CMO.com’s exclusive content last week shared the common theme of providing an engaging and relevant customer experience. Whether it’s personalising brand content or creating content that consumers are eager to find and engage with, the customer experience is vital to any organisation’s marketing strategy. With increased digital use by consumers as well as the introduction of ad blocking capabilities, marketers must learn to approach many of the new challenges they’re facing from a different angle. As always, many of the top marketers in the industry are rising to the challenge.
Ben Salmon, the Founder of Attributely, began the week’s discussions on CMO.com by discussing the role of personalisation in the customer experience. Personalisation is a great way to be relevant to your customers, but Salmon makes the point that it’s not being used very often. The reason is that it’s difficult to do well. There’s a fine line between overdoing personalisation to a point where customers find it creepy and personalisation that’s done just right. Salmon presents two examples of personalisation done well and not so well.
The CMO.com interview last week with Channel 4’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Dan Brooke touched on many of Channel 4’s marketing challenges. Channel 4 receives no public funding and relies heavily on delivering ratings and turning ratings into revenue. Because all TV is delivered digitally, Brooke mentioned the focus Channel 4 spends on the time between programmes. Channel 4 produces all of its marketing in-house and strives to be innovative with every aspect of the organisation.
Digital Strategy Consultant Ann Longley addressed the challenges that marketers now face with Apple including ad blocking support in iOS9. While ad blocking will prevent many consumers from viewing a brand’s advertising, Longley encourages marketers to think outside the box in getting their content in front of potential customers. Reaching them will require finding out about consumers’ needs and media habits and creating useful and engaging content that consumers will be likely to search for. Relevant content marketing will do a lot to alleviate the challenges presented by ad blocking.
A recap of Adobe’s Digital Marketing Symposium in Stockholm focused largely on the customer experience and the role of customer opinion in shaping a brand’s identity. One of the symposium’s presenters, Vijayanta Gupta, Adobes head of product and industry marketing EMEA, shared the need for organisations to allow marketers to create consistent customer experiences because this is what customers are looking for. It’s also what keeps customers coming back. Other presenters shared the need for organisations to embrace digital in their pursuit of creating an authentic customer experience.
The week ended with Jon Bains, Founding Partner of What & Why, with an important discussion on agency relationships. Bains highlighted the increase in options for marketing directors and the lessened likelihood of finding a full-service agency that does everything well. Instead, marketing directors might want to focus more on independent agencies that have the specific skills you need at a given time.
We invite you to take some time this week to learn from some of the leading marketing influencers through our exclusive content. Let us know what you think.
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