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Marketing

Demand versus Brand – the dangers of fragmented marketing
By:
6

Marketing excellence is a prerequisite to 21st century business success. But while budgets soar and  CMO profiles rise, escalating marketing awareness to board level is creating a dangerous fragmentation of the marketing strategy.

Good CMOs are, unfortunately, spending more time justifying strategy than delivering. They are navigating a c-suite often polarised between brand and demand; obsessed with performance and ROI. They have to explain why it is important to explore multiple digital channels to market, even if one outperforms the others. Less confident individuals are caving in to pressure – undermining business performance as a result. 

With the latest generation of marketing recruits demonstrating more confidence with marketingtechnology (MarTech) than converting sentiment into effective creatives, the essence of successful marketing risks being side-lined just as it is becoming more important than ever. Norman Guadagno, CMO, Acoustic, explains why good marketing is a holistic mix of brand and demand — and why MarTech should support, not replace, creative expertise…

Centre Stage

Marketing has never been more important. In a world where the quality of customer experience dominates consumer and, therefore, corporate thinking, marketing is at the centre of many business initiatives. According to the latest CMO Survey, 73% of UK marketing leaders confirm the role of marketing in their companies increased in importance during the last year.

Yet this strategic role creates new challenges for marketers. CMOs have the ear of the board – even a seat at the board – for the first time, and very few c-suites have any real insight into the complexities or intricacies of successful marketing. This is understandable, to a degree, given the astonishing pace with which marketing has evolved over the past decade, from the increasing sophistication of new digital channels to the ever-extending marketing technology stack.

The result, however, is often divergent attitudes and priorities. For every board member citing the Oatly story, the company that has built a $10 billion ‘oat and water’ business on the back of a brand image that resonates with a health, environmental and wellness-focused customer audience, will be another lauding the value of demand-focused marketing, with the ability to compare lead generation performance in granular detail across a multiplicity of channels.

Brand and Demand

Both points-of-view have merit – but they are driving a worrying fragmentation in marketingactivity. CMOs are spending less time creating strategy and far more refereeing misinformed ‘brand’ versus ‘demand’ battles in the board room.

Brand and demand are two sides of the same coin. A brilliantly crafted demand generation campaign that presents the perfect message, in front of the ideal prospect, at the best time, will deliver far better results if that prospect already has some form of brand knowledge and understanding. Operating a demand campaign in a brand vacuum is a massive waste of marketing resources.

Successful marketing takes a holistic approach and even the most skilled expert in demand generation needs to understand brand to ensure every aspect of the marketing mix works.

Obsessive Measurement

Of course, many of the loudest voices in the c-suite will shout that ‘brand’ is a nebulous concept while ‘demand’ can be tracked and assessed in extraordinary detail. Again, this reinforces the lack of understanding into how good marketing works. In many ways, digital marketing’s inherent ‘measurability’ is its Achilles heel, encouraging the judgement of marketing activity only on quantitative performance.

Companies are endlessly demanding measurement of brand perception and brand awareness – and ROI from brand campaigns. This totally misses the point – brand as a holistic concept is not implicitly measurable (although investors certainly flock towards companies with excellent brand recognition) but it is hugely valuable within the overall marketing mix. Strong brand awareness coupled with positive brand perception will make it far easier to create marketing qualified leads (MQLs); it will ease the conversion process; it will set the foundation for customer expectation.

In addition to explaining the value of combining strong brand and demand campaigns many CMOs also have to justify the basics of marketing activity. Why, ask management teams, is money being wasted on multiple customer acquisition channels when one or two so clearly outperform the rest?

Wrong Questions

While such questions may make sense in a linear operational process – manufacturing or logistics, for example – marketing, irrespective of technology and metrics, remains a far more nuanced activity.

Good marketers know the importance of testing, evolving strategy and building the right messaging. They know that in a constantly changing market, performance is never static. Customer expectations change, cultural events will influence the relevance, even appropriateness, of activity. Yet there is a risk that less experienced individuals will cave into to management pressure to focus only on demand, on today’s top performing channels – and the business will suffer as a result.

Success should be analysed not just by the numbers. Companies need to understand the effectiveness and relevance of messaging: Does it reflect current cultural events? Is it enhancing the brand? Does it provide value to the customer or prospect?

Creative Expertise

The risk for marketers is that in an increasingly technology- and measurement-driven discipline, the essence of creativity — of recognising how to speak to the customer with the right sentiment — will be lost. Indeed, growing numbers of young marketers are now arriving in a business with a great understanding of the mechanics of successful campaign delivery and technology expertise but little, if not zero, insight into how to craft the correct message, one that piques the customer’s interest.

Technology should not drive marketing – and marketing teams need to be creative first, ‘mar-technicians’ second.  Technology should provide the entire team with a complete view of how, where and when customers interact with marketing activity to ensure the strategy is infused into every message.

It should empower individuals to experiment with messaging, delivering rapid insight – through A/B testing for example – into how customers respond to small changes in emphasis. It should help a company understand how best to approach a new market, to measure existing brand awareness, for example, but the creative skills of the marketing team are then vital to identify how to entice that new audience, to create the best messaging to tap into their mindset.

Conclusion

Marketing is not a linear activity. Customer expectations, experiences and desires change constantly; the way they can interact with a brand evolves continuously. Good marketing will be judicious mix of innovation and consistency. And the best CMOs will balance brand with demand; they will maximise the value of proven channels while always looking towards – and experimenting with – the new.

Marketing teams require a holistic skillset that blends creativity with technical confidence. And business leaders need to recognise that while MarTech provides a great insight into marketingvalue, it is not the be all and end all of marketing success. Pitching brand against demand makes no sense – it is the way in which a company reaches out to customers that is key. It is the message, not the channel, that resonates.

Digital brand interaction on the rise due to pandemic
By:
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Over half (55%) of UK adults will interact with brands more through digital and virtual channels than face-to-face post-pandemic, according to a global study from Nuance.

The study, which polled 10,000 adults across the US, UK, Australia, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Spain and Mexico, also found that over half (51%) of UK respondents would rather use apps or a company’s website than go into a physical branch or store to complete tasks such as shopping and banking.

When it comes to communicating with brands, over one in four (26%) UK adults said they still preferred in-person visits or phone (13%), 42% choose digital channels including email, live-chat and chat-bots. Convenience (51%) and speed (36%) were the most common drivers for choosing a preferred method of communication, with speaking to a ‘real’ human (26%) trailing.

Nuance says the findings illustrate that consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable using technology to make purchases and access services, while still expecting brands to deliver a human touch when required.

In addition to being more comfortable using tech like chatbots, virtual assistants, and mobile applications to interact with brands, adults in the UK have also increased their trust in tech that helps them access their personal information and accounts online.

According to the study, almost half (45%) are now more comfortable using biometrics to authenticate themselves when accessing their accounts than they were before the pandemic, with 38% feeling more comfortable using their smartphone to access their accounts as well. These figures are reflected in the global findings with a similar number (49%) more comfortable using biometrics and 47% more comfortable using their smartphone to access accounts.

A third (34%) of UK respondents now place the most trust in a form of biometrics (either voice, facial, fingerprint, behavioural, or combinations of each) as a means of authentication. This is an important step in the right direction, says Nuance, as fraudsters have been increasingly targeting individuals during the pandemic, exploiting archaic authentication methods like PINs and passwords that can be made accessible via the dark web to gain access to consumer accounts and funds. While this is progress, the UK still lags behind the US in terms of trust in biometrics, with nearly half (45%) of adults backing the technology.

This growing trust in technology across age groups is likely a reflection of the positive experiences customers have received online. When asked about how they would rate the customer services they’ve accessed online over the past 12 months – services that might have previously been accessed in-person, like banking or shopping – 58% of UK shoppers said good or excellent. This is less than the global responses, in which two thirds (66%) rated their customer services at the same level.

“With convenience, speed, and ultimately getting the job done prevailing as clear priorities for buyers, organisations such as retailers, banks, and utilities companies must develop strategies for delivering consistently efficient and effective digital experiences,” said Seb Reeve, Intelligent Engagement Market Development at Nuance. “From slick and secure authentication processes to intuitive AI powered intelligent assistants, technology must be able to manage the personalised needs of customers while seamlessly bridging to human intervention when required at the right moment.”

“Customers expect immediate and effective conversations with the brands they engage with – whether those conversations are happening on the phone or via a chatbot on a company’s website. Empowering these engagements requires an integrated approach where an organisation not only can understand the customer’s intent but also authenticate that customer and start personalising their experience across every single channel – from in-person, to phone, to web, to mobile. With the pandemic creating an increasing comfort, trust, and preference among consumers to use technology when engaging with brands, it will be critical that organisations prioritise delivering superior digital experiences if they want to retain customer loyalty and continue to scale.”

Email Marketing

5 insights into email marketing from 2020
By:
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By Michael Trapani, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Acoustic

Benchmarking an unexpected year, like 2020, can be a significant challenge. With so many factors affecting your company’s performance, how do you go about it? Comparing your performance in 2020 to 2019 (or any other year) will hardly account for the outsized influence a global pandemic had on your business, and the market as a whole.

Our newly released email marketing benchmark report, though, showcases the influence that the pandemic has had on email marketing based on data from thousands of marketing teams.

This benchmark is an indicator for your performance through an unprecedented year and a source of insight into consumers’ responses to the pandemic, current events, and how email marketing prevailed. These metrics uncover five primary insights:

  1. Pandemic lockdowns drove a huge increase in email engagement by consumers.
  2. It wasn’t just the pandemic — other global events impacted performance of email engagement.
  3. Email has further established itself as consumers’ preferred channel of engagement.
  4. COVID-19 messaging grew tiring and drove unsubscribes.
  5. Key industries were affected in different ways as a result of the pandemic and current events.

Let’s take a closer look.

  1. Pandemic Lockdowns Caused a Spike in Engagement

In March and April of 2020, the world entered the first wave of pandemic lockdowns and most of the in-person economy paused. However, while in-person shopping came to a halt, digital soared, leading to a surge in engagement with email marketing. Email marketing open rates increased 31% from January 2020 to April 2020.

While consumers sat at home, they opened more brand emails. Constantly online, the spring of 2020 was the perfect environment for email engagement. With higher open rates, click rates rose too: from January to April 2020, click rates increased 28.6%.  

2. Email Open Rates Coincided with Current Events

The pandemic wasn’t the only event that impacted email marketing performance. Natural disasters coincided with increased email engagement in the energy and environment industry. Unfortunately, the second half of 2020 saw a historic number of hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts. The industry was a clear outlier in the second half of the year, with multiple months exceeding a 40% open rate as a result — well above other industries measured.

The political arena of 2020 also had an impact on email marketing performance. Government-related emails saw a large uptick in November, coinciding with the U.S. presidential election. Open rates continued its upward trajectory for the industry through December, too, after the election was called.

3. In the “New Normal,” Email is Preferred

Email has always been a popular channel, but in the “new normal,” consumers are favoring this channel more than prior to the pandemic. Across the board, open rates increased since the pandemic’s start. While engagement peaked while we were in lockdown in the spring of 2020, engagement rates, overall, increased during the “new normal.”

In fact, every region measured had a higher click-to-open rate in the second half of the year. Europe saw the highest click-to-open rate in H2 of 2020, with an average of 14.8%.

Globally, consumers are more likely to engage with emails. This signifies a growing affinity for email communications as well as brands getting better at targeting the right consumers with each email.

4. COVID-Messaging Grew Tiresome Quickly, Driving Unsubscribes

While engagement was up, so was the unsubscribe rate. Other than India and Asia Pacific, every region had a higher unsubscribe rate in the second half of the year compared to the first. Overall, unsubscribe rates were 34.4% higher by year’s end, globally.

This could be a result of the COVID-19 messaging sent en masse to “unclean” lists. It was common practice for CEOs and brands to send pandemic-related updates to their entire list about the state of their business, like processes installed that kept employees and customers safe. This likely alerted many customers that brands they no longer shop with nor have affinity toward had their contact information, prompting them to unsubscribe.

5. Industry Highs and Lows Throughout 2020

Not all industries were equally prepared for the rapid digital transformation that took place: some industries thrived in a lockdown environment while others suffered. Unsurprisingly, hospitals and healthcare enjoyed high engagement throughout the entirety of H2, ranging between about 30 to 35% open rates. Because consumers were anxious for COVID-19 updates, they were more likely to interact with related content.

Two industries hit especially hard by the pandemic were travel and retail. Travel, for the most part, came to a halt for much of the year and the pandemic’s impact on the retail industry has been well-documented as dozens of retail hallmarks went out of business. This performance is reflected in their email marketing, as well. Travel and retail were two industries with consistently low open rates and low CTORs compared to other industries, rarely eclipsing 15% for open rates and hovering around 10% for CTOR.  

Getting Back to Basics with Email

While 2020 saw unexpected global changes, the “new normal” demonstrates that email marketing is a reliable tool with staying power. Comparing your performance from before and after the pandemic can signify how your brand is performing in the “new normal” as well as how you stack up in your market. Overall, global open rates increased in the latter half of the year by 6.5%. If you trend under the industry average, you can implement strategies to improve your email engagement, such as more advanced targeting to understand what content your audiences interact with more.

Despite many new marketing technologies and opportunities seeming to emerge daily, email is still growing. Make sure your email marketing strategies can keep pace. 

If you’d like to review the results of the full Acoustic report, download it here.

Marketing directors ‘bullish’ about post-COVID outlook
By:
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The UK’s top 50 chief marketing officers are bullish about the growth of their organisations as the country emerges from lockdown, according to new research from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).

CIM’s latest report, ‘The CMO 50’, reveals that 71% of marketing leaders believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a positive impact on the perception of their brand, despite more than half (57%) having seen marketing budgets cut over the last year.

Whilst 52% believe that the marketing sector is stronger than five years ago. Only 20% believed it was weaker.

The research shows CMOs are optimistic about the post covid economy with levels of confidence rated at 81 out of 100. In comparison overall business optimism was rated at just 62 out of 100.

Marketing leaders identified four clear themes underpinning their future plans to adapt to the needs of the post-Covid economy:

  1. Adaptation to changes in technology and data;
  2. Motivating, retaining and managing people;
  3. Recruitment and development of the right skills;
  4. Demonstrating the value of marketing investment vs. expenditure.

The research also identified a desire to address regulatory issues affecting marketing. Just 26% of the CMOs believe the current regulatory regime for alcohol, gambling, HFSS (high fat, salt and sugar) products and environmentally damaging goods is fit for purpose, and the majority would back rules equivalent to those for cigarettes to restrict the marketing of potentially harmful goods and services.

  • 76% back marketing restrictions for products that damage the environment, keen to see limits similar to those for cigarettes.
  • 72% back restrictions for gambling, 58% for products aimed at children, 54% for unhealthy HFSS foods and 34% for alcohol.
  • More than half (54%) of marketing leaders think there is currently too little regulation of social media, and just 44% feel it is not the responsibility of marketers to protect the users of their social media channels. 

Chris Daly (pictured), chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Marketing said: “Marketing leaders calling for restrictions on marketing may seem counterintuitive, but it reflects a clear shift in our society towards purpose driven marketing. Marketers have been at the forefront of helping the nation adapt to the strictures of lockdown, and in doing so have built stronger relationships with consumers. That hard-won reputational boost has the potential to accelerate economic growth as we emerge from lockdown, and professional marketers are rightly wary of loose regulatory controls allowing a few bad apples to sour the trust of consumers.”

The acceleration of structural shifts in society’s use of technology is reflected in the views of marketers. 92% of those interviewed, believed that brands had a direct duty to pull advertising from social media platforms that failed to protect users. Just 44% felt that the protection of social media users lay outside the responsibility of marketers. In contrast, 86% agreed that professional marketers should encourage social media platforms to do more to protect users.

Daly added: “To prosper, a professional marketer needs clear parameters within which to work. Give them the rules and a level playing field and marketers will adapt and deliver. Having accommodated the necessary changes of GDPR, the UK’s most senior marketers are right to be wary of the dangers that poorly policed social media platforms pose to the long-term growth of their brands and the wider economy. The UK marketing community has an opportunity to build back better by targeting spend and training on marketing channels and products that deliver greater value to our society.”

Three Psychological Pitfalls Marketers Should Avoid In 2021
By:
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By Norman Guadagno, CMO, Acoustic

A year in quarantine has changed consumer psychology and the rules of engagement for marketers. From dealing with isolation to significant economic uncertainty,  it is no surprise that depression has doubled for UK adults throughout the last twelve months. 

As the UK lockdown starts to ease, people are grappling with the conflicting emotions of desiring connection with each other on the one hand, yet remaining wary of too much close contact, too soon. 

For marketers, this means both adapting their 2021 plans to today’s “new normal,” contactless world, while ensuring that empathy and connection remain at the core of every communication. To accomplish this, we must all avoid the following pitfalls. 

Don’t mistake empathy for disingenuity 

We’ve all heard the same phrases a dizzying number of times by now: “These are unprecedented times,” “Stay at home, save lives,” and “We hope you’re doing well in these trying times.” For many brands, these empathetic phrases served as a pseudo-obligatory acknowledgement of current events before diving into sales-driven messaging. But for consumers, these messages quickly became white noise, a reason to ignore the communication altogether.

Data from Acoustic’s analysis of email marketing from January to May 2020 reinforces this. While open rates in the UK and Ireland increased by 19% in March versus January as consumers scoured for information on how to safely buy essential supplies and support their favourite businesses, click-through rates and click-to-open rates, on the other hand, remained relatively flat. This signals that emails with “An important message from our CEO” piqued curiosity but did not incite action or engagement. 

For marketers, the takeaway is clear: Show, don’t tell. Find creative ways to make it clear you genuinely care about your customers, without falling back on the same tired phrases. As marketers, we should emulate rigour. Our messaging should be clear, transparent, and to-the-point. The rest is just white noise. 

Stay connected with your audience 

Regardless of whether you’re a B2B or B2C brand, it’s important to remember marketing should not be a one-way street. The best marketers foster community and connection, which are vitally important in today’s context. For many consumers who are working from home, the marketing communications they receive may be some of the only forms of communication they have with the outside world in a given day, besides work and the news of the day. This gives marketers a golden opportunity to search for ways to spark conversations with and amongst their target audiences. 

After all, the pandemic has all but eliminated the small talk and water-cooler conversations that play a key role in keeping us happy and productive at work. In today’s stay-at-home world, many of us have replaced these innocuous conversations with scrolling through social media or “forced fun” like workplace happy hours on Zoom. We have less opportunity to opt-in to small talk, but brands can change that. Marketers should embrace new ways they can foster conversation and community through social media, message boards, or other means to create a sense of normality for their consumers. 

Don’t get too close 

It’s one thing to leverage consumer sentiment and personal data to make your communication more personal and relevant. It’s another thing altogether to get too granular that you prompt concern about misuse of that data and abuse an individual’s sense of trust. 

It’s a bit like dating in today’s online world, where finding out about someone is seemingly so easy. It’s almost second nature to Google your date or look them up on Facebook or Instagram to find out more about them beforehand. But would you ask them about their holiday to Croatia the year before last that you found out about? Of course not. At least, I hope not….

Marketers face a similar conundrum. We may have psychographic data about our consumers, but should we use it? And if so, how? Marketers should devise new approaches that allow consumers to be more involved in granting permission to use their data on their terms. Allowing them to actively curate information about their likes and dislikes, in exchange for a better value proposition — a better brand experience — a “give to get.” In this scenario, an informed consumer is acknowledging that a brand may want to learn more about them — and then taking things a step further by cultivating information about themselves that is relevant for brand marketers to know. In the coming months, marketers should think about how to tailor this approach to psychographic profiling to keep their communications empathetic and connected to a consumer’s personal identity. 

Ultimately, marketing and dating can be surprisingly similar. Marketers always want to keep consumers engaged and keep them coming back for more, which requires a delicate balance of reaching out to the target audience without overreaching. As marketers plan upcoming campaigns, we must avoid the artificial genuineness, one-way communication, and overt psychographic profiling that can be so off-putting to consumers. If not, those consumers just might say, “This date is over,” stand up, and leave. 

Norman Guadagno is CMO at Acoustic, an open, independent marketing cloud.

Top trends to watch out for as marketing investment makes a comeback
By:
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By Saranya Babu, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Wrike  

There is no doubt that last year had its challenges. With the economy at rock bottom and the majority of businesses facing severe financial hardship, marketing departments across the world felt the pinch. Industry-wide cut-backs resulted in a dramatic decrease in spending throughout the year, accumulating in the fourth quarter with 24% of marketers recording a further decline in budgets as a result of the pandemic.  

However, with new vaccinations bringing the hope of recovery – both in terms of the country’s health and economy – the marketing industry is preparing to bounce back. After spending 2020 in crisis mode, many are ready to boost their investments. Earlier this month, the CMO Council found that 65% of marketers plan to increase their marketing spend in 2021.  

The challenge for marketers moving forward will be knowing where to spend that money. Despite future prospects looking bright, the road to recovery is likely to be a long one. There is no guarantee of success, and marketing teams must ensure that the tactics and strategies they choose to deploy deliver the ROI (return on investment) they need.   

Yet, with so many trends and the naturally fast-paced nature of the marketing landscape, it can be difficult to know what to focus on. Although the future is impossible to predict, there are three areas that marketers should take note of this year:  

1) The face of content marketing will change  

Content marketing has long been considered one of the most effective ways to increase audience engagement and develop a brand presence. However, in recent years, we’ve seen a noticeable shift away from its traditional written format.   

Although blogs and whitepapers will remain an important tool for brands wanting to communicate to their customers, the majority of today’s consumers are really after something a little more digestible. This is where video content, in particular, is set to play an important role. In fact, The Content Marketing Institute recently discovered that 71% of B2B marketers and 66% of B2C marketers already use this format to connect to their audiences. Whether in the form of short tutorials or live webinars, we can expect to see even more video content moving forward.  

If this video content is to be a success, we need to apply the usual principles when it comes to personalisation and the consumer journey. Today’s consumers expect more targeted and relevant marketing than ever before, with 66% admitting that encountering non-personalised content would stop them from making a purchase. Therefore, the most successful material will target customers directly and offer true value, without trying to explicitly sell them anything.  

2) Search intent will matter most when it comes to SEO  

We all know that SEO is one of the most important ways a brand can drive traffic to its website. The higher a page ranks on a search engine, the more likely users will click on it and begin that initial interaction.   

In the past, some have relied on keyword stuffing and other dicey strategies to boost their ranking. However, Google has worked hard to improve its algorithm over the years. So much so that it can now determine the search intent behind a specific search query. Whether a user is looking for information about the weather or searching for a product to buy, Google will rank its results based on what it thinks the user wants to see.   

This, in turn, makes it really important for marketers to focus on the end user and their search intent. Regardless of what marketing collateral is being produced – whether written or video – teams need to ensure that it is relevant to the user’s search query. That might mean making sure your landing page is informational as opposed to transactional, with links to separate sales pages for those looking to buy.  

3) Virtual events will become the norm  

When the pandemic hit, in the interest of keeping people safe and limiting the spread of the virus, industry events and tradeshows across the world were put on hold. For many, the solution was to go virtual. Surprisingly, this monumental change has brought about some positive results.   

Companies have found themselves saving money and time. Meanwhile, the pool of potential invitees and attendees has exploded, as people from across the world can instantly join without even having to think about travelling. This virtual landscape also enables marketers to collect valuable feedback and measure results in order to inform future events. Speakers can insert real-time polls or surveys into their presentations and it becomes much easier to gather certain data – such as number and location of attendees – when everyone logs on online.   

Even when things do return to normal and physical events are able to go ahead, the likelihood is that this virtual trend will continue in some format. In fact, 80% of people predict that in-person and virtual events will co-exist moving forward. Therefore, marketers need to prepare themselves for a hybrid future.  

Making the right choices  

The role of the marketing team has never been more important. In today’s climate, implementing the most effective marketing tactics and strategies could be the difference between an entire business surviving or collapsing.  With this year promising an increase in budgets, marketers need to ensure that they are making the right choices and setting themselves up for future success.   

Regardless of what trend the team decides to focus on, the key will be to think carefully and monitor efforts in order to understand what works best for the wider business and its key audiences. It is only then that marketers will be ready for whatever comes next.   

Listen to your customers: Five marketing lessons 2020 has taught us
By:
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2020 has been a challenging year for all businesses and has certainly kept marketers on their toes. We saw massive societal change due to the Covid-19 pandemic but also with events like the Black Lives Matter movement which have had a significant impact on the mood of the nation. Brands have had to quickly pivot their approach to respond appropriately. 

So, what has this year taught us? How can marketers prepare themselves for what is looking likely to be an uncertain start to the year ahead? Stefan Britton, CRO, Datasine considers the lessons marketers have learnt from 2020 about customer engagement….

  1. Brands must be on good behaviour 

In 2020, we saw many brands realise the hard way that their behaviours are just as important as their marketing campaigns, and we’re increasingly seeing consumers shun brands that don’t behave. We saw Wetherspoons meet a barrage of criticism when it withheld payments to 43,000 staff until it received the Government’s furlough payment. As a result of this backlash, the pub chain soon reversed this decision and promptly paid its staff. Fashion brand, Boohoo, was also called out when questions were raised about poor working practices in their supply chain. These claims came at a cost to its reputation, and damaged relations with other retailers who sell the brand. 

Businesses are clearly being held accountable for their actions by consumers – perhaps now more so than ever before – and it’s important to be mindful that it’s not just their online behaviours that are being judged. Social media has given audiences a very loud voice and long memories and good marketing can’t outrun bad behaviour.

2. A move to mobile  

New habits were formed during lockdown as online shopping became more of a ‘lifeline’ than lifestyle choice. Online sales are expected to account for 27.5% of total retail sales this year, and no doubt the impact of lockdown on the high street will continue to be felt far into the future.

The conversion rates from desktop devices are typically twice as high as they are from mobile devices, however this year, there’s been a significant shift to mobile online shopping (mcommerce) with more people being at home and using their mobile phones to shop. 

Brands need to look at the mobile experience they offer their customers because consumers expect a common experience, no matter how they engage with a retailer. Help customers engage in whichever way they want to.

3. Intelligent analysis of data

Research we undertook in 2020 showed that only 46% of marketers are using their data effectively to inform their future campaigns, yet 100% acknowledge that harnessing customer data more effectively could boost the success of these campaigns. 

Effective use of data enables marketers to move from insights to action and make quick decisions on the journey they want to take their subscribers on. Alongside this, marketers need to have a better understanding of exactly who their customers are – that’s a piece of data in itself. We frequently see big brands with multiple CRM systems and multiple points of entry for data collection, and no single view of their customers. 

Data can tell us a lot about our customers. Digging into this data more deeply will enable marketers to understand why, how, and when people make the decisions they do.

4. Tell us what you want

A report from EY shows that the Covid-19 crisis has boosted technology engagement for 21% of households but less than half (44%) now feel in control of their personal online data. Consumers’ growing scepticism about use of their personal data is making access to crucial customer insights increasingly difficult. To provide customers with the personalised experience they have come to expect, many marketers are now looking for ways to engage with them more directly. 

It’s ok to talk to customers and canvas their opinion about how they want you to sell to them. If your customers know that you want to learn more about how to keep them happy, chances are they will respond. Ask them questions and opinions on the marketing activities you have planned. For example, ask them about how receptive they would be to discounts on certain products, or if they feel you need to make improvements to a current product set. 

Once you’ve embarked on this journey to get to know your customers better, keep this dialogue open and try to speak to them as often as you can. For example, you might decide to change brand identity – ask customers what they think and involve them in the decision-making process.

5. A place to listen, not just shout

Facebook is evolving as a platform, and the introduction of the Business Suite and improvements to brand safety options are just some of the enhancements we’ve seen. Next year, I expect to see more brands using the platform to create communities rather than just using it to promote products. Facebook, is no longer just a place to advertise and shout about how great you are, it’s become a platform for listening and learning more about customers.

Marketing professionals need to brace themselves for another bumpy ride in 2021, and as the only constant currently is change. If 2020 year taught us anything, it’s that it is more important than ever before to listen to our customers. 

How intelligent technologies are helping marketers predict challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond
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By Saranya Babu, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Wrike

Marketing is undeniably one of the most important aspects of modern business strategy. Whether it’s developing a unique brand image, or carrying out specific campaigns to attract the right audience, the activities of the marketing department are at the centre of driving growth and revenue within any organisation. 

This year, marketers have been presented with an entirely new and unexpected challenge – how to navigate a global pandemic. The economic uncertainty surrounding this ongoing crisis has forced many businesses to redefine their brand identity, in order to distinguish themselves from their competitors and survive. 

While many businesses are accustomed to crisis management, the scale of this pandemic calls for a more comprehensive approach. In order to truly speak to their audiences during these unprecedented times and beyond, marketers must focus on developing a meaningful and consistent brand image, with each and every project being a success.  

Make no mistakes with integrated insights

With businesses of all shapes and sizes facing a long road to recovery, tough decisions are being made across the board. Unfortunately, many marketing departments are bearing the brunt of industry-wide cut-backs. In fact, dips in business revenue have resulted in the largest ever decline in spending, with over  41% of UK firms  reducing their marketing budgets in the third quarter of 2020 as a direct result of the pandemic.  

During this time of turmoil, instant access to real-time performance metrics within existing work management platforms is essential for marketing teams, especially given the speed at which things are changing. The ability to examine the progress of ongoing projects and campaigns, their strengths and weaknesses, as well as potential areas for improvement can improve the chances of a successful outcome. 

After all, marketing is dependent on the ability to juggle several tasks at once. This is a lot easier said than done when multiple ads, email, and social campaigns are running simultaneously. Operating on outdated information – even by a day or two – can adversely affect the final outcome of a project. Moreover, as the remote work era continues, visibility will become more important than ever before. The lack of face-to-face communication demands accurate performance metrics in order to track and analyse a campaigns’ progression at any given moment.  

Ahead of the game 

Many different things can derail a project. Additional costs, failure to meet deadlines, or unplanned modifications can all have a negative impact and, ultimately, cost a business – especially in our current landscape. In order to increase the likelihood of success for a project and limit any potential risk, marketing teams should look to predict and plan for a series of different possibilities from the offset.  

This is where modern technologies – such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) – come into play. These technologies can pinpoint at-risk projects and provide an early diagnosis, so that teams can take necessary action to minimise risk and solve any potential challenges before they even occur. By recognising signals and patterns based on hundreds of factors, including past campaign results, work progress, organisation history, and work complexity, the insights provided by these technologies can help to salvage entire projects. 

With intelligent insights readily available, marketing teams can work towards prioritising matters of high-importance, such as mitigating and managing risk. This can be done by evaluating a project’s ‘risk tolerance’. In other words, how much can you allow before you need to act. This is a crucial step in any project management process, enabling marketers to choose the most effective response and ensure that resources are being used in the most effective way.  

As competition rises and budgets shrink, marketing teams are under increasing pressure to deliver. Connecting with desired audiences through brand consistency, strong messaging, and impactful campaigns is still important. However – thanks to the increased pressures brought by the pandemic – there is no longer any room for error. Therefore, guaranteeing all activities are on course and risk is at an all-time-low must be a priority. While there isn’t a single ingredient for success during these unprecedented times, integrated insights and AI and ML technologies could play a significant part in enabling marketing teams to predict and mitigate any possible risks ahead of time. 

3 Quick-Wins to Improve Your Online Strategy
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With the national lockdown ending Wednesday 2nd December and the new, more rigorous tiered system taking full effect, the push to drive traffic online is imperative, especially for brands looking to circumnavigate disaster and get on the path to recovery this most crucial Christmas trading period. Without the possibility to engage shoppers in-store, the need to develop effective customer strategies for digital channels, at speed, is vital.  

To help you revolutionise your online strategy – quickly – Go Inspire are providing our top 3 quick wins…

1. Truly Understand the Performance of Your Online and Offline Media Mix 

Having the confidence to adjust, reallocate or drop marketing investment for specific channels in the media mix can often be difficult for marketers, particularly when hard evidence of customer profitability and channel and campaign performance is lacking.

Imagine spending £thousands on Paid Search only to find out later that those individuals would have come to you anyway via another channel 

Ideally you would be able to demonstrate the profitability of marketing spend and business growth delivered by targeting the right individual, at the right time, with the right message using the right channel.

Digital Playback is a marketing attribution platform that maximises return on investment by highlighting when an individual is in-market, and which channel will be most effective in converting your live opportunities. 

2 things that Digital Playback achieves:

  • It chronologically clusters all interactions a known or unknown individual makes across all channels and devices to highlight the role of each media channel in the sale.
  • It also segments individuals based on engagement, value bands and channel preference to give a true measurement of incremental performance and to deploy more responsive real-time or planned campaigns.

With this new understanding of the whole customer journey you can build more effective marketing campaigns by investing in the activity that is truly working. For example, if your annual budget is £1million on Paid Search, you could typically save £150k immediately.   

If you’d like more information, simply click here and complete the short form to register your interest. 

2. Cut through the clutter and respond quickly to your known customers online actions with offline marketing.

As marketing budgets decrease, the overriding impulse may be to sacrifice quality for quantity and the physical for the digital. 

But before you put your faith in a display ad campaign with a forecasted 5,000,000 reach and 0.01% CTR, please ponder the recent JICMail and Royal Mail MarketReach research showed that a record 96% of mail was engaged with in Q2 2020. 

When you factor in that online traffic driven by direct mail increased by 70% YOY and online actions, taken as a result of receiving mail, increased by 64% since Q2 2019, its difficult to deny the role direct mail should be playing in your marketing mix. 

To facilitate this even further, direct mail manufacturing technology has now evolved to the point where it’s possible to achieve a realistic price point for standard format pre-templated mailings, for volumes as small as one record. 

Timely AlwaysOn communications can be triggered by any predetermined event in your customers’ online journey, such as repeat website visits or items being added to an online basket but not purchased. 

When an AlwaysOn approach was adopted by JD Williams and trialled alongside email, they saw a 14% increase in abandoned basket conversion using trigger mail, a 6% increase in response rates, and an 8% increase in average item value. 

One application could be to act quickly to communicate with customers in stores affected by local lockdowns, about product availability or changes to in-store services and drive them to online pages, solutions or services, rather than see them look elsewhere, to competitors, for their requirements. 

3. Improve acquisition and drive traffic online with targeted door drops

Win new ideal customers by using targeted door drops which research from JICMAIL shows are opened 74% of the time and interacted with, on average 2.8 times. 

Using advanced targeting you can reach households that match your desired profile. Find people within driving distance of a specific location or from particular demographic groups (e.g. age, location, household consumption etc.)

Door drops have evolved and are now much easier to execute. This is because end-to-end management and production of your highly targeted door drops can include insight, identification of target audiences, design, production and distribution, all in one place.

A bit about Go Inspire

At Go Inspire, we work in partnership with you to revolutionise communications strategies within your business and the relationships you have with your customers.

For over 25 years we’ve helped our customers live by the mantra “right person, right time, right message” and as technology and customer demands have evolved, we’ve ensured “right channel” has been added to that mix. 

If you’d like any support or expert advice in delivering any of the above, simply fill in the form on this page and a member of our team will be in touch. 

SME confidence holds firm ahead of Christmas period
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For the first time this year, small business confidence has held firm from one quarter to the next – with marketing services sectors seeing growth forecasts rise on Q2 levels.

After the Government announced its three-tier Covid restrictions, new research suggests the avoidance of a second national lockdown and certainty of direction until March has had a positive impact on UK small business confidence.

The findings come from a rolling study from Hitachi Capital Business Finance that has tracked small business growth forecasts every quarter for the last six years. Before Covid-19 struck – and even during the period of the Brexit vote – the percentage of small businesses predicting growth for the three months ahead stayed at between 36-39% for six consecutive quarters.

In April 2020, this crashed overnight to just 14% of small businesses predicting growth. 

The UK’s re-emergence from lockdown in July 2020 saw a sharp resurgence in confidence, with the percentage of small business owners predicting growth for the next three months doubling to 27%. The latest data conducted this week by Hitachi Capital reveals that the percentage of small businesses predicting significant and modest growth remains unchanged since summer months (27%). Further, the Q4 data reveals the third consecutive quarter where the percentage of small businesses fearing collapse has fallen – down from a high of 29% in Q2 2020 to a current figure of 12% for Q4 2020.

Joanna Morris, Head of Insight at Hitachi Capital Business Finance, said: “Despite the changed context from the summer months, with Covid numbers now again rising sharply, our data suggests small businesses are reacting positively to the current circumstances. The avoidance of national lockdown and the consensus that there will be restrictions through until March has at least given small business owners a degree of certainty against which to plan. 

“Our figures for 2020 show that small business confidence has had sharp rises and falls since the pandemic struck. Our new research conducted the day after the Government’s announcement on three-tier restrictions gives the first reaction from the small business community. The stabilising of confidence levels between Q2 and Q3 is a really important development as it suggests smaller enterprises (that can operate) are adapting to the new reality – and accept the prospect that we may all be in for a long-haul fight against Covid.” 

By sector the research also gives a welcome boost for the high street. Ahead of the critical Christmas period, there was a marked rise in the proportion of retail small businesses predicting growth (up from 27% to 35% in three months). The property and marketing services sectors also saw growth forecasts rise on Q2 levels.  

Conversely, growth forecasts in manufacturing fell sharply (down from 30% to 23% in three months) – and the hospitality sector remained in a serious position; here only 18% of small business owners predicted any form of growth, whilst 53% predicted contraction. Overall 29% of hospitality sector small businesses predicted they would struggle to survive, more than double the national average (12%).