Building an Effective Digital Marketing Foundation

James McCormick, Senior Analyst – Forrester Research
[email protected]
@JFMcCormick

Here are my notes for the Digital Velocity conference

• The customer insights challenge
• A blueprint for digital marketing
• Assessment of suite adopters
• Strategies for success

The Changing Customer Behavior

• The number of ways customers engage had exploded
• Digital channels dominate (Google, Amazon.com, store website, search engines, etc.) Only offline channels are family/friends and physical store.
• The digital landscape is changing – tablets and phones
  • Websites are now getting more traffic from tablets than smartphones
  • Internet users view 70% more pages on a tablet than a smartphone
• Customers’ multi-channel behavior is complex (across phone, PC and tablet) – 22% engage multiple channels simultaneously
• Multiple devices have given birth to the always addressable customer
  • Multiple devices
  • Frequent Access
  • Multiple locations
• The always addressable customer is already a large part of your global audience (59% in the US)
• The Big Data challenge: always addressable customers create massive footprints of data

The Customer Insights Challenge

• Firms strive to be customer driven
  • Reach – Relationship – Depth
  • Engage – Discover – Explore – Buy
• Improving customer experience is top of mind for Customer Intelligence (Customer Insights – CI) professionals
• CI professionals struggle with data and measurement challenges
• Firms talk about Big Data in different ways
• Too many different channels
• Customer data is silos
• lack a standard understanding of a customer across the channels

The Digital Marketing Suite

• Based on a central hub that consolidates core services
• It’s not just a set of tools
  • Requires a strategy
  • Needs processes
  • Demands resources
  • Must deliver a minimum set of capabilities
  • Delivers measurements that are relevant to the business
• The capability blue print
  • Data Core
    • Data linking
    • Customer data model
    • Interactive memory
  • Management and collaboration
    • Collaboration
    • Resource management
    • Workflows
    • Data Management
    • Enterprise reporting
  • Cross-Channel Intelligence
    • Analytics
    • Customer Recognition Management
    • REcommendations
    • Preference Management
    • Optimization
    • Testing and targeting
    • x-channel campaign management
  • Integration
    • Channel integration
    • Capability integration
    • External application integration
  • Execution
    • Social
    • Mobile
    • Paid search
    • Audience management
    • Ad serving
    • Bid management
    • External applications
    • SMS
    • Email
    • Content Management
• There is no off-the-shelf marketing suite that can bring all of this together
• Who can help?
  • Software vendors
  • Services vendors
• Suite Considerations
• The Marketing Suite is more than just technology
• You need to phase in digital suite capabilities
• No single vendor provides a complete suite
• Services partners will continue to play an important role in delivering and maintaining capabilities

Digital Marketing Suite Competencies

• Strategy
  • Customer experience
  • Adoption
  • Customer-focused contact
• Process
  • Collaboration
  • Planning
• Resources
  • Skills
  • Staffing
• Capabilities
• Measurement

Average digital suite program scoring across adopters
70% of organizations claim they have a well-defined digital strategy in place, yet few have full strategy, support and buy-in
Data is widely misunderstood in its value – reporting efforts are far from exemplary
Processes that streamline data distribution are common in about half the population
Organizationally, the bulk of adopters are understaffed and poorly structured for an digital marketing suite
Tools are widely underutilized
Collaboration between stakeholders is widely forced
How do we improve our Digital Marketing Suite Implementation

• Four stages of suite adoption
  • Stage 1 – Operational mastery
  • Stage 2 – Digital Integration
  • Stage 3 – Optimization
  • Stage 4 – Multichannel integration
• Two approaches to building suite capabilities
  • Hub approach
  • Start with a single view of the customer and her activities
  • Then build out additional hub and execution channels
  • If a strong customer analytics culture and one or two mature channels
  • Channel approach
  • Start with integrating at the channel level
  • Then build out cross-channel and data core capabilities
  • Well-developed websites and programs
• Ensuring adoption success
  • Realization
    • Full capability is possible today
    • However, no off-the-shelf platform exists
    • Technology alone is not going to provide the answer
  • Assess your adoption maturity
    • This will inform your ned milestones
    • Help you plan your road map sequence
  • Multiphase adoption
    • Allows for requirement and cultural refinement
    • Take either a hub or multichannel approach