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Simon Whitehouse (pictured) offers expert advice on avoid the social media pitfalls.

Social media presents the modern organisation with many opportunities to better engage with their audiences, monitor emerging trends and even take advantage of the immediacy of the phenomenon by conducting real-time market research. Social media also enables companies to listen to customers, take note of their feedback and adapt offerings and customer service approaches accordingly.

The benefits of using social media within a wider marketing strategy are evident in the fact that more budget is being allocated to the digital arena, with research conducted by analyst organisation Gartner indicating that digital marketing budgets will rise by ten per cent in 2014.

However, the viral, instant and widespread nature of these networks and apps also has downsides that organisations often overlook, such as  the need to monitor for brand protection-related issues, including brand impersonation, account spoofing, and counterfeit goods. This is reinforced by research conducted by Grant Thornton in which it was found that 59% of companies do not perform a risk assessment when it comes to their social media strategy.

Incorporating some form of brand protection within the overall digital marketing strategy is critical, not only in allowing an organisation to gain advantage from the benefits of social media, but also to avoid damaging hard-earned customer and brand trust, and the ability to engage with customers one-on-one. The danger is that as a medium which is characterised by a brand’s way of presenting consumers with its human side, many customers may take brands’ social media accounts at face value.

Before addressing the important issue of what can be done from a brand protection point of view, it is important to understand just what risks a brand faces.

Social media – what’s the risk to a brand?

One of the biggest risks a brand faces is impersonation. The nature of the Internet is such that impersonators can use items such as copyrighted images, photos or trademarked brand names or slogans to communicate with a brand’s audience in the guise of being the brand itself. The motivation for impersonation varies, from financial gain, to merely wishing to discredit or damage the brand. Regardless of the reason, this can negatively affect consumer perception and trust.

When motivated by economic reasons, scammers and impersonators can use social media to mislead consumers in terms of fraud or counterfeiting. This can be accomplished by setting up fake pages or profiles with the unauthorised use of copyrighted materials and/or trademarks in order to appear legitimate.

So how then does a brand ensure it doesn’t fall victim to scammers, counterfeiters or impersonators in the social media space?

Brand protection tips

Keeping a brand safe and healthy in the social media sphere is an ongoing endeavour that requires a solid strategy to combat instances of brand misuse or misappropriation. There are a number of best practice approaches that can be incorporated into a brand’s overall brand protection strategy to help preserve customer trust.

Top tip 1: Dot the i and cross the t

A brand should be officially registered across a host of social media websites, from blogs, and microblogs, to various networks. An organisation needs to make sure that it has taken the appropriate steps to make it official by proactively registering the brands as usernames across leading and new social media sites.

Certain social media sites have a verification process whereby brands or organisations can prove their legitimacy. For those sites that do not offer this option, organisations can ensure that their official website includes icons, information and links that explain and lead to their social media sites.

In addition, while a company may already have registered and / or recovered all of a brand’s vanity URLs, an organisation should also pay attention to emerging, special interest or lesser-known social media sites. With the growth of social media and the establishment of new sites, this should form an ongoing part of brand protection strategy.

Top Tip 2: Be vigilant

Social media networks, and indeed the scammers who make use of them, evolve constantly. It can be fairly easy for scammers and fraudsters to impersonate a brand online, which means that these networks need to be monitored on an ongoing basis to prevent a brand’s misuse and stop scammers from engaging with customers. There are tools available in the market that can assist in automatically searching social media for unauthorised use of your brands and trademarks.

Top Tip 3: Take action

Once any misuse or abuse of a brand is identified, appropriate action must be taken. This can vary, depending on the circumstances, and can include a number of approaches. Organisations can contact the scammer or impersonator directly to understand their motives and explain how this activity is in violation of their brand guidelines. Alternatively, brands may need to catalogue the activity and report the impersonator or scammer to the relevant social media site so that it can enforce its terms of service.

In order for a brand to reap the benefits of using social media within their digital marketing strategy and to keep customers safe from impersonators, incorporating a social media element within a brand protection strategy is crucial. If overlooked, this can negatively affect brand credibility and customer trust, the effects of which will be seen on a business’ bottom line.

Simon Whitehouse is senior director, EMEA sales, MarkMonitor.

Richard Rosen (pictured) links customer engagement to a brand’s genuine values.

I believe most of you will agree, we live in a new era of unprecedented customer empowerment.  Any one person’s opinion—good or bad—can be shared with millions instantly. And, according to Forbes, 90% of us will boycott a firm if we learned of a company’s irresponsible business practices, and more than 55% have done so in the past 12 months (Mainwaring, 2013).

In short, today’s customers are more vocal than ever about how their purchasing decisions affect their well-being and the planet. 

Let’s face it, the threats and opportunities of customer engagement have never been greater.

When  61% of Millienials are worried about our planet and feel personally responsible to make a difference (Mainwaring, 2013), it’s clear that companies that will have sustainable success are the ones that blend into the business model the quest for profits with social purpose. Simply put, your brand is more favourable in today’s business environment if it’s good for society and the planet.

So what does this mean for us as marketers?

It’s safe to say this adds a whole other layer to our brands’ messaging platforms. We now need to deliver an improved level of meaning behind the brand that includes authenticity, transparency and vision. Incorporating genuine values into the fibre of your brand will win the hearts and minds of the consumer. This strategy is proven to increase interaction rates leading to greater sales. It’s a far better strategy than merely appealing to their basic needs by delivering a product or service at par or better.

How exciting. The ultimate competitive advantage is right at our fingertips!

I am thoroughly convinced that getting customers’ attentions at this higher level and fulfilling a deeper meaning in their lives will spark an even greater connection with our brands.  After all, our goal as marketers is to continue to drive a meaningful dialogue and ultimately garner long-lasting customer relationships.

Coca-Cola is an example of a brand struggling in this new landscape. For years, it succeeded by creating larger and larger soda sizes despite growing sentiment that sugary soft drinks were contributing to the obesity epidemic. Now they’re paying the price. Soft drink sales are falling and the company has become a corporate bogeyman akin to Walmart or McDonalds in the 2000s. Type ‘Coke’ into YouTube. The first video that pops up isn’t a Coke ad. It’s a video called, “What Will Happen If You Boil Coke?”  Spoiler alert: it doesn’t turn into rainbows.

What would have happened if Coke had stood for higher values? For one thing, the decision to sell 128oz big gulps at 7-Eleven never would have been approved. Perhaps instead they would have gone smaller and emphasised Coke as a premium treat to be enjoyed occasionally, a strategy they are only now experimenting with (Bloomberg, 2014). In the world of new media, genuine values serve as a hedge against negative PR storms, a way to ensure your brand doesn’t become a pariah.

But if that’s the downside potential of forgoing genuine values, the upside potential for employing them is even greater. Ben & Jerry’s is a prime example. Since its founding, the company has allowed its values to guide its every decision. This has lead the company to vocally support everything from the local food movement to GMO labelling, to limits on campaign financing, to the Occupy Wallstreet movement. The company has taken a bold stand for genuine values, and as a result won a vibrant social media following and many engaged and trusting customers. On the surface, Coke and Ben & Jerry’s sell sugary treats, but the difference in their values has thrown them worlds apart. One is pointed to as a poster child of the health crisis, the other is a loved brand making a difference.

I am convinced that the better way to succeed in this new era is not only to spin the online and offline tools essential to marketing, but to take a stand for genuine values that tap into the higher purpose and potential of people, as Ben & Jerry’s did. Ultimately, today’s customer pays attention and falls in love with those companies that make them feel empowered.

This is one of the most dramatic and overarching shifts in marketing and advertising we will see in our lifetimes. I trust you to look forward to this new challenge.

Richard G Rosen is president and CEO of ROSEN Convergence Marketing, a certified B Corporation. As the originator and chief architect of Convergence Marketing, he consults with leading brands to improve their marketing campaigns through empathetic dialogue. His book, Convergence Marketing: Combining Brand and Direct for Unprecedented Profits, (Wiley & Sons), is a ‘how-to’ tool for marketing professionals. Rosen will be presenting a keynote at the annual DMA conference in San Diego with Rob Michalak, global director of social mission, Ben & Jerry’s, on Sunday October 26 at 2pm.

 

Udesh Jadnanansing (pictured) looks at how businesses should embrace their enthusiasts as well as concentrating on customers who have issues.

When it comes to customer loyalty, it’s very easy for businesses to focus on those people who have had problems or issues and want to complain. In some ways, this is the ‘low hanging fruit’ of customer relations because often this group will be proactive in contacting you (they have a problem they want to solve after all!) and increasingly they will be vocal about their issues to their peers.

So, the sensible thing to do is to court these customers directly and promptly – and it’s commonly acknowledged that this can actually create strong customer loyalty if done well.

However, this line of thinking can make it very difficult to concentrate on the ‘enthusiasts’ who already think highly of your company, products and services and are already evangelising about you online and in the real world!

Rather than treating this loyalty as a passive bonus, court these enthusiasts as well. Perhaps some of this apparent neglect comes from the popularity of using Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) measurements. Undoubtedly, these systems are very good at giving a measurable ‘snapshot’ of how well your relationship is going with your customers and use a closed loop feedback model which has very specific aims of finding problems. However, these systems also work on the assumption that a customer experience will start off on a high but can deteriorate if neglected, encouraging the business to ensure this doesn’t happen by engaging the potential pain points as a priority. When things go wrong NPS and CSAT ring the alarm bells to alert you – but they have no real scope to highlight the positive feedback as well.

Knowing what your company does well, is arguably just as valuable as knowing what faults your service has. Enthusiasts will often be busy telling the world about the benefits of your products or services so it makes sense to court them and encourage their continued support. Most people have at least one product, service or brand that they like or feel devoted to, and they will continue to purchase it when appropriate. So a ‘thank you’ from your favourite supplier, be it a free offer or discount for example, is usually appreciated and is a positive way of reinforcing and further encouraging this customer loyalty.

Thinking from the perspective of enthusiasm can be a radical shift for some organisations. Tackling potential problems has been the default response for many businesses for a long time, but successful and truly brand-savvy organisations realise that positive feedback can be very beneficial. Here are five reasons why a shift to also focusing on promoters and enthusiasts can help a business to thrive:

Enthusiasts help to create a positive flow throughout your company, at all levels – whether it is contact agents (who may be more accustomed to tackling complaints, which in isolation doesn’t make for a happy work balance), the sales team (who can offer real anecdotal evidence to their pitches) and account managers, etc. Being able to discuss and celebrate what people like about your company as well as being aware of any problems, gives your team positive reinforcement that they are doing a good job and providing a valued service that is appreciated.

Concentrating on the good things your customers highlight, helps to identify your key differentiators – which is highly useful in sales and marketing planning.

Promoting and supporting a group of customers that is very enthusiastic of your products and services helps to propagate these positive attitudes. These enthusiasts will praise you via word-of-mouth or online, providing a new stream of clients that will further promote you to an increasingly widening audience.

Enthusiasts will ensure you have a group of extremely loyal groundswell market that is less likely to buy from your competitors. In larger numbers this can represent a valuable customer base for your business and is well worth supporting.

Promoters and enthusiasts of your products/services will be more engaged and reflective on what you deliver. This feedback will help you positively to develop better products and services for the demographic of customer that wants to buy from you.

Udesh Jadnanansing is founder and managing partner at Mopinion. 

 

 

 

Boris Huard says the valuable role of the chief data officer is dawning on board members.

We are constantly hearing about the fact that the issue of data quality is rapidly moving up the corporate agenda to become a board level discussion – dawning the age of the chief data officer.

One of the key drivers for this is the realisation that data has a financial value – either in its own right or via the impact it can have on business processes and outcomes that drive the profitability of the organisation at large.

However, despite this, there is still all to often a sense of apathy towards tackling the data quality challenge. As a result, many organisations are still struggling to make the case for larger corporate wide data improvement initiatives.  This is largely driven as a result of ‘data quality champions’ within the organisation being poorly equipped to make the linkages required between data inaccuracy and overall business performance.

When it comes to data quality, it’s essential to start thinking about the long game and how it specifically pertains to customer or party data. Customer data is not only the lifeblood to the effective operation of an organisation – it also has commercial value. This will become more and more apparent as business models around data evolve. Gartner states that by 2016, 30% of businesses will have begun directly or indirectly monetising their information assets via bartering or selling them outright.

So why do organisations struggle to put a value on their customer data assets?

One of the key factors here is visibility and ownership at a corporate-wide level. Many organisations today hold data within a multitude of silos perceived to be owned by a range of individuals around either lines of business or the IT department itself. This is probably exemplified best when you look at statistics around the roll out of data quality technology investment, with most deployments pertaining to one project or department and very few spanning more than three projects or departments.

Another key challenge is that there are often ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ benefits associated with any technology investment. Many of the benefits of investing in data quality are perceived to sit in the ‘soft’ (difficult to prove) bucket. This is because a lot of the upside sits in improved operational efficiency. Take labour productivity as an example. Gartner states that data quality impacts overall labour productivity by as much as 20%. This highlights the importance of data quality as a critical enabler to process quality. Data champions within organisations today need to start mapping the impact of data quality back to real life – and ideally measurable – business processes such as customer care performance or on time delivery.

One size fits all never fits anyone particularly well . . .

Therefore, to convince any board to move forward with an investment in a data quality initiative, it’s essential for them to see for themselves the cost of data inaccuracy as it pertains to their own organisation. The good news is technology can enable this utopia and the market at large is starting to wake up to that fact. This is evidenced in the circa ten per cent increase in the adoption of data profiling and discovery tools between 2012 and 2013.

The key is to select technology that can tell you not just the percentage of data inaccuracy that exists in your organisation’s customer data today, but to connect the dots between inaccurate customer data and ‘things’ such as customer value, helping to put a value on your data quality problem. Taking this approach in the early stages of scoping a data quality initiative will give you the ammunition you need at board level, while identifying the low hanging fruit for data improvement.

Boris Huard is MD, Experian Data Quality.

 

Adrian Collins explains why some brands’ designs enjoy longevity and others fade into obscurity.

When, back in 2000, we designed the MiniCheddars packaging, we had little idea that it would be such an enduring design. Where other food brands have allowed their brand equity to dissipate in an ongoing process of design and redesign, MiniCheddars has barely changed at all.

It remains the same bright, recognisable, appealing package that it was 15 years ago. And that has produced rewards for owners McVities, who have enjoyed ongoing sales success with the product. It has diversified flavours but kept the packaging consistent, and it has remained a consistent performer with little or no advertising support..

How many food brands can make the same claim? Think of a product, and then try to remember how it looked 15 years ago. Almost certainly it will have been through so many evolutions – or even complete overhauls – that the packaging it wore at the start of this century is almost unrecognisable from that it currently uses – just 15 years later.

Tinkering disasters

Consider some famous examples. The most notorious is of course Coca-Cola’s 1985 attempt to rebrand Coca-Cola Classic as New Coke. More recently, in 2009 PepsiCo tried to overhaul an established design of Tropicana, phasing out the well-known orange with a straw in it. After a month of complaints and a 20 per cent drop in sales, PepsiCo announced that it would bring the old carton back. It was a mistake that was reputed to have cost $100m.

In the snacks world, also in 2009, Kraft held a competition to rename Australian icon Vegemite. The resulting name – iSnack 2.0 – was nothing if not a surprise, but what was more even more remarkable was that Kraft agreed to go through with the change. It lasted a full five days.

Causes of the tinkering

Why does this happen? The first reason, and most important, is that packaging matters. It is the opportunity a brand has to make a connection with a consumer at the point of purchase. Poor products with great packaging can succeed and great products with poor packaging can succeed.

However, it can be too easy to do. A brand manager knows he or she will be in post for two to three years. They want to make their mark in that time, and there are few levers at their disposal that are as quick, affordable, and often effective as packaging design. We can cite a long list of brands that have spent £100,000 with us and seen a profit surge in the millions of pounds. What brand manager does not want that on their CV?

It should be noted that this enthusiasm for packaging evolution and revolution is by no means confined to those brand managers. Branding and design consultancies have a significant vested interest in persuading their clients that the design they did two years ago would benefit from an update.

Designing for brand longevity

It is far better to develop a look and feel that looks fresh and contemporary from the outset and, crucially, remains so for many years. Take Copella. When we began working with Copella in 2004 it was a £5m brand looking for an enduring packaging design that would take its sales to the next level and help it establish its place in the PepsiCo stable.

We placed a solid block of distinctive green across the centre of every Copella bottle. Not only does the strong presence of a distinctive brand signifier help it to get noticed and tried, once consumers have tried and loved the product they can easily find it again.  Having located the brand it is then relatively simple to shop within the brand for the specific variant.

Today, Copella turns over more than £40m a year; it has never advertised on television. Crucially, Copella has one of the highest repeat purchase rates of any product in the PepsiCo range.

Clearly, brand longevity is about more than avoiding disaster. By creating a brand that endures, FMCG products can reduce consultancy spend, build long-term brand recognition and awareness, protect margins, and achieve astonishing return on investment in branding and design services.

Adrian Collins is MD, Ziggurat Brands – an identity and innovation consultancy. 

Dana Drissel (pictured) explains how best to demonstrate large, complex products.

When trying to communicate a complex product story articulating your differentiation is key, but often times it’s just not enough. Here are five steps that help your company tell their product story loud and clear.

1.    Hands-on Customer Engagement
2.    Visually Showing How the Product Works
3.    Non-Linear Personalisation
4.    Crib Notes
5.    Supersize It

Hands-on customer engagement
Did you know that interactivity can increases product knowledge retention by up to 75%? It’s true. Giving prospects a hands-on sensory experience allows them to explore product features that are the most important to them in a way that they’ll remember.

That said, getting your products into the hands of your prospects is much easier said than done. Products (specifically in the telecom, medical or industrial industries) are often large, fragile, expensive, hard to obtain and difficult to ship. Even at trade shows, companies are often bringing just their flagship products and/or just a ‘shell’ of their product to avoid damage during transport.

Consider using virtual 3D Product Models (that look and behave just like the actual products) on touch screens appliances at trade shows, or on mobile devices for remote sales meetings. Doing so will ensure products are available at every sales encounter and that customers can engage and navigate products as desired.

Visually showing how the product works
A lot of products look similar (eg. grey boxes) from the outside, but showing the uniqueness of what’s happening within your product and what makes it different from the competition is how you’ll win the deal.

Your brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text. So, whether you have 60 seconds of your prospect’s attention in a trade show booth, or 30 minutes in an actual face-to-face sales meeting, visual representations of product workflow and network infrastructures will not only help overcome language barriers but assist in quickly and effectively communicating how your product works. Oh, and don’t forget that more than 65% of people are visual learners.

Non-linear personalisation
Personalisation is paramount! There is no substitute for being able to look someone in the eye, shake his or her hand, and give a full presentation of any relevant aspect of your entire product portfolio at a moment’s notice.

To avoid ‘one-size-fits-all’ marketing, you need the ability to tailor the product demonstration to the needs and interests of each prospect, making their purchasing experience feel specific to their individual business challenges. By creating non-linear, user-driven product demonstrations, the prospect can control their own experience, exploring the product and messages in a sequence and level of detail that they feel are most appropriate to their needs.

Tools such as videos do the talking for you and put the sales demonstration on autopilot, creating a forgettable experience and inhibiting a true conversation with your customer. Putting your customer in the driver’s seat better highlights their interests for your sales representative, enabling them to tailor the discussion to best solve the customer’s business challenges.

Crib notes
Crib notes aren’t for cheaters – they’re for those of us who just need a little extra help! Even the most knowledgeable sales reps need crib notes now and then!

As corporate strategies shift and organisations become acquired, the product marketing mix changes and sales people must quickly accommodate. The majority of sales reps no longer sell just one product to one audience, they sale numerous products to dozens of different recipients, within very complex buying cycles.

And here’s the rub, when several products are marketed by the same sales force, it becomes impossible and impractical for them to know the unique features and benefits of EVERY product within the portfolio. This results in a generalized selling pitch, making the sales experiences less than stellar.

Use small crib notes that help sales navigate thought the demonstration like a product expert. Quick reference points like information hot spots on products, supporting marketing messages and videos will help quickly and concisely communicate the differentiation of each product.

Supersize it
Similar to McDonalds, you want to give your prospects the ability to ‘Supersize’ their orders. How many times have you heard a server ask, “would you like fries with that?” Having the sales and marketing tools to communicate the benefits of one product is good, but having the ability to clearly show and articulate the value of add-ons or multiple product configurations is even better!

Dana Drissel is senior director of marketing at Kaon Interactive.

This year’s Summit is designed specifically for marketers interested in learning how to efficiently increase the quantity and quality of their sales lead pipelines. Topics will include

• Lead generation, scoring and nurturing
• Content, inbound and social media marketing
• Conversion optimization, automation, analytics and strategy

More details about the event are here.

Mike Richardson (pictured) separates fact from fiction surrounding cloud CRM.

As increasing numbers of organisations move their business processes off-site and into the cloud, cloud-based CRM is becoming more and more popular. In fact, Gartner research reveals that 40% of CRM systems sold in 2013 were cloud-based, while according to Cisco Systems’ Global Cloud Index, over 50% of workloads will be processed in the cloud this year. What’s more, this figure is set to rise and rise.

With this comes growing pressure for those non-users to climb aboard and move their CRM into the cloud or risk being left behind. Yet, while there is a great deal of information on the cloud and cloud-based CRM out there, much of this is conflicting, making it difficult for organisations to make the right decision for their requirements.

An informed decision on whether the business benefits of cloud CRM outweigh the potential downsides for your business demands full possession of the facts, so it is important to sort out which commonly-held perceptions of cloud CRM are true and which aren’t.

Myth and reality

One of the biggest myths surrounding the cloud is that it compromises data security. In fact, for SMEs in particular, the opposite is more likely to be true. Moving to the cloud can reduce the number of attacks because cloud data storage requires more sophisticated firewalls, security protocols using the best encryption software that most businesses will install themselves to protect their on-premise data.

A second myth is that operating in the cloud exposes businesses to more outages and interruptions, which have a negative impact on performance and service quality. A 2013 Maximizer survey revealed outages and interruptions to be a major concern for 71% of UK SMEs, yet a cloud service provider is likely to have better back-ups and technical support than those of an individual company with just a single data facility. This ensures that nothing is lost should the worst happen, like an on-site power cut or flood. The level of computing power, maintenance capabilities, around-the-clock support and general back-up a major data hosting provider will have in place is therefore far beyond the capabilities and resources of most organisations, particularly SMEs.

Many SMEs also feel that the cloud is not suitable for their size of business, because they are unable to take the kinds of risks that bigger organisations can. Yet, operating in the cloud cuts risks for the majority of SMEs that use it: security is better and the costs of staff, infrastructure and software are reduced.

In fact, while some SMEs are still avoiding the cloud for these reasons, many have already ventured into cloud-based storage without even realising it: a survey of 500 SMEs by Spiceworks revealed that this was the case for 50% of those questioned. Dropbox, GoogleDocs and Hotmail are all examples of using the cloud to store or access information, while anyone using online applications such as Office 365 and Google Apps is also already operating in the cloud.

The fourth big myth is that using cloud technology will negatively affect the way users do business. In fact, because everything is held remotely and is accessible from multiple points and multiple devices with the cloud, the opposite is true. The cloud makes it easier for businesses to search their customer database, update records, enable workplace collaboration, permit off-site work and tap into business intelligence. This changes business processes for the better, while boosting computing power, tightening security and making the CRM investment more cost-effective.

The advantages of cloud CRM

It is clear there are some big benefits to a cloud-based CRM solution. With no need for costly infrastructure upfront, nor for the expensive security applications that an on-site solution requires, companies can save much-needed funds from the outset. Once implemented, the operational costs associated with a cloud solution are also reduced or eliminated, as the costs of IT staff, security, power, cooling, physical maintenance and hardware refreshes are all handled by the cloud service provider. This results in lower capital expenditure for the business and a more rapid return on investment in the CRM solution.

Software is also automatically upgraded on the host server, meaning upgrades become cheaper, enabling users to add new features without the need for significant investment. Additional storage space can also be bought when needed, eliminating the need for big hardware purchases.

Finally, one of the biggest benefits of cloud-based CRM is that it is scalable. Our 2013 survey showed that almost half of respondents identified this as a key advantage of cloud CRM. This scalability in terms of user numbers is a crucial factor for SMEs, allowing smaller firms to respond to growth or entrenchment in their business at minimal cost.

The case for cloud

There is a very evident business case to be made for adopting a cloud-based CRM and data hosting solution, with SMEs that choose to go down this route gaining a vital competitive edge. However, when considering a cloud-based CRM solution versus an on-site solution, it is vital first to separate fact from fiction, to work out the legitimate concerns and risks and to determine whether the business benefits outweigh the potential downsides. For those looking for reduced upfront costs, for faster, flexible, scalable ways of storing customer data and conducting faster, better CRM activities, the chances are that using the cloud will help.

Mike Richardson is managing director of CRM solution firm Maximizer Software for the EMEA region. 

 

In a world where we crave to be impressed and engaged, brands are struggling to really connect with their customers. More and more brands are seeking out the medium of video to connect with their customers, says Emily Tate (pictured).

Let’s start off with the breakdown of what we are talking about:

Video marketing that engages viewers with creative, emotive and unique campaigns.

Video that tells creative stories that deliver awareness.

Video that creates engagement with the brand.

Regular engagement allows you to build loyal customers as well as data to create a better brand experience for everyone. Video and interactive video can enable the viewer to feel as if they are a part of the company and allow them to feel like you are catering to them.

“Engaging and interacting with consumers is paramount when it comes to video, and a big component of this interactivity is meeting the demands of an increasingly mobile consumer,”  – Willem Schngel, global digital manager of Philips Consumer Lifestyle.

Take a look at Maybelline’s ‘Big Eye Beauty Adventure’. It’s a great example of how video can be used to provide multiple emotive pathways within the video format.

Your audience is picky

The main reason why video is making such a splash may be sitting in your hand as you read this. Be it a smart phone, tablet, TV, or gaming console, the internet has changed the way we view content by connecting people from all around the world in a split second. Though now, due to this high speed connectivity, we are picky in what we want to see – we only want to see the content we desire anytime we want.

To the dismay of marketers and advertisers everywhere though, this is can cause a problem. It is no longer sufficient enough to film a broad commercial based on generalisations, or to send one video out to the masses hoping it reaches someone. Now, advertising must be tailored to the audience in hope of engaging with them.

The power of big data and video

Big data have provided vast insight into what certain people, groups, age, and sexes search for, how frequently, and items that they might like. This is valuable information to marketers as big data provides real time marketing optimisation, programmatically targeting users and serves information to the right user at the right time.

Big data makes it easier for our ads to target the right people at the right time increasing the percentage of people who will stop to watch in an overcrowded marketplace.

This provides for full engagement with new interactivity opportunities in digital media. The aim of video is to ease the path of faction for the consumers – to make is as easy as possible for them to click and by your product. Past delivery methods have been passive – a waiting and wishing game – now the control is seemingly placed in the hands of the consumers so they can choose what they want to watch and how they want to experience it. The campaign works to create a relationship between the customer and your brand as a two-way dialogue.

Let’s get scientific:

There are certain characteristics that as viewers we love about video. Wittiness, joy, good vibes and feelings and all things that can make us smile and feel.

 

The left hemisphere of our brain is the side used for logic, analysing, and mathematics or aka the “thinking” side. The right hemisphere of our brain is the emotional side. This is where we hold our precious moments. This is the direct line to our heart and where all stimuli are triggered. That being said, would it not make sense that we would want to trigger the right side of people’s brain? That way we pull them into the heart of the company, to reach a more personal level and ideally a more memorable level.

In the example of Photoshop Live – Street Retouch Prank. Photoshop really displayed its power in this setup. What do you think they would have done to you if you were standing at the bus stop? View it here.

The power of Interactive video

Let the customer lead the way. This is the idea behind interactive video. Enabling consumers to shape the way they consume your content you can offer a more customised experience for them. Letting the information that is most relevant to the user advance to them faster.

Audience engagement skyrockets when viewers feel as if they are the ones calling the shots (we all love to feel as if we are in control). Brand experience will be higher as well for both you and your viewers. This is the beginning of a strong brand loyalty and 360-degree relationship that is destined to succeed. The outcome could come with side affects of more products placed in shopping carts and smiles popping up all around.

MTV recently put out Death Grip – Gif Me More Party. MTV didn’t stress their brand or products in the interactive video but rather showed that they know how to have a good time. Giving their majority viewers, ages 16-28, a way to escape into someone else’s life. Gif Me More Party gives you the ability to watch through not just one, but multiple people’s observations of what is going on during a pool party. See the project here.

Our attention spans are shortening and we want our every need to be catered to as customers. Interactive video directly caters to those needs. It can take us away and give us control.

I hope that after looking at these inventive campaigns they can inspire your own creative outlook and creation. Engaging your audience is one of the most powerful things you can do for your company and brand. Time to get started and make your imprint in this growing new market.

Email Tate is marketing manager, Phink.

 

 

From increasing customer expectations to an always-on approach to brand engagement and the inexorable rise of real-time engagement via mobile and social media, marketers face a fast changing and challenging environment. With senior management placing serious pressure on marketing to contribute to growth strategies, how are marketers planning to respond? What are the priority developments? What skills are required? And how, critically, can marketing exploit this fast growing mass of customer data to deliver measurable business value?

The Digital Marketing Insights Report 2014 from Teradata and Celebrus Technologies reveals a clear focus on personalisation and the use of real-time data over the next two years. However, given the emphasis on measurability, performance and bottom line value, why is the vast majority of organisations failing to exploit the latest generation of sophisticated analytics?

Here, Katharine Hulls (pictured), VP Marketing, Celebrus Technologies, discusses the limitations of aggregated data, including web analytics, cites the need for a robust data foundation and calls on organisations to look closely at the value of journey mapping, golden pathing and affinities analysis.

Marketing Priorities
The marketing team is under ever greater pressure to demonstrate fast and tangible return on investment. According to the latest Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and Bloomberg Marketing Confidence Monitor, many businesses are heading into 2014 with “aggressive” growth ambitions. Not only does growth dominate the management agenda for half of all organisations but 42% report an increase in management buy-in and more appetite for investment in innovation and new business practices, products and people.

So how are marketers planning to respond? For many, the sheer diversity of choice and challenges is overwhelming. While the focus is clearly on enhancing the customer experience, where should activity be prioritised? Creating a Single Customer View (SCV) to improve omni-channel marketing; delivering real-time personalisation solely within the online channel; or exploiting analytics to deliver deep customer understanding and enhance the customer experience?

Whatever route the marketing team decides to prioritise, managing data remains a major concern. According to The Digital Marketing Insights Report 2014, commissioned by Teradata and Celebrus Technologies, organisations are struggling with data: data storage (36%), data quality (23%) and making the data actionable (15%) are the biggest challenges facing the marketing team.

Future focus
Personalisation in all its forms certainly dominates marketing strategy, with the research revealing that while only 21% have a SCV today, a massive 57% expect to achieve this goal within two years. The value of this deep customer insight is clear, with 70% of those with a SCV gaining better customer insights and 60% improving targeting.

However, creating the SCV is just the start – and with the push from management to deliver tangible results, analytics is becoming an increasingly relevant and sophisticated discipline. Done well, analytics can significantly enhance marketing effectiveness and profitability and a growing number of organisations are gaining significant advantage from the provision of an analytical view across multiple sources of data and multiple channels.

The research reveals that today disappointingly few organisations have extended the use of analytics beyond web analytics into areas such as journey mapping, golden pathing and affinities analysis. While almost three quarters (72%) actively use web analytics to support digital marketing efforts, other analytics endeavours have far less penetration, with around only a third using Voice of the Customer (36%), customer journey analysis (35%) and segmentation (34%). In addition and perhaps surprisingly, efforts that have a social media focus are also poorly represented in the results, with analytics to measure engagement and influence (20%) and sentiment (8%) both enjoying limited adoption.

Furthermore, while attribution is increasingly an issue for marketers, just two-fifths (41%) use campaign attribution tools. Yet, with diverse media driving sales across multiple touch points on the path to purchase, measuring simply first or last touch is not good enough. So why are organisations failing to examine attribution in the depth required to make it meaningful?

Embracing analytics
The main problem is, as cited frequently in recent times, a lack of analytics expertise within the business; although companies also cite a lack of time and structural issues with data. However, the value of analytics is clearly recognised, with over half (51%) planning to invest in a dedicated in house analytics team within two years.

Certainly, the value is clear to those organisations that have already invested in both the right tools and expertise: almost three-quarters (71%) cite better customer targeting; over half (58%) improved conversion; with 51% confirming improved marketing personalisation and 51% improved customer experience.

These results tie in with the experiences of clients who are exploiting advanced analytics – from the use of golden path analysis to improve the customer experience and conversion rates, to the use of affinity analysis to identify the products that are browsed and purchased together. Organisations are using these new insights to enable journey improvements by, for example, detecting paths to churn, identifying site and basket abandonment patterns and attaining advanced individual customer level insight.

Journey analysis is also being used to optimise processes. Determining how customers flow through digital channels reveals bottlenecks, repeated steps and inefficiencies – such as web interactions followed by customer phone queries – and significant drop out points. By re-engineering processes, customer experiences can be significantly improved, leading to better retention and cost efficiencies. There are also many opportunities to improve the return on investment (ROI) from spend attribution to identifying fraud in real-time and behavioural based pricing.

Conclusion
Analytics is far from the heartland of traditional marketing activity for most organisations. Yet in an increasingly growth oriented economy where marketing is expected to step up and make measurable contributions and inform on-going strategy, analytics is becoming an essential component of the marketing skills base. Furthermore the shift away from the exclusive use of web analytics also focuses the attention on the overall data strategy – not least the continued challenges of managing data storage and customer data quality. The continued dominance of web analytics and use of aggregated data can cause both data quality issues and actionable data challenges because the data is not designed to support modern marketing requirements, such as omni-channel customer insight and one-to-one personalisation.

So where next? For any marketing manager trying to determine the direction of investment, creating the right data foundation has to be a priority. Without a solid data strategy in place, marketers face a long, difficult and tortuous path to achieve the required depth of customer understanding and quality of multichannel customer experience. With the right foundation, the organisation will be well placed to exploit a raft of innovative tools and techniques – from real time personalisation to sophisticated analytics.

Katharine Hulls is VP Marketing, Celebrus Technologies.