Marketing Governance

Today, omnichannel (or omni-channel or omni channel) has become a hot buzzword in business, marketing, and technology circles. The concept first gained attention in the retail sector, as retailers sought to link offline, in-store shopping activities and online shopping. During the past twelve months, many marketing pundits have expanded the concept and now use it to describe an approach to marketing that applies to many types of enterprises.

The term omni derives from the Latin word omnis, which means “all” or “universal.” As used today, omnichannel marketing usually means providing consistent, personalized, and contextually appropriate messages and customer experiences on all relevant communication channels and devices.

Some experts contend that true omnichannel marketing requires companies to capture customer interactions in all channels and then make the interaction data useable by allcommunication channels and platforms on a near real-time basis. For example, when a customer or prospect visits a website, the website needs to be “aware” that the customer/prospect just interacted with the brand on the company’s Facebook page.

The ultimate objective of omnichannel marketing is to tell a continuous story and provide a seamless experience that plays out whenever and wherever a customer interacts with a brand.

Few, if any, companies have achieved this level of omnichannel integration, but ominchannel marketing is clearly becoming an important priority for many enterprises.

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On December 19^thhere.

On Wednesday of this week (December 11^thCognizant.

In this week’s webinar, our panel of experts will address three critical questions.

• Do you see an evolution/trend in the requirements for DAM projects over the last 5 years?
• Can you describe the biggest challenges to avoid DAM projects being deployed as stand-alone siloed point solutions, but become a business critical part in corporate marketing processes?
• How can DAM solutions assure their vital role in tomorrow’s CXM/WCM solutions?

Customer experience management has become one of the hottest topics in business and marketing circles. IBM recently published the highlights of its 2013 global C-suite study, The Customer-activated Enterprise, and this study revealed how much importance C-suite executives place on customers and customer experience management.

• CEOs said that customers exert a bigger influence on their organization’s business strategy than all stakeholders other than the C-suite itself.
• No matter what their specific role, every CxO wants to become more involved in managing the customer experience.
• Among CMOs, designing customer experiences for mobile applications was identified as the top marketing priority.

A new (June 2013) worldwide survey by Be On, the AOL global branded content business, shows that enterprise marketers are becoming more confident about the effectiveness of video content, and, as a result, they are increasing their investments in online video.

The Be On study was based on a survey of more than 770 marketing experts from leading brands, media, and creative agencies in the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America. Survey participants were asked about their experiences of using branded online video when planning online advertising campaigns.

Here are some of the major findings of the Be On study.

• Although television is still considered to be a key driver of brand awareness, 78% of respondents in Europe and 58% globally said they could achieve greater engagement and scale with online video.
• Seventy-three percent of respondents said that online video spending had increased over the last 12 months. Respondents also indicated that the majority of the increased spending on video content is coming from budgets previously reserved for TV and display advertising.
• The key reasons for increasing online video spending in the future are better audience targeting (mentioned by 73% of respondents) and measurement (cited by 67% of respondents).
• Eighty-four percent of survey respondents believe the Internet is becoming a rich brand medium that provides engaging, interactive opportunities to connect with consumers.

The findings of the Be On study demonstrate that enterprise marketers are becoming more reliant on video content to create engagement with prospects and customers. As I indicated in my earlier post, enterprises need an effective and efficient way to manage, localize, and publish videos in order to maximize the potential of video content.

ADAM has recently released ADAM Videos, a new application studio for the ADAM Platform that is specifically designed to meet the rapidly growing needs of corporate video management. ADAM Videos enables enterprises to manage video content with the same flexibility and control that the ADAM Platform provides for other types of digital content assets.

You can learn more about ADAM Videos here.

As you might expect, the top marketing challenges identified by survey respondents were:

• Acquiring new customers (42%)
  • Retaining existing customers and improving loyalty and satisfaction (35%)
  • Creating consistent, relevant and positive customer experiences across channels (34%)
  • Understanding social media and using social channels effectively (34%)

In analyzing the survey results, IBM identified a group of “Leading Marketers” based on their ownership of the customer experience across channels and their use of marketing technologies. As a group, the Leading Marketers delivered superior financial performance than “all other marketers” on three financial measures.

• 3-yr Gross Profit Growth – Leading Marketers 1.8x higher
• 3-yr Net Income Growth – Leading Marketers 3.4x higher
• 3-yr Stock Price Growth – Leading Marketers 2.4x higher

IBM identified numerous differences between Leading Marketers and all other marketers, and the table below shows just some of the major differences revealed by the survey responses.

I would suggest that one of the most important differences between Leading Marketers and other firms is that Leading Marketers take a broader view of marketing responsibilities. For example, the IBM survey asked participants to rate the effectiveness of their marketing organization in performing across all 4P’s of the marketing mix. The table below shows the percentages of Leading Marketers and all other marketers who rated themselves as highly effective across the 4P’s. Notice that the least difference between Leading Marketers and all other marketers is in the area of promotion.

In an earlier post, I argued that marketers must focus on all components of the marketing mix if they want to reclaim their strategic role in the C-suite. The results of the IBM survey demonstrate the importance of taking a more holistic view of marketing’s role in the enterprise.

You can view a recording of this important webinar here.

Dave Frankland began his presentation by observing that the source of competitive advantage has evolved significantly since the beginning of the twentieth century. From 1900 to 1960, the primary source of competitive advantage was manufacturing excellence. From 1960 to 1990, the emphasis shifted to excellence in distribution, and from 1990 to 2010, dominating companies excelled at managing information. Since 2010, the companies that have achieved superior competitive results have excelled at delivering exceptional customer experiences.

The challenge is to deliver outstanding customer experiences in a world where a growing number of consumers have virtually constant access to a wealth of online information. For these “always connected” consumers, product research is the new norm. Forrester says that 82% of consumers now research products before they make a purchase, and 54% of consumers rely primarily on digital channels to learn about products and services.

In his presentation, Dave Frankland argued that enterprises need to think in terms of customer decision management rather than in terms of the traditional marketing funnel. Customer decision management is about always being able to “serve up” marketing content that is personally and contextually relevant to individual consumers. Frankland also contends that successful customer decision management will require shifts in marketing strategy, marketing processes, and technology infrastructure.

The Future of Content in an Analytics-Driven World provides many valuable insights for enterprise marketers.

Watch the on-demand version of the webinar here.

This was one of our most popular webinars, and you can view a recording of the webinar here.

During the webinar, Shiri Friedman shared several statistics that demonstrate the growing importance of video in the enterprise marketing mix.

• Web pages with videos attract 2x to 3x more visitors than pages without videos, and they generate a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines.
• Website visitors who view a video are 85% more likely to buy than those who do not.
• 76% of marketers plan to add videos to their websites (which makes video additions a higher priority than Facebook, Twitter, or blog integration).
• Overall online video consumption is growing at 30%, but video consumption on tablets is growing at 360%, and video consumption on smartphones is growing at 300%.

These statistics are impressive, and they echo other data regarding the importance of video content that I discussed in an earlier post.

For me, the most important takeaway from Shiri’s presentation was that video content can be used in a multitude of ways that will help enterprises achieve a broad range of marketing objectives. Video is great, of course, for building awareness, but as Shiri pointed out, video content is also a powerful tool for converting viewers into customers. The sensory richness of video content makes it both compelling and “shareable.” As Shiri said in her presentation, “Have you ever heard of a white paper that went viral?”

Shiri’s presentation includes many examples of companies that are using video content in innovative and effective ways. The featured company is Puma, but the presentation also includes examples from Red Bull, Oracle, Boeing, and many others.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to leverage video content in your marketing mix, this webinar will be well worth your time.

Access the recorded webinar here