What’s Keeping Marketers up at Night & Solutions to Help them Sleep

A recent study by Adobe shows that despite all the changes in marketing in recent years, the one thing that still keeps them (you?) up at night is reaching customers. If you think about it, this is somewhat surprising in today’s connected world; you would think that finding customers would be easier.

Having had many sleepless nights myself recently, but for very different reasons, I empathise and I thought I would propose some solutions to this and the other major causes of marketing nightmares.

Reaching Customers

In the past, contacting your customers was limited to (impersonal) traditional advertising, (hopefully personalised) call centers and the use of (often outdated) lists of names and addresses. Packaging was rarely thought of as a means of communication and in fact has only recently joined the realms of media. Check out “How Communicating through Packaging is more Informative & Personal“ for more information on this.

A recent article in CIO showed 14 different ways to connect with customers, none of which were through advertising. They included social media, webinars, personal visits, the sales force and employees.

SOLUTION: With the wealth of opportunities to connect and customers more open to direct contact with brands and organisations today, it is definitely worth reviewing which ones you are currently using. Far too many companies base their communications’ plans solely on last year’s document, whilst the world is changing and new opportunities are being presented every year, if not every month. Be more creative, unique and personal; your customers will love you for it.

Improving campaign effectiveness

Despite increased opportunities to measure, it is still difficult for marketers to show the effectiveness of their campaigns. I believe this starts way before the airing of any advertising, since most marketers are still stuck in the ineffective habits of multi-concept developments and long, drawn-out, old-fashioned testing methods. This means that advertising agencies cost two or three times what they would if they were only working on one concept at a time. It also results in slower time to market, which further increases costs. No wonder marketing is being challenged on the total cost of advertising!

SOLUTION: Instead of working with advertising agencies to develop multiple concepts, often all the way to pre-airing readiness, try new methodologies which can help decision-making earlier in the process. PhaseOne has one such tool, a unique methodology that identifies the messages that customers will take away, which enables you to then develop the most promising concept. This saves resources of time, effort and money, which can then be spent on other things, including better metrics.It anyway makes sense to re-evaluate your own testing methods and development processes on a regaular basis, to see if they are still relevant today.

If you would like to hear more about the PhaseOne tool and see an example of its use, check out the recording of a joint webinar we just ran here.

Digital Distress

It’s hard to keep up with all the changes happening in marketing today, especially in the digital area, when you also have to concentrate on your day job. Being independent, I have the luxury of more time and less demands on it, which often means I can usually help marketers with what has become an important additional aspect of their jobs.

In the Adobe study, less than a half of those marketers actually responsible for digital marketing felt that they were highly proficient, and the others were even less confident (only 37% felt they were proficient). My take on this is that marketers are beginning to realise that they are ill-equipped for the personalisation needed to be effective in digital marketing.

This highlights the need for improved understanding of the customer, something that was always needed but in today’s world of individualisation, any lack in this area becomes very evident.

If you would like to read more on targeting, check out “12 things you need to know about your target customer“

SOLUTION: It is vital that marketers better understand their customers. This goes back to the basics of marketing and the number one action of getting to know your target audience. Whilst social media and the internet provide a wealth of information marketers still need to identify the segment most likely to be interested in what they have to offer. It is impossible to go after everyone and without this first filter, it makes understanding online behaviour virtually impossible. Therefore, find out where and when your customers are online and only then review their behaviour.

Reaching customers with effective campaigns and understanding digital media better are the three main concerns of today’s marketers. I hope the solutions I’ve shared have given you some ideas. Feel free to add your own comments below; I’d love to know what your own concerns are so that I can write about the topic in a forthcoming post. I look forward to hearing from you.