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Market research in 2022: What to expect
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Following a year of disruption in 2020, the seeds sown by the pandemic began to grow in 2021. Brands have recognized the need to understand constantly changing consumer behavior and sentiment, which has brought technology-driven market research and automation to the forefront.

So, what does 2022 have in store for the market research industry? What lessons can be learned from 2021, and how can these create real opportunities for consumer insights moving forward? Frederic-Charles Petit, CEO at Toluna, a tech company operating in the market research space, explains what next year will bring to the sector, including specific industry developments that will be key to progress…

Adaptation to a multi-dimensional society and individual

A key trend we’ll see in 2022 is how market research keeps pace with innovation alongside a rapidly changing, multi-dimensional society. Research will need to address the diversity in populations to truly embody being not only nationally representative, as the term is historically defined, but to capture the diversity of the ubiquitous consumer. Hyper-segmentation will become vital as research must move from simply defining key attributes of a person—such as age, social class, wealth, gender and the like—to create insights that are uniquely relevant to a consumer as an individual. Research needs to follow the complexity of society and consumer behavior so that it can deliver the information brands need to make key decisions in how they market their products and services.

Technology, driven by innovation in artificial intelligence, can capture this complexity—and market research organizations must harness this power to deliver truly agile, responsive insights about consumers that enable brands to remain relevant to their customers. That’s why, at Toluna, we’re boosting our investment in technology—which has always been at the forefront of our research platform—by 40% next year. We want to enhance our capability to continue capture the complexity of a multi-dimensional society, at scale, on demand, and in real-time to provide detailed, specific insight to brands on their consumers. We look forward to working with our clients to write this new chapter for market research.

Acceleration in the democratization of research to build and execute truly consumer-centric strategies

As we create superior ways to curate detailed and complex research on consumers, the industry must focus its efforts on the democratization of research. There’s a common misperception in that many think the democratization of research means the simplification of insights. This is not the case. When we say democratization of research, we mean making detailed data available in a simplified manner and in a seamless way to any business or any brand.

2022 will be the year to truly drive democratization because the technology is there to enable it. In the 21st century, you do not need to be a research expert to do this. The most junior members of an organization’s marketing team should be informed by easily available research that they can interact with, respecting the integrity of methodology, but at scale—and this is what we’ll see come to fruition next year. We’re currently in a situation where the everyday consumer has access to more data than, for example, a brand manager. They can simply go onto Google or ask their friends for their opinion online on whether they agree with something or what their favorite movie or outfit is. Why? Because there’s still this notion that research, in the B2B market, is for experts.

We’ve witnessed a democratization of consumer opinion and user-generated content online, but this has yet to be replicated in the business world. In 2022, as research continues to be technology-driven against the backdrop of constantly changing consumer sentiment, the industry must democratize research within the enterprise, giving marketing and brand teams the ability to access automated research at scale that can inform key decisions.

The multifaceted consumer – how market research must respond

Today’s consumer is complex and multidimensional. Real and relevant insights are no longer solely about a person’s geographic location, job role, or opinions on societal changes. It’s about understanding that a consumer can have several different “individualities.” For example, a person can be passionate about sustainable living. They might grow their own food, re-use plastic, and drive a Tesla, while, at the same time, enjoy holidaying in Barbados—which involves traveling thousands of miles via plane, one of the world’s biggest polluters.

As we move into 2022, the question becomes, ‘how can we reflect these different and complex facets of the consumer in research?’ The industry must focus on how we can give organizations the ability to capture three, four, or even five dimensions of the same individual or group of individuals. This is especially important as we move into the next generation internet—a 3D sequel to the internet called the Metaverse which has the potential to revolutionize the way we shop and the way brands market their products. How does a research company do that? It’s about delivering hyper-segmentation, hyper-personalization, at scale, and in real-time to enable brands to deeply understand and empathize with their consumer to deliver products they truly want.

 Looking ahead

There’s no doubt about it, the industry is set for profound transformation in the next year. Powered by automation and technological innovation, we’ll see market research companies change from simply asking questions to listening and participating in conversations, analyzing vast amounts of data at scale. Market research will become the medium of choice for brands to understand what their consumers are thinking, how they’re feeling, to predict their actions, and to co-create truly consumer-centric strategies with them. It won’t be just about collating data through surveys or other means but via live and continuous interaction through technologies that enable relevant and real-time consumer insights. Research must be technology-led, platform-led, and embed the intelligence of the researcher in technology through automation.

The Great Resignation: What’s causing burnout and how can CMOs take action?
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By Harriet Durnford-Smith, CMO at Adverity

The Great Resignation is continuing to gain momentum with a raft of employees exiting the workplace. Nearly  41% of the global workforce are now considering switching jobs within the year and the marketing industry is amongst those leading the charge. A recent MarketerHire study concluded that an astonishing 60% of marketers felt compelled to change their job in 2021. With an exodus of top talent leaving, it has left not only a bitter taste but has also reduced morale, and caused plummeting productivity levels within most companies. This hasn’t been helped by the steadily increasing workloads too. It’s not all lost though, there are ways to bounce back… 

Work Smarter, Not Harder

With such drastic numbers of vacancies, the Great Resignation is leaving those who stay in their roles hurt and burnt out. Other factors piling on the pressure and creating the perfect storm for marketers include reduced budgets and cost-cutting, and increased market uncertainty – and that’s not even half of it! Yet it’s not the time to despair. When we can no longer work harder, we must work smarter.

As a society, we are on the edge of commercial space exploration and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution. Yet, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) still rely on gut feel to promote these 21st-century innovations as they are still relying on outdated marketing practices that prevent them from proving that their campaigns are working. All while facing unprecedented market and consumer behaviour changes spurred by the pandemic with increased homeworking and ongoing travel restrictions doing little other than dampening creativity.

New Adverity research shows 38% are not able to measure their campaigns’ Return on Investment (ROI). The findings speak to a worrying state of play, showing that large numbers of CMOs are flying blind when it comes to planning and delivering their campaigns – as they face the pressure of demonstrating the ROI.

As marketing spend continues to climb back to pre-pandemic levels, the ability to demonstrate the value of multi-million-dollar campaigns, especially around high spend fixtures in the retail calendar like Black Friday and the run-up to Christmas. The inability of marketers to demonstrate the value of campaign budgets to the business may not only hurt their ability to secure future budgets but could also impact the perception of their performance by the wider business. Coronavirus accelerated digital-first behaviours virtually overnight giving rise to new customer service expectations and the demand for increased personalisation at every level. Opportunity knocks for the savvy marketer who understands how target audiences are digesting and interacting with campaigns. This approach will be vital in working out if the campaign’s really delivering the umph needed.

Becoming Data-Driven 

34% of CMOs don’t trust their marketing data. A number that rises to 41% among their data analyst colleagues—posing a new challenge for the C-suite charged with driving marketing results. This divide in trust only gets bigger the more senior you go, which should cause significant alarm for any business trying to make informed, strategic decisions and make trust the centrepiece of company culture.

One of the most likely causes of the distrust in marketing data and the number one challenge cited by both marketers and data analysts (42%) is the time being wasted on manually wrangling data. At the C-level, this jumps to 54%.

Modern marketing can’t afford to wait three weeks for someone to sift through a spreadsheet. By manually wrangling data, businesses not only open themselves up to human error and inefficiency but also commit themselves to a reactive strategy. Playing catch-up and firefighting doesn’t allow businesses to up their brand innovation and brand confidence game. Those who cannot keep up with the evolution or aren’t willing to embrace the new ways of working will ultimately be left behind. Moving away from manually wrangling data is the first step to becoming a data-driven business.

This trust divide between colleagues and time-wasted on data wrangling culminates to create the perfect storm of challenges confronting marketers. Is it any wonder then that the CMO tenure is now the shortest in history at barely over 25 months while that of CEOs continues to rise? Could this lack of reliable marketing data lead to the CMOs’ diminishing influence in the boardroom, or the ability to have the ear of the CEO/CFO whilst unable to prove marketing effectiveness?

Packing a Greater Punch in 2022

In 2022, companies will need to develop new strategies in order to analyse their marketing campaigns so they can react effectively to new trends. Finding ways to get to grips with the pain points of the Great Resignation and ways to reinspire and re-engage marketeers is going to be essential for progress.

Efficient and detailed reporting is a key target for any company in the new year. Adverity’s research shows that respondents who already have strong campaign reporting are three times more likely to be strong at audience-building and targeting and delivering personalized content and customer experiences.

Quality campaign reporting methods help to increase customer satisfaction and those who have it are also three times more likely to re-invest in its vis-a-vis businesses that said they still need to improve. The divide between those who are garnering greater insights from their reports and those who are not is only widening.

For data analysts, the work needs to avoid overwhelming them with the always-on ‘urgent’ manual and, ultimately, soul-destroying data wrangling. This shows that navigating the Great Resignation is a top priority in 2022.

Modern day marketers are now more data savvy than ever before and they want to use the latest tools that are vibrant and exciting, and not work on laborious, outdated systems. Marketeers are always aspiring for perfection and continue to make consumers the centerpiece of their company’s universe. Making sure data analysts and marketers can show the value of what they are doing for their work is key and they need to be provided with the correct tools to do so. Making sure the marketing data is under control is a first step to rebuilding marketing teams in the new normal.

The new research is available in full here: https://www.adverity.com/marketing-analytics-state-of-play-2022-challenges-priorities 

SEOs and digital PRs know their worth and are asking for a 10%-20% uplift in salary
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With marketing spend roaring back to pre-pandemic levels, there’s a lot of hiring happening right now. We’re seeing headcounts go beyond levels of pre-pandemic hiring, as there’s such demand for new talent. Post-COVID, most brands are shifting budget to their online channels. Demand is increasing, but there’s not enough resources to go around. Specialist SEO provider, Blue Array, discusses the resourcing challenges in digital marketing and search…

In quarter one of 2021, PwC reported that digital advertising spend had surged 49% as marketers’ confidence returned, with a £10.5 billion spent. And, further to this, it was announced in September that UK job vacancies had hit a record breaking 1 million, as payrolls bounced back to pre-COVID levels. In August alone, The Office of National Statistics stated that the number of payroll employees increased by 241,000 to 29.1 million.

Since COVID-19, the recruitment landscape has shifted to a candidate-led market. Digital marketing and search professionals are demanding better working standards. They’ve weathered the storm of COVID and have tackled many curveballs in the last 18 months, and they now know their worth.

Stacey Tylisczuk, PPC, SEO and Digital Marketing Recruiter, said: “Since the summer of 2020, the demand for SEO and digital PR hasn’t stopped. Before COVID, we found that there was greater demand within paid media (PPC and paid social) than SEO, but after the ‘paid taps’ were turned off at the start of the pandemic to save marketing budgets, there’s been an interesting switch with SEO roles dominating the digital market. In part, I believe this is because as an industry we’re seeing the value of consistent and continual investment into owned media.

Since mid-2020, the amount of SEO and digital PR roles have more than doubled. 2021 continues to be a candidate-led market and I am almost certain we’ll see this continue throughout 2022. Historically, SEO roles were lower paid than PPC, but SEO salaries have definitely risen since the switch. SEOs and digital PRs know their worth and are typically asking for a 10%-20% uplift from what we were seeing across the industry in 2019. With remote working, there’s a lot of London businesses mopping up talent in the north and south west too, which is also driving salaries up. In terms of poaching and headhunting, talented individuals are receiving in the region of 15-20 messages per week from recruiters. Knowing that they’re in demand and can get a bump in salary is definitely making people think twice about their current roles and salaries.”

Simon Schnieders, Founder at Blue Array, said: “Every agency owner is going through the COVID resourcing hangover right now. There’s lots of people who were furloughed, then brought back. They’ve endured COVID and it’s then led to itchy feet to get a better package, work-life balance, or role. Poaching has always been a thing, but it’s much more prevalent at the moment. Candidates are looking for companies with strong values, who look after their staff, and can offer development and progression.”

So, what can you do to tackle the resourcing crisis head on? Whether it’s investing in apprenticeships or adapting working standards to retain current staff and attract new talent, you need to take a long hard look at your resourcing to be in a good recruitment position in 2022. Swanky office? Candidates don’t care. What they really want to know is what the company culture is like. Agencies need to show how they can improve their employees’ lives – from private healthcare and menstrual days to flexible working and enhanced maternity pay. It’s clear that employers will need to work just as hard on hiring, as they do with new business and sales.

Get your 2022 agency resourcing on track with Blue Array’s 10 top things to adopt for next year:

  • Adopt a fully optional flexible working environment. Employees need to have the option to work in both an office and at home.
  • Review and benchmark industry salaries to keep a competitive edge.
  • Avoid employee burnout by employing in advance and monitoring their workload on a regular basis.
  • Kickstart your employer brand to compete against your competitors.
  • Create a compelling brand narrative that will inspire the most talented jobseekers to accept that first interview and fall in love with your brand.
  • Perfect your remote recruitment process.
  • Offer the most coveted perk – flexibility.
  • Build a pool of reliable and engaged freelancers.
  • Ensure you provide ongoing training and opportunities for talent to grow.
  • Adopt an ABR mindset (always be recruiting).

Valid proof of consent: What marketers need to know
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By OneTrust

Data, trust, and compliance are three big focus areas for marketers. In terms of consent, obtaining it from your audience is critical to executing marketing activities in a privacy-centric way – and so is proving you’ve obtained that consent.

Consent matters not only for staying compliant with global privacy regulations, including the GDPR, but also for establishing a relationship of trust between your brand and your customer base. As your organization begins to initiate a stronger relationship of trust with the end user, it’s important to build a marketing-consented database and be able to centralize consent details such as what the end user consented to, what they were told upon consent, etc. Empowering your organization to be an industry leader in customer trust and compliance means that you must address one key issue: valid consent.

What is Valid Consent?

Valid consent addresses the call for proof of consent across multiple regulations (e.g. GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, etc.). Obtaining valid proof of consent is key in enabling your organization to acquire and use marketing data ethically. It also allows you to provide tangible evidence to your customer base when necessary. Many organizations today have consent stored as a simple yes or no flag with a timestamp in their CRM or marketing automation tool, which is not considered fully compliant. Multiple regulations provide guidance on keeping valid proof of consent, but you will need to at the very least track the following:

  • Who consented and when they consented
  • What they were told at the time of consent
  • How they consented

Many marketers rely on a simple checkbox and a yes/no answer for consent. However, to properly demonstrate consent, you need records that include:

  • The name of the individual or another identifier (e.g. online user, name, session ID)
  • Dated documents or online records that include a timestamp
  • A master copy of the document or data capture form Version and copy of any privacy policy or notice shown at the time
  • Offline: a copy of the relevant documentation
  • Online: should include data submitted and a link to the relevant form version of the captured data

To learn what marketing activities require consent and what regulations apply, download this free infographic from OneTrust Consent and Preferences.

Content Management

Do you specialise in Content Management? We want to hear from you!
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Each month on Digital Marketing Briefing we’re shining the spotlight on different parts of the print and marketing sectors – and in January we’ll be focussing on Content Management solutions. It’s all part of our ‘Recommended’ editorial feature, designed to help marketing industry professionals find the best products and services available today. So, if you specialise in Content Management and would like to be included as part of this exciting new shop window, we’d love to hear from you – for more info, contact Clair Wyld on c.wyld@forumevents.co.uk. Jan – Content Management Feb – Lead Generation & Tracking Mar – Email Marketing April – Digital Printing May – Social Media Jun – Brand Monitoring July – Web Analytics Aug – Conversion Rate Optimisation Sept – Digital Signage Oct – Brochure Printing Nov – Creative & Design Dec – Online Strategy

Digital Marketing Solutions Summit: You key to success in 2022
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You can now register for the next Digital Marketing Solutions Summit, which takes place on 11th May 2022 at the Hilton London Canary Wharf. 

Click here to book your complimentary guest pass.

Your pass includes:

  • A bespoke itinerary of pre-arranged meetings with suppliers who match your requirements and upcoming projects
  • Access to a series of seminars by industry thought-leaders
  • Networking with like-minded peers
  • Complimentary lunch and refreshments throughout

2021 Delegate Testimonials:

“A great, well-organised and tailored event. I benefitted a lot from the meetings I had, learning more about new solutions and have come away with great options that will help my company to grow” C-Probe Systems

“A very useful event which was easy to navigate through and ran very smoothly. It put me in front of some very useful vendors who offered relevant solutions to marketing for myself and my organisation. Would certainly attend again in the future and would recommend” Link CCTV Systems

“The Digital Marketing Summit is a great place to find out what tools and support is available in the digital world, especially if your business is new to digital marketing” Golden Bear Products LTD

Book your place here (booking form takes less than two minutes to complete).

23% more emails sent on Black Friday 2021
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23% more emails were sent by ActiveCampaign’s 150,000 customers on Black Friday this year compared to 2020.

Key findings for analysis of it’s own data found:-

  • Friday was the biggest day for emails to be sent with 486m sent in 2021. That’s up 23% on last year’s figures of 393m
  • Brands increased their daily email sends leading up to Friday
  • Customers placed the most orders on Friday with over 290,000 orders placed on that day alone
  • Customers also abandoned more carts from last year. With abandoned carts in 2020 containing over $10 million in revenue compared with over $16 million in 2021.
  • Friday was also the day that saw the greatest abandoned cart efficacy by revenue. ActiveCampaign customers were able to recover 16% of abandoned cart revenue on Friday alone in 2021. This is up from just 7% in 2020 and 4% in 2019.

While Friday is still the biggest day of the week for ecommerce, there is a huge missed opportunity for ecommerce brands to continue the momentum on Saturday.

Friday to Saturday saw a big decrease (-85%) in email sends. Brands sent just 262,000 emails on Saturday, 85% less than they sent on Friday.

Customers left $76.4M in revenue in abandoned carts in 2021, but ActiveCampaign customers were able to recover $10.4M, 14% of that revenue. This is double the % of Abandoned Rev that was recovered 2021 v. 2020, and that’s up from just $1.2M recovered revenue in 2019.

The data is based on the email sends of 150k ActiveCampaign users and on the ecommerce integrations that their customers used during the week of Black Friday (Sunday through Saturday).

Why marketers need to think ‘Human to Human’ rather than ‘Brand to Consumer’
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2020 & 2021: the years where digital kept us connected – not just internationally, but at regional and even very local levels. For many businesses, digital was the saviour, ensuring business could continue – even grow.

Yet, while it may have initially seemed important for retailers to digitise their brand strategy, ploughing efforts into everything from social media to website tools, so the brand would translate in a completely digital world, the fact is that people have realised more than ever the value of human interaction. How easy has it been, therefore, to remain truly connected to the people your brand speaks to?

A brand is not just what you do through your marketing tactics. It’s a feeling it stirs, an experience it creates, and a story it tells. While there are many amazing things brands can do in the digital world, to be a real success, brands need the human element to sit at the heart of their digital brand strategy, as Neelam Kharay, Chief of Staff – GTM, Acoustic, explores…

The new marketing playbook

It’s safe to say that 2020 was a year like no other, and 2021 certainly has not reverted back to the ‘old normal’. In fact, the age of COVID-19 has upended the marketing playbook, challenging conceived truths and redefining the rules. Whilst digital strategies were accelerated across all industries during the start of the pandemic as a matter of business survival, customer expectations have changed. Forget the slick digital journey and the ability to deliver exactly what a consumer wants, when they want it – that is now a given. Instead, customers expect their relationship to matter to you; and they expect your brand to stand for great values they can resonate with.

While delivering on these experiences requires organisations to place technology and data at the core of their marketing delivery, to sharpen their decision-making and drive greater relevance in their customer interactions to build stronger, more relevant connections, they also require something more. They require the ability to engender trust – and that, in itself demands authenticity, integrity, and humanity.

So how do brands become human?

Building human engagement 

We must remember that our target consumers are not just defined by demographics or psychographics — they’re defined by their intent, and by countless other indiscernible or unquantifiable factors. In essence, our prospective customers — just like us — are more than what meets the eye. Brands must ensure they’re both representative, and fully aware and understanding, of the most important issues and key drivers influencing all consumers’ behaviours.

By building teams that are as diverse as your customers, and by ‘stepping into the shoes’ of your customers as often as possible, brands can help account for their many perspectives and needs, bringing a more authentic voice to all marketing communications and content.

Indeed, authenticity is critical when it comes to forming connections between brands and consumers. With 86% of consumers reporting that authenticity is a deciding factor when determining which brands to support, the more authentic you are in your communications, the greater the sense of transparency and trust you will engender with them, which will lead to loyalty.

C-suite agenda

During the pandemic, marketing was elevated within the C-suite as the voice of the consumer. Without understanding the zeitgeist of the marketplace, in good times and bad, the C-suite cannot adjust to the threats and opportunities at hand and successfully navigate the future.

One of the new ‘rules’ of post-COVID marketing is, therefore, C-level engagement. In order to be authentic in your communications as a marketer, you need a deep understanding of who your brand is: what its values are; what its tone and voice are; who its key customers are – all of which are of paramount importance to other functional leaders.

From there, you can craft authentic communications that accurately reflect your brand personality while uncovering the pain points of your target audience. Everything from style to word choice to the visual elements you include are part of what gives a brand personality, and should be carefully crafted and honed in order to connect with your target customer(s). Moreover, developing a personality that responds to how customers are feeling and acting in the moment, and is authentically reflective of that across every touchpoint a customer has with your brand, is key to developing trust.

Consider, for example, how a company like Bombas has made improving the lives of people facing housing insecurity a key element of its brand ethos and product strategy, or how Old Navy has made all clothing styles accessible to people of all shapes and sizes with no change in price. During the pandemic, the British Heart Foundation also demonstrated empathy by offering COVID-secure collection of donations normally dropped off at collection points, for those who perhaps didn’t want to, or couldn’t, leave their homes. These are brand personalities with an authentic vision and a clarity of purpose behind them to which consumers can align their own values.

Conclusion

Ultimately, becoming ‘more human’ starts with being human and therefore having a point of view; a tone; a look and feel. In essence, in today’s climate, marketers need to think ‘human-to-human’ instead of ‘brand-to-consumer’.

Email Marketing

Top tips for better email marketing
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By Adam Oldfield, CEO at Force24

Email marketing has been around for a quarter of a century – and it shows no signs of slowing down. Not only does it provide a powerful way for marketers to tell recipients about promotions, brand messages and news – it’s a versatile, low-cost, and efficient tool helping marketers to deliver hyper-personalised comms that are measurable and create positive ROI.

This can certainly be the case if an industry professional chooses to use an integrated email marketing platform that supports their brand in customer engagement.

Of course, the next email campaign will go somewhere as soon as the organisation clicks ‘send’ – but how do marketers know if they’re sending the right message to the right person, at the right time? Plus, modern-day marketers are today battling with privacy and data protection pressures which have come to the fore following the introduction of GDPR so the vital nature of ensuring every piece of comms is compliant has never been more important.

What that also means is that there’s an even greater expectation for brands to only send hyper-personalised content to individuals who have consented to receiving it. With that, the power is ultimately with the recipient and – with data protection regulations and the ability to hit ‘unsubscribe’ at any given time at their fingertips – they truly have the sender right where they want them.

However, marketers are also in a powerful position if they couple email content with an intuitive marketing automation platform because it’s soon to become their most cost-effective, efficient marketing channel. When brands plug in automation too, it can help to understand the audience on a more granular level – resulting in professionals sending relevant digital comms as a result.

So, what are the benefits of email marketing platforms, and what should marketers be looking for when they’re ready to buy a savvy tool that could help transform their customer conversations and empower email deliverability?

  1. Liberating email marketing

As an email marketing tool, it’ll be able to take on the mundane and time-consuming everyday tasks that industry professionals end up putting to the bottom of the ‘to do’ list – such as retrieving data from each campaign which, when manually carried out, can take several hours to collate, and something that won’t ever be entirely complete.

With marketing automation, brands can disconnect from the wheels of the marketing machine as it’s able to manage those routine jobs. And the result? Organisations can spend more time focusing on strategy, creativity, and customer conversations and continue to ensure their brand is engaging the right people, at the right time.

2. Email marketing platform integration for multi-channel journeys

For comms to work in harmony and drive real results, companies need an email marketing platform that can segment audiences and talk to multiple groups of recipients at the same time – all from one email build.

A savvy email marketing platform enables teams to create hyper-relevant landing pages, microsites, newsletters and email journeys – in minutes. And if a marketer is saving hours each week thanks to automation, just think how much time they can spend creating their next campaign!

3. Measuring the metrics that matter

What is being monitored to discover whether the latest email campaign was a success or failure? Are brands analysing what improvements they could make? If they’re only looking at email open and click through rates, it’s vital that marketers delve even deeper into the data because these ‘vanity metrics’ don’t tell the full story as to howengaged a recipient was.

For example, a reader could’ve accidentally clicked on an email and discarded it seconds later. And unfortunately, not only are they not interested in what that piece of content has to say, but the organisation itself is getting skewed data as a result.

However, any savvy marketer will know that they shouldn’t ignore them altogether – it’s just a case of not relying on them as the only form of measurement. Instead, using an email marketing automation platform can monitor each campaign alongside what the lead scoring data is telling marketers about every individual’s interaction in their brand, and where they are in the buying funnel.

And, if marketing departments are  unsure as to what lead scoring is, imagine numbers above each recipients’ head based on how engaged they are in the organisation. The higher the figure, the more these individuals should be targeted with hyper-relevant content they want to consume.

4. Unlocking personalisation using email marketing platforms

And speaking about ultra-individualised digital comms, if brands are sending the right content to the right person, at the right time, email campaigns will be far superior to those of a manual send. That’s because customers are being targeted with the type of material they’re interested in, and it goes a long way towards showing that they’re the onlyperson in the room that a company is talking to (even when the businesses is speaking to multiple recipients).

Consumers no longer want bland, irrelevant ‘batch and blast’ emails because the overall message will be loosely received by all. An audience needs to be segmented into specific groups so they can receive tailored sends that show the brand understands their of-the-moment interests.

Plus, when marketers plug in an email marketing platform, they can help to guide audiences through their customer journey and support conversion thanks to their hyper-relevance.

Brand loyalty being tested by supply chain issues
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Cancelled orders and lengthy delays because of the supply chain crisis are testing British consumers’ brand loyalty like never before, with 85% of young shoppers saying they would rather switch labels than wait for their favourites to arrive.

The surprising findings show just how seriously the supply chain bottleneck is affecting peoples’ buying habits, with 91% of consumers in the UK worried that the problems are here to stay.

The research, carried out by Oracle, shows that 77% of respondents have felt the supply pinch, which has been blamed on the impact of Covid and post-Brexit adjustments.

Feelings of frustration and anxiety are common place with 74% of people saying that future delays could cause them to cut ties with their favourite brands permanently.

But consumers’ faith in technology to help iron out kinks in the supply chain is strong, with 70% saying they would be more willing to buy from a brand they knew used artificial intelligence to manage their supply chain.

“Businesses need to be able to provide a consistent and transparent service to customers or risk losing them, with some consumers willing to sacrifice the product quality for the ease of delivery”, said Emma Sutton, chief customer officer, EMEA Consulting, Business Transformation, Oracle. “Supply-chains are global but the technology is available to manage them from anywhere in the world, predicting disruption in order to get ahead of it, and keeping customers updated in real-time.”