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I would be in the camp of customer data.
It's not to say that social media isn't an
important form of being able to understand
what consumers are saying to you.
And it's not the social media has not had a transformational
effect on the way brands need to be operated,
given that it holds into a higher level of authenticity.
But customer data and the ability to understand the
customer at a differential level is at the root
of what I like to call enterprise loyalty.
And enterprise loyalty in my view is a critical
factor on how the vast majority of companies are
going to have to compete.
Understanding who the customer is,
understanding how they interact with your brand,
understanding how you would use that information
across the organization to enhance the product
or service that you're providing to them will be
the way that companies are going to have to think about
competitively differentiating themselves in the future.
I would say both are important.
I don't think you can separate the two of them.
The... when you think about the message in channel,
I often translate that into the idea of content
versus context and I think channel serves a role
in also defining context.
You're going to deliver the message very differently
in a mobile environment or in something where you're
marketing at a local level than you would if you were...
if you're using a larger advertizing approach
in terms of what you're doing.
But ultimately, it's how you use that customer
information to define and set the right parameters around
the content, what I call spatial relevance and
through what's called temporal relevance which
is the idea of where the consumer is geographically
and also how the consumer... where the consumer is
in their life or in their set of activities.
Is it a project that they're pursuing?
Are they a significant life stage they're moving through?
Those are all very important elements in
helping companies define what offers they need
to put into the various channels.
All those emerging technologies in my view
are really a factor of how we're trying to combine
what would be the online and the offline world.
It really is the cusp and the evolution
of where integrated marketing is going.
In today's world, you know, you can only communicate
so much through some of the ad messages that are out there
or through the direct mail that you may send.
It's far easier to use your online environment
as a way to engage the customer with more
detailed information that they can then review
on their own, on their own terms.
So when you integrate these things together,
it is about using the power of direct mail
to break through to the consumer.
But then using these devices, even devices in outdoor,
you can use codes like that, to ultimately get to the stage
where you're connecting the customer through
to the deeper content that they're looking for.
I think philosophically direct mail can play a
very important role in any particular campaign.
Certainly direct to consumer communications
should play that role because it takes you out
of a mass message and into something that is more
customized and has an opportunity to connect with
greater relevance to the customer if you do it right.
The question really is around where you put it in.
I think that the answer to that unfortunately
is that it depends.
It depends on the campaign,
it depends on the buying process,
it depends on how the consumer thinks about how
they might engage that brand and ultimately,
it depends on what you're asking them to do.
I think at the end of the day what drives
marketing effectiveness is this idea of really
understanding the consumer.
It's really no different than it may have been
forever in marketing, but you've got to start with
a root understanding with a complexity that exists
in this multi-channel environment where the
consumer can come at you from many different dimensions.
The challenge companies face is really
about creating a relevant environment,
regardless of where the customer's coming to,
in an opportunity and a point to serve them with
the information that they need across those barriers.
Understanding the customer, understanding how they buy,
understanding what their expectations are about
your product, those are all critical activities
just even to find the strategy and the tactics
that you're going to take to pursue the customer
and make sure that you are serving them in the most
appropriate way again.