Watch the webinar on demand for free here
In today’s business landscape, acquiring customers comes at a higher cost than ever before, while returns on advertising spending (ROAS) continue to dwindle. As a result, brands must find innovative strategies to identify their most valuable customers, foster strong relationships with them, and provide personalized experiences that drive customer retention. This is because the “most profitable customers” contribute significantly to a brand’s bottom line.
To delve into these pressing issues and explore effective solutions, Netcore recently hosted a Webinar featuring Rusty Warner, Principal Analyst at Forrester. The Webinar focused on how brands can leverage technology, specifically a Cross-Channel Marketing Hub (CCMH), to drive long-term profitability. The session provided valuable insights into transforming marketing efforts, synchronizing them, and optimizing customer engagement, by integrating various marketing channels. Let’s dive right in and uncover the key learnings from the webinar.
The Current Business Landscape
The economy’s stability is far from predictable
Labeling the current American economy as ‘stable’ would be an oversimplification, particularly in the present year. Business leaders are increasingly cautious about their investments, as the technologies they once believed would bolster profits, have fallen short of expectations. These challenges have significantly undermined the confidence of the same leaders who now face the daunting task of making critical decisions amidst an atmosphere of uncertainty.
According to a Forrester Survey:
Consumers are on a variety of channels
Gone are the days when consumers engaged with businesses through a single channel, like online websites. Today, with the rise of consumer electronics and multiple communication channels, customers connect with brands through various mediums, including mobile phones, laptops, tablets, smartwatches, and even smart TVs, to access online stores. Additionally, browsers, social platforms, and messaging apps like WhatsApp now incorporate embedded stores. Here’s an overview of the diverse channels through which consumers interact daily.
The combination of channels used by a US consumer today, Source: Forrester
Customer Obsession is Key
According to a Financial Times report, US companies are experiencing the most significant decline in profits since the Covid shutdowns. Considering the previously mentioned lack of confidence in corporate leadership, ineffective technologies, underwhelming strategies, and prevailing economic challenges, the headline may not be surprising. However, dwelling on what has already transpired will not bring a solution. Instead, the key lies in prioritizing what is termed as ‘customer obsession.’ Let us delve deeper into this approach and its potential.
A customer-obsessed enterprise operates differently – focusing its strategy, operations, and budget on the customer.
A survey conducted by Forrester sought to gather corporate leaders’ perspectives on the customer-obsessed strategy. The results revealed that companies prioritizing customers reported the following advantages over those that don’t:
- Annual profits that are 1.7 times higher
- Revenue growth that is 1.6 times faster
- Market share growth that is 1.8 times higher
- Customer retention rates that are 1.6 times higher
Additionally, a remarkable 98% of customers prefer doing business with brands that value them. However, there is a significant issue: only 6% of enterprises currently embody customer obsession. So, why is a long-term commitment to customer obsession essential in today’s business landscape?
Although companies spend more on marketing technology (Martech), productivity is still declining. Excessive upgrades and individual solutions hinder innovation based on human creativity. By prioritizing creativity and strategy, businesses can overcome technological challenges and differentiate themselves from the competition. The path to growth lies in adopting technologies that provide unique value to customers. Failing to take this path may result in becoming lost amidst a sea of commoditization driven by technology.
The Intersection of Customer Obsession and Martech
Let’s explore how customer obsession applies to martech and its impact on various aspects of brand experience and strategy.
- Brand Experience: Delivering Consistency Across Channels
A customer obsession strategy in martech focuses on delivering consistent experiences across all digital and human-assisted channels. By leveraging martech tools, businesses ensure that every customer touchpoint reflects the brand’s values, messaging, and quality and ultimately builds trust and loyalty through unified and streamlined experiences.
- Brand Strategy: Dynamic and Customer-Focused Optimization
Customer obsession necessitates a dynamic and customer-focused approach. Martech enables businesses to optimize strategies based on customer insights. It also utilizes data analytics and segmentation to understand evolving needs. This empowers tailored campaigns, personalized messaging, and agile adjustments, enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction.
- Customer Understanding: Leveraging Insights to Solve Problems
Deep customer understanding is a crucial pillar of customer obsession strategy. Martech collects and analyzes huge volumes of customer data and provides valuable insights. Companies can proactively address pain points, offer tailored solutions, and personalize interactions by using martech tools. This fosters strong trust relations and connections by anticipating needs and delivering timely, relevant information.
In conclusion, customer obsession and martech is a powerful combination that enhances the brand experience, optimizes strategies, and deepens customer understanding. And to do all this holistically at a large scale, marketers need a cross-channel marketing hub or a (CCMH).
What is CCMH, you may ask?
According to Forrester – CCMH solutions enable marketers to create and deliver experiences across the entire customer lifecycle. CCMH capabilities go beyond outbound email campaigns and messages that drive acquisition and conversion strategies. CCMH also supports inbound personalization for web, ecommerce, and mobile app engagement.
In principle, CCMHs underpin marketing’s core responsibilities.
Unleashing Personalized Experiences with CCMH Solutions
To capture and engage customers, Personalization is paramount. Generic campaigns no longer cut it. That is where Cross Channel Customer Communications Management Hub (CCMH) solutions come in. These powerful tools offer a range of benefits to help marketers create personalized experiences that resonate with each unique individual. Let’s delve into the key advantages of CCMH solutions in transforming campaigns into remarkable, tailored experiences.
1. Supporting Sophisticated Cross-Channel Experiences at Scale
CCMH solutions empower marketers to create sophisticated cross-channel experiences that seamlessly span various touchpoints. Whether it’s email, SMS, social media, or personalized web content, CCMH solutions provide the necessary infrastructure to orchestrate and deliver consistent messaging across multiple channels. With the ability to manage campaigns at scale, marketers can reach each of their target audiences with personalized content, ensuring a unified and immersive customer experience.
2. Enabling Business and Customer Outcomes
Successful marketing campaigns not only generate business outcomes but also prioritize the needs and desires of customers. CCMH solutions enable marketers to align their strategies with business goals and customer expectations. By leveraging customer data and insights, these solutions empower marketers to craft highly targeted and relevant messages that resonate with individual preferences. This approach enhances customer satisfaction, drives engagement, and ultimately achieves positive business outcomes.
3. Easing Human Workloads with AI-Based Recommendations
The sheer volume of customer data and the complexity of creating personalized campaigns can place a significant burden on marketing teams. CCMH solutions come to the rescue by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that alleviate human workloads. Through AI-driven recommendations, these solutions analyze customer behavior, preferences, and historical data, to automate the process of content selection, personalization, and delivery. This not only saves time but also ensures that customers receive timely and tailored communications.
Inbox Commerce powered by AMP
Brands are rediscovering the profit-generating potential of email. At the forefront of this resurgence lies Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for Email. This captivating technology allows you to deliver ecommerce apps and web-like experiences directly to the recipient’s inbox, giving birth to what we call “inbox commerce.”
In a world drowning in brand emails with static content and external links, inbox commerce powered by AMP for Email envisions a different experience. It eliminates any need to leave the inbox for simple tasks, allowing effortless interaction between brands and customers. With AMP for Email, actions like adding items to the cart can be done instantly – cart updates happen right within the email itself. This creates a frictionless shopping experience.
Consider this: brands can incorporate the entire shopping process, starting from product discovery to making a purchase decision and fostering customer loyalty, all within an AMP emailer. Furthermore, brands can now even customize their daily interactions to cater to each individual, using insights from the shopper’s browsing habits, previous purchases, and demographic details.
AMP has enabled emails to function like mini-websites. Oyo’s customers can search, navigate the different accommodation offerings, compare, and book stays through emails.
Experience email like never before today!
Conclusion
The power of personalized experiences in modern marketing cannot be overstated. CCMH solutions play a vital role in transforming marketing campaigns into personalized interactions that drive engagement, loyalty, and business growth. By supporting cross-channel experiences, aligning with customer and business outcomes, and easing human workloads through AI-driven recommendations, CCMH solutions empower marketers to create impactful and memorable experiences for their audience. Embrace CCMH solutions. They are a strategic investment that can elevate your marketing efforts and set your brand apart in a competitive marketplace.
For further insights into the topic, you can watch the entire session on demand using the following link – Watch for free!
If you want to see how Netcore can help your brand with each step of this process, book a demo to learn more about our AI-powered solutions to personalize and streamline the shopper’s journey. Alternatively, you can download our free solutions guide developed for marketers. Click on the following link to download the guide today!
