Marketers Need to Move Beyond One-hit Wonders

CMO.com had an article on a speech given by David Edelman, Principal at McKinsey.  I loved the premise of the article.  If a marketer relies too much on one-off marketing efforts, they will be left in the dust of their competitors.  Rather than focus on the negative, David chose to give positive examples. But before getting into that, let me highlight something we’ve been doing in our interactions with Marketers on the same subject.

Illustrates decreasing value of one hit wonders

In the images to my left, you see Perficient’s take on the Kano model.  It models between money spent and overall happiness of the customer. Many marketers can add a cool tool on the web site to generate excitement.  However, over time that excitement wanes and becomes part of base expectations.  Marketers become stuck with a higher overall cost for site maintenance without a satisfied customer.

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The point made by this model is that you can’t increase happiness with this cool tool or that cool tool Instead, you have to focus on making the experience enjoyable, easy, reliable, and relatable.

So yes, this is an intro to a why you should use Perficient conversation but at it’s core, it reflects David Edelman’s basic premise.  Unless you build a continuous relationship with consumers using data based and personalized communications, you will be left in the dust.

Here’s a quote from Edelman to illustrate the point.

Edelman provided a fictitious example of how such a relationship would play out: “Joe,” who it as an airport, does not have a credit card with the bank he belongs to. He does, however, have the bank’s mobile app on his phone. The bank has set up beacons all over the airport, so it sends Joe a card offer. Joe accepts the offer and is then invited for a free cup of coffee at a nearby barista in the airport. The barista is part of the bank’s network, so Joe can make the payment digitally. Two months later, Joe has clocked up credit card points, so when he goes to book a hotel stay in London, the bank lets him know he can use his points to cover the cost.

Consumers have come to expect this type of flowing marketing experience, Edelman said. The key is in stitching each piece together; for that, marketers must use data to change how they relate to customers and understand where each person is in the journey.

“This type of integrated experience is marketing,” Edelman said. “A broader marketing experience can dramatically affect how people perceive the brand. Marketing is not just about shoving offers in peoples’ faces.”

What Drives This Type of Relationship?

Now you get to the fun part.  If you want that incredible experience across different devices, over time, and with the convenience we now expect, how do you do it.  Here are my thoughts:

1. Marketing has to understand and devise a strategy.
2. You have to commit to it
3. You have to budget for it
4. Tools will drive your ability to provide this experience:
   1. Know my customer: CRM, Web Analytics, Predictive analytics, Social Listening
   2. Engage my customer or potential customer: Campaign Management or Enterprise Marketing tools, and social engagement software
   3. Provide a great experience with relevant content and community: web content / digital experience software, social networking software.  Don’t forget blogs, and other viral channels.
   4. Personalized experience when engaged: This involves Campaign Management again as well as personalization engines in WCM or portal tools.
   5. What works: Web Analytics with significant testing completed.

      “If you don’t test, you don’t grow,” Edelman said. “If you don’t test, then you don’t come up with new things. Marketers should be getting out five, 10, 15, even 20 tests per week into the market. That test-and-learn ethos will result in tighter teams.”

5. Prove it: Figure out how to show the value provided by attributing correctly.

For many digital marketers, this probably represents a “no-duh” moment.  However, I see a lot of companies that only have a small part of this locked down.  A lot of it has to do with budget. A lot has to do with vision and wanting to break out of the mold of everyday tasks. Regardless, creating the experience Mr. Edelman describes takes commitment and a little time to get started.  It will pay off in the long run.