We’re putting the final touches on our much anticipated 2014 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report. We wanted to give you a sneak-peek at some of the content, with this blog installment focusing on becoming a cross-channel marketing mastermind. Take a look:
The marketing game has changed. Countless devices and channels — connected through a hyperexpanding network that never sleeps — have combined to reshape virtually every facet of the customer experience. What’s evolved is a new consumer class that expects meaningful connections with its products, services and brands.
Today’s consumer gobbles up more and more control of the so-called “buyer’s journey,” while marketers work hard to deal with a stunning reversal in the brand-consumer power dynamic.
The resulting pressure on corporate marketing organizations to become experts in this new customer-centric terrain, take up position in every possible channel, and not only recognize, but intelligently engage their customers is bringing about changes in ideology, organization and technology.
This report provides perspective on the changing landscape while offering insights marketers can use to become cross-channel marketing masterminds poised to win in this new arena.
The cross-channel imperative
Modern consumers do not traverse marketing “channels,” they do not represent some archetypical “buyer persona,” nor do they envision themselves engaged in the “buyer’s journey.” No, in their minds, they are simply shopping or searching for products, services and information about something of interest to them.
The issue, of course, is that the way consumers shop and get information is undergoing dramatic and irrevocable changes driven by technologies that are giving consumers insights and access into brands at a pace that surpasses marketers’ own efforts to generate insights into those same consumers.
Not so long ago a customer might have been pleasantly surprised by, and statistically more likely to respond to, a personalized email using dynamic, variable-based content. Today, that same customer expects to seamlessly navigate across a growing array of channels and be met at every step of the way with messaging and offers tailored to his or her unique relationship with that brand. Simply put, the customer expects convenience.
It is important to remember that a brand’s inability to meet such standards is not the problem of the customer. As more technologies continue to make it easier for consumers to find precisely what they want and when they want it, it is imperative that brands facilitate this convenient new reality or lose customers to the next competitor who gets it right.
The report also covers:
- What marketers need to know about gaining an accurate, single customer view
- How leading marketers pinpoint and engage their very best customers
- The path to achieving marketing nirvana through true cross-channel interactions
- And much more!
Sign up to get your free copy next week, hot off the proverbial press.