CMO.com Highlights – Engaging and Relevant Customer Experience

CMO.com’s exclu­sive con­tent last week shared the com­mon theme of pro­vid­ing an engag­ing and rel­e­vant cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. Whether it’s per­son­al­is­ing brand con­tent or cre­at­ing con­tent that con­sumers are eager to find and engage with, the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence is vital to any organisation’s mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. With increased dig­i­tal use by con­sumers as well as the intro­duc­tion of ad block­ing capa­bil­i­ties, mar­keters must learn to approach many of the new chal­lenges they’re fac­ing from a dif­fer­ent angle. As always, many of the top mar­keters in the indus­try are ris­ing to the challenge.

Ben Salmon, the Founder of Attribut­e­ly, began the week’s dis­cus­sions on CMO.com by dis­cussing the role of per­son­al­i­sa­tion in the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. Per­son­al­i­sa­tion is a great way to be rel­e­vant to your cus­tomers, but Salmon makes the point that it’s not being used very often. The rea­son is that it’s dif­fi­cult to do well. There’s a fine line between over­do­ing per­son­al­i­sa­tion to a point where cus­tomers find it creepy and per­son­al­i­sa­tion that’s done just right. Salmon presents two exam­ples of per­son­al­i­sa­tion done well and not so well.

The CMO.com inter­view last week with Chan­nel 4’s Chief Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Offi­cer Dan Brooke touched on many of Chan­nel 4’s mar­ket­ing chal­lenges. Chan­nel 4 receives no pub­lic fund­ing and relies heav­i­ly on deliv­er­ing rat­ings and turn­ing rat­ings into rev­enue. Because all TV is deliv­ered dig­i­tal­ly, Brooke men­tioned the focus Chan­nel 4 spends on the time between pro­grammes. Chan­nel 4 pro­duces all of its mar­ket­ing in-house and strives to be inno­v­a­tive with every aspect of the organisation.

Dig­i­tal Strat­e­gy Con­sul­tant Ann Lon­g­ley addressed the chal­lenges that mar­keters now face with Apple includ­ing ad block­ing sup­port in iOS9. While ad block­ing will pre­vent many con­sumers from view­ing a brand’s adver­tis­ing, Lon­g­ley encour­ages mar­keters to think out­side the box in get­ting their con­tent in front of poten­tial cus­tomers. Reach­ing them will require find­ing out about con­sumers’ needs and media habits and cre­at­ing use­ful and engag­ing con­tent that con­sumers will be like­ly to search for. Rel­e­vant con­tent mar­ket­ing will do a lot to alle­vi­ate the chal­lenges pre­sent­ed by ad blocking.

A recap of Adobe’s Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing Sym­po­sium in Stock­holm focused large­ly on the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and the role of cus­tomer opin­ion in shap­ing a brand’s iden­ti­ty. One of the symposium’s pre­sen­ters, Vijayan­ta Gup­ta, Adobes head of prod­uct and indus­try mar­ket­ing EMEA, shared the need for organ­i­sa­tions to allow mar­keters to cre­ate con­sis­tent cus­tomer expe­ri­ences because this is what cus­tomers are look­ing for. It’s also what keeps cus­tomers com­ing back. Oth­er pre­sen­ters shared the need for organ­i­sa­tions to embrace dig­i­tal in their pur­suit of cre­at­ing an authen­tic cus­tomer experience.

The week end­ed with Jon Bains, Found­ing Part­ner of What & Why, with an impor­tant dis­cus­sion on agency rela­tion­ships. Bains high­light­ed the increase in options for mar­ket­ing direc­tors and the less­ened like­li­hood of find­ing a full-ser­vice agency that does every­thing well. Instead, mar­ket­ing direc­tors might want to focus more on inde­pen­dent agen­cies that have the spe­cif­ic skills you need at a giv­en time.

We invite you to take some time this week to learn from some of the lead­ing mar­ket­ing influ­encers through our exclu­sive con­tent. Let us know what you think.