The 2017 Digital Intelligence Briefing

Our lat­est Dig­i­tal Intel­li­gence Brief­ing is out and promis­es to bring a broad­er-based per­spec­tive to under­stand­ing dig­i­tal and mar­ket­ing trends. We saw a record num­ber of respon­dents this year with over 14,000 peo­ple around the world shar­ing their thoughts and opinions.

The 2016 report, which you can view here, described a year where dig­i­tal inte­gra­tion appeared to decel­er­ate as com­pa­nies sought to devel­op strate­gies and toolsets to deliv­er cus­tomer experience.

In our new report, we high­light a few shifts indi­cat­ing that dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is on the move again as com­pa­nies and agen­cies make cus­tomer expe­ri­ence a top pri­or­i­ty again in the com­ing year.

The Push for Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence Continues

A com­pelling cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and the con­tent to sup­port it con­tin­ued to be a lead­ing pri­or­i­ty as over one-fifth (22%) of client-side respon­dents ranked opti­mis­ing the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence as the sin­gle most excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for the year ahead. This cat­e­go­ry came in ahead of cre­at­ing com­pelling con­tent for dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences (16%).

The excite­ment is seen in the list of mar­keters’ top priorities:

While most of the pri­or­i­ties make sense, there are some poten­tial dis­con­nects revealed in the respons­es. For exam­ple, “opti­mis­ing the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence” ranks as the sin­gle most excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty, but data-dri­ven mar­ket­ing lags behind with only 12 % cit­ing this area as an oppor­tu­ni­ty. Mar­keters must have the right data to get great cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, and they can­not afford to under-invest in capa­ble data analytics.

Design: The Not-so-secret Strate­gic Weapon

Mar­keters con­sid­er design as the next lev­el on the path to dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, with 86% of survey

respon­dents agree­ing that design-dri­ven com­pa­nies out­per­form oth­er busi­ness­es. This design-cen­tric mind­set comes as no sur­prise con­sid­er­ing that those sur­veyed place the high­est empha­sis on cre­at­ing cus­tomer expe­ri­ences that are as per­son­alised, rel­e­vant, and valu­able as possible.

While mar­keters acknowl­edge the val­ue of design in their mar­ket­ing strate­gies, many report chal­lenges yet to be nav­i­gat­ed in this area. 82% believe that cre­ativ­i­ty is high­ly val­ued with­in their organ­i­sa­tions and 77% of them are invest­ing in design to dif­fer­en­ti­ate their brand. How­ev­er, just over two-fifths (41%) of those sur­veyed don’t think that they have the process­es and col­lab­o­ra­tive work­flows to achieve a design advan­tage. In fact, 36% of client-side respon­dents rate hav­ing well-designed user jour­neys that facil­i­tate clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion and a seam­less trans­ac­tion as dif­fi­cult to master.

Organ­i­sa­tion­al Struc­ture: The Foun­da­tion for Success

Organ­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture and a firm grip on cul­ture, col­lab­o­ra­tion, skills, data, and tech­nol­o­gy is also vital to get­ting cus­tomer expe­ri­ence right. Client-side mar­keters con­sid­er improv­ing data analy­sis capa­bil­i­ties (63%), opti­mis­ing inter­nal col­lab­o­ra­tion between cre­ative and mar­ket­ing teams (53%) and opti­mis­ing inter­nal work­flows (53%) to be ‘very impor­tant’ for deliv­er­ing a great cus­tomer experience.

The results indi­cate that some progress has been made regard­ing the lev­el of dig­i­tal inte­gra­tion across an organisation’s mar­ket­ing activ­i­ties. A small major­i­ty (53%) of organ­i­sa­tions have made a great start by opti­mis­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion between cre­ative and mar­ket­ing, but it is only a start. If organ­i­sa­tions real­ly want great end-to-end cus­tomer expe­ri­ence they will need to break silos across the entire enter­prise, not just between two teams.

Mar­keters have also set their sights on mul­ti­chan­nel mar­ket­ing. Opti­mis­ing the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence across mul­ti­ple touch­points will be the sin­gle most impor­tant oppor­tu­ni­ty for organ­i­sa­tions in 2017, accord­ing to 22% over client-side mar­keters and 18% of agency respondents.

The report high­lights some region­al dif­fer­ences. Mar­keters in Asia-Pacif­ic (APAC) are more like­ly to pri­ori­tise mobile app engage­ment, with 14% cit­ing this area as a top pri­or­i­ty com­pared with 12% of North Amer­i­can respon­dents and 9% of Euro­pean respon­dents. This is not sur­pris­ing giv­en the preva­lence of the mobile inter­net and the pres­ence of WeChat and oth­er advanced mobile apps in the region. APAC mar­keters are also more like­ly to view social media engage­ment as a top pri­or­i­ty (31% vs. 28% of North Amer­i­can respon­dents and 27% of Euro­pean respondents).

Look­ing Ahead to 2020

It appears that 25% of mar­keters are most excit­ed about engag­ing audi­ences through vir­tu­al or aug­ment­ed real­i­ty as well as the Inter­net of Things and con­nect­ed devices.

Region­al com­par­isons reveal that mar­keters in Asia-Pacif­ic are slight­ly more excit­ed about using enhanced pay­ment tech­nolo­gies such as mobile wal­lets and e‑receipts com­pared with their Euro­pean and North Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts, while Euro­pean mar­keters are on the whole more excit­ed about using arti­fi­cial intelligence/bots to dri­ve cam­paigns and experiences.

Over­all, pay­ment tech­nolo­gies and voice inter­faces such as Ama­zon Echo and Google Home are regard­ed as less excit­ing prospects for 2020, with 15% and 6% of mar­keters indi­cat­ing their antic­i­pa­tion respectively.

Read the report today for a more detailed analy­sis and addi­tion­al insights.