The future of marketing is set to be highly personal. As customer expectations and brand erosion skyrocket, brands must do more to separate themselves from the competition by delivering personalised, meaningful and customer-centric interactions.
However, no single company or brand has yet developed the perfect marketing or customer engagement strategy. Such a thing likely doesn’t exist. However, collaboration and the sharing of best practice is the most effective means of improving strategic thinking.
We spoke to three industry leaders to find out more about the challenges they are facing heading in to 2019, as well as which technologies and trends brands will seek to leverage in their pursuit of optimising their marketing strategy.
Check out the “The Priorities and Challenges Facing Marketing Leaders in 2019” to hear exclusive insights from Michal Szaniecki, Managing Director SEAT and Cupra, Volkswagen Group, Bart Visser, Director of Brand Marketing, Spark Networks and Arjen Vissers, EMEA Marketing Director, AON.
Priorities
The customer journey and how to add value to your customers’ relationship with your brand is crucial to success. Michal Szaniecki of Volkswagen listed his priorities as maximising conversions alongside the customer journey, building emotional resonance as well as building added value for consumers, whilst Bart Vissers from Spark Networks referenced improvements in omnichannel marketing and continued testing as his standout goals.
There seems to be a uniform focus on technological innovations and what these mean for the future of marketing. All three contributors analysed the impact AI and data could have on the customer journey. Michal Szaniecki explained that:
“AI & ML are well set, now the time has come to gain even more actionability and simplicity with data management and visualisation”.
The Customer Journey
“The customer journey is crucial as it is also the foundation for the approach towards (future) clients. The ‘traditional’ push campaign and (cold) calling initiatives are diminishing in relevance fast. Understanding (future) clients and following, predicting and adapting their behaviour is the key to future success.” Arjen Vissers spells out explicitly not only to his team at Aon but to all marketers across all sectors that creativity and a focus on the customer journey are the ones to decide who’s successful and who falls behind.
Michal Szaniecki goes even further with his thoughts on the customer journeys importance: “There is nothing more important than that. With the 900 interactions and 3-6 months long process to just 1 transaction there are plenty of chances to win and lose your consumers along the way. Understanding the customer journey and drivers and barriers along the way directly impacts your P&L.”
This article was written in association with the 2019 Brand and Social Media Marketing Summit. The event takes place 25-26 June, at the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel, London, UK. Welcoming over 120 attendees from globally-recognised brands, the two-day event is Europe’s only brand-focused and brand-led marketing conference. It will explore the cutting-edge marketing strategies driving brand growth and differentiation in crowded markets. More information can be found here. Or just get in touch: paul@incite-group.com.
