Jim Stengel, former Global Marketing Officer for P&G and a MarketShare Advisory Board Member, offers insights on the changing role of the CMO, why tomorrows CMO wont look like todays, and where marketing analytics fit into the evolving picture.
Saepio Technologies, in the whitepaper ‘MAM, Making Assets Actionable and Engaging’.
And why is that?
As a vital part of the advertising process, MAM combines digital asset management, collateral customization and marketing automation technologies into a single, seamless process that:
In the white paper Thomson first defines where MAM fits in the Enterprise Marketing Management strategy. “There are many models that depict the component of an EMM system”, according to Thompson.”But this document focuses on CRM, business intelligence/analytics, MRM, MAM and customer nurturing as key components.”
As more and more CMOs seek to implement preference management systems — the active collection, maintenance and distribution of unique consumer characteristics, such as product interest, channel preference and frequency of communication — a good deal of the inquiry and effort has focused on risk mitigation and regulatory compliance.
And rightly so. Privacy and consumer protection laws are quickly evolving towards a fully opt-in, permissionbased model. Meanwhile, consumer beliefs and behaviors are shifting even faster. John and Jane Q. Public are selecting (and rewarding) companies who engage them and seek their input. In fact, according to Forrester Research, more than 75 percent of consumers say companies should let them decide how they can be contacted.
With that statistic in mind, I’d like to remind everyone of the enormous ROI and bottom-line revenue benefits of a robust preference management solution. It’s not just a compliance initiative, it’s a thermonuclear sales weapon.
Yes, the proper collection and storage of customer records is essential to lawful marketing. But I’d argue that it is also essential to effective marketing, a term that many in the industry have forgotten as they became accustomed to sub-one percent return rates on emails and snail mail drops.
Here are five simple reasons why preference management is not only good for you but tastes great, too. A robust, sophisticated preference management solution will:
This is the most obvious benefit of preference management but one that is still overlooked. By reducing opt-outs and increasing opt-ins, the overall size of the engaged audience grows… and grows… and grows. Keeping a prospect in the system does more than improve the quarterly stats — it represents an ongoing sales opportunity that can and should be converted for revenue.
Through ongoing collection of preferences, opportunities will emerge that the savvy marketer can proactively leverage to their advantage. For a clothing retailer, understanding gender, product interest and channel of choice could result in a seasonal swimwear promotion via email instead of a one-size-fits-all brochure or catalog. And targeted promotions achieve higher response rates and ROI.
A marketing team that only has access to de-contextualized purchase patterns and customer shipping addresses spends a lot of time assuming, hoping and dreaming. They create campaigns based on assumptions about their target audience, hope that it works and dream of a day when better data will become available. Supplying the team with verifiable preference data changes the game and rescues dollars and hours from speculative efforts.
Efficient preference collection from multiple touch points allows marketers to see meaningful outcomes before it’s too late. When customers and prospects flee the campaign’s primary distribution channel, it could signal a conceptual problem between brand and intended audience. Real-time feedback through preference management creates an opportunity to reassess a campaign before it floods secondary and tertiary channels and does real damage.
Secure in the knowledge that their audience has opted-in and delivered legal consent for communications, marketing professionals can spend more time crafting the right message and less time wondering what channels they can actually leverage under the law. In many ways, an efficient preferen ce management system acts as a catalyzing force for marketers, unleashing them to do what they were originally hired to do.
Make no mistake — risk management has become an important part of the CMO job description and preference management addresses a number of critical challenges. But it’s also the key to lasting customer engagement, real-time responsiveness and almost everything else worth bragging about at a quarterly marketing assessment meeting. Modern marketing is an interaction, not an interruption. Knowing your customers and prospects is essential to respecting their rights while earning their business.
This article is written by www.mypreference.com
Scott Frey is President & CEO of PossibleNOW, a leading provider of customer experience and preference management solutionswww.possiblenow.com
