13
www.sdl.com Channels Are Irrelevant. What This Means for Tomorrow’s Marketer
www.sdl.com
Channels Are Irrelevant.What This Means for Tomorrow’s Marketer
2
Channels Are Irrelevant
www.sdl.com
Empowered by digital devices, your customers choose when, where and how to interact with your brand, and they can move seamlessly between on- and off-line touch points.
We’re living in an age of omni-channel engagement where people access information at their convenience and expect their favorite brands to be on-call as needed, every step of the way.
To the consumer, channels are irrelevant. Your customers want what they want, when they want it.
For the marketer, that can only mean one thing: expectations are rapidly rising.
Channel engagement is now
the perogative of the consumer
Channels Are Irrelevant
www.sdl.com
How millennials interact with brands
Channels Are Irrelevant3
Recently, we conducted a global study to investigate how digital channels, social media and mobile communications have changed the way consumers – and in particular, Millennials – interact with brands.
We know that today’s 20-somethings are your future customers, and the findings in Understanding Global Millennials, An SDL Customer Experience Research Report reveal that…
Most Millennials use multiple devices daily. 67% of those we surveyed said they touch two different devices daily. 30% said they touch four different devices daily.
Millennials are always “on” and smartphone usage dominates. On average, the Millennials in our study said they touch their smartphones 43 times per day.
Millennials expect consistency across channels. Six out of ten (60%) Millennials agreed that “it should feel the same when dealing with a company whether you’re online, in a store or on the phone.”
Millennials want to control the customer experience. 58% of those polled said they expect to engage with a company whenever they choose and via whichever channel they choose.
www.sdl.com
Channels Are Irrelevant4
While these results show that consumers are gravitating to new channels for content, other research indicates that companies are not keeping pace.
Clearly, marketers who want to succeed in the future need to adapt now to a wide range of new consumer behaviors, preferences and expectations. Is your organization rising to the challenge? Are you able to connect with your customers wherever they happen to be, whether they’re using traditional channels or emerging ones?
At first, making the transition to omni-channel engagement may seem like a monumental task – and that’s understandable. For many companies, any kind of change (let alone this type of paradigm shift) provokes fear and resistance. However, if you start by adopting a comprehensive strategy, and implement that strategy step by step, you’ll gain support and confidence as you forge ahead. After all, even your initial efforts are likely to have a significant positive impact on performance.
www.sdl.com
Channels Are Irrelevant5
For example, since your goal is to engage customers with a consistent experience across all channels, one of your first priorities must be to connect service and data silos so you can aggregate and integrate all relevant customer data.
Once you start collecting, managing and analyzing all this data, you’ll be better able to interact with your customers wherever they are. Ultimately, you’ll discover that because your marketing is integrated and customer focused, the individual channels truly are irrelevant.
A recent study found that even though CXM decision makers and influencers across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil and China are deploying a combination of traditional and emerging channels, traditional channels such as email, the company website and phone continue to dominate as the primary touch points for customer interaction.(The Evolving Customer Experience Management Landscape, SDL, 2013).
6
www.sdl.com
“Liquid” refers to how the market landscape is ever-changing.
“Linked” describes how all brand messages were designed to adhere to the overall strategy, despite which channels were employed. Other leading brands have invested in omni-channel capabilities as well, although none of them should be sitting still. As consumer behavior continues to evolve, strategies and tactics need to be continually evaluated to maintain a competitive advantage.
Channels Are Irrelevant
Coca-Cola pioneered an integrated
marketing approach approach a few years
ago with a strategy the company called “liquid
and linked.”
www.sdl.com
Channels Are Irrelevant7
At SDL, we have seen companies transition to an integrated, customer-centric approach quite successfully.
For example, we recently partnered with a European wine retailer to integrate its online and in-store shopping experiences. Now, when a registered shopper logs into the site, the retailer looks up the closest physical store. When the shopper searches for a certain wine, the site only displays the wines in stock at the local store. Similarly, the retailer’s mobile site can pinpoint a registered shopper’s location and find the nearest stores that have a desired wine in stock.
Once in the store, the shopper is greeted by sales associates who are trained to connect customers with product. Because all of these tactics are so tightly integrated, channels are irrelevant, and the customer experience is consistent both on- and off-line.
ONLINE INSTORE
CONSISTENT
www.sdl.com
Channels Are Irrelevant8
In another case, we worked with a global news website to create content-sharing behavior in the brand’s customer base. These days, content-sharing is essential to amplifying messaging and driving people into a purchase journey spanning multiple channels. In fact, the global news website found that each one additional user sharing a piece of content across his or her unique personal social network created:
Five new unique users who are even more engaged
An increase in time spent at the news website (1.3 times longer)
An increase in pages read at the news website (1.9 more)
A 16% uplift in the correct recall of the brands and content featured
A 27% uplift in favorability to the brands users see with the shared content
Rather than focusing on individual channels, consider the experience you want customers to have and adjust strategies to match, whether it is modernizing the shopping experience or changing the way you engage customers to become brand advocates.
9
Where does your organization stand on the path towards the future of marketing? Can you shift your mindset – and your tactics – so that channels are so connected that they become irrelevant?
Here are three key questions to ask your team:
www.sdl.com
Channels Are Irrelevant
10
www.sdl.com
1 Are we tracking where/how our customers are interacting with us?
If you want to improve the customer experience you provide,you need to evaluate what you currently offer. Where does your messaging perform well? Who interacts with it? If you already have that kind of data are you using it to its full advantage? It’s essential to meet your customers where they are and to consistently offer information they find useful – and that means you’ll also need to make sure the content you offer is appropriate for wherever each customer is on his/her path to purchase.
Today, growing customer relationships is not always about getting the sale. You’ll need to take a long-term view and understand that meaningful relationships develop over time.
Channels Are Irrelevant
www.sdl.com
2 Is the customer experience we offer consistent across different platforms and devices?
Consistency builds trust and nurtures brand loyalty. In a recent customer experience survey of some 27,000 American consumers, McKinsey & Company found that measuring satisfaction on customer journeys is 30 percent more predictive of overall customer satisfaction than measuring happiness for each individual interaction. These days, a consistent customer experience can be a key differentiator for your brand. It reinforces your identity, and in a marketplace that’s chock-full of distractions, it keeps your audience focused on the most important message of all – yours.
11Channels Are Irrelevant
www.sdl.com
3 How can we continue to connect silos within the enterprise to ensure we have access to all the data we need?
Work with relevant departments and agencies to create a communications asset inventory and identify all touch points along the customer journey. Are you effectively collecting and leveraging data from every step along the way? If not, what more can you do to improve internal collaboration?
Remember to periodically update both your inventory and related processes. You need to stay vigilant to prevent emerging channels from creating new data silos.
12Channels Are Irrelevant
SDL (LSE: SDL) allows companies to optimize their customers’ experience across the entire buyer journey. Through its web content management, analytics, social intelligence, campaign management and translation services, SDL helps organizations leverage data-driven insights to understand what their customers want, orchestrate relevant content and communications, and deliver engaging and contextual experiences across languages, cultures, channels and devices.
SDL has over 1,500 enterprise customers, over 400 partners and a global infrastructure of 70 offices in 38 countries. We also work with 72 of the top 100 global brands.
For more information, visit www.sdl.com
www.sdl.com
Tomorrow’s marketer is taking action today
Your customers have changed the way they engage and companies need to make rapid changes to adapt. Focus on the behaviors, preferences and expectations throughout the customer journey and adjust your strategies as needed to keep customer experience the top priority. Find out more at:
www.sdl.com/FiveTruths-channels
13Channels Are Irrelevant
