.
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4 webinars that might interest all and which are interconnected. 1st by Futorologist and Marketing Consultant would show-Embrace Change and Get Things Going(http://mediacontent.sitecore.n.....2099166001). Four key points there are Speed, Individualism (H2H), Simplicity (like smart phones-Steve Jobs came out with it as a phone but it’s more than a phone) and Connectivity including cross channel marketing/PR and integrated marketing/PR.
2nd, connected to the previous 1 is https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/5910/119203 (The CMO + Technology Connection). It shows the specifics in integrating the different apps through platforms and the need to use strategies (and that includes couple of landscapes including Marketing Technology Landscape as well as the fact that there are more than 1600+ apps out there within this area). It also shows the need of senior management and leaders coming together to make those strategies including for choosing right tools including integration which also involves both CIO and CMO. And it also shows that these steps are necessary as customers these days are definitely the kings and so to know their needs, it must be even more personalised by using analytics and intelligence (As previous webinar showed, B2B and B2C are out and now it’s H2H). If you need to login to watch it, go ahead as it’s free and they have loads more webinars there for free.
3rd, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9uxjNduZaA which was put up in 2013 and has been under YouTube since then – “The Future of Digital Marketing Services: Where Will Agencies be in 2014?” – shows a couple of ways of how Integrated and Cross Channel Marketing can be done.
4th, https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/11575/125963 – Video Guide: Creating Killer Marketing Content shows how an organisation can get buyer or seller persona through surveys via FB, Websites, Blogs, etc using Cross Channel Marketing (as mentioned in the above message-can have a separate section for Welcome, About Us, Surveys, etc under various social networking platforms and apps including MailChimp which is again a cloud platform and 2nd, 3rd and 4th webinars are of course interlinked a lot to each other as well as to the 1st webinar) and use that for killer marketing though that’s just tip for getting killer content as there are loads more to do for it including reading, researching and analysing a lot for each app, platform, etc.
NOTE:Outbound marketing/PR/advertising isn’t the same as inbound and integrated and cross channel marketing/PR/advertising as not enough with creativity and yapping as need IT, analytical, journalistic and strategic skills that come out of analytics as well.
What I mentioned above (webinars and previous message), just the tip as INBOUND MARKETING involves LOADS OF READING, RESEARCHING, ANALYTICAL AND OTHER SKILLS AS MENTIONED JUST BEFORE.
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