Customer experience is key

When it comes to the acquisition and retention of new customers, customer experience (CX) has become the new supreme battleground.

Companies like Uber and Airbnb have redefined CX across marketing, in-app omnichannel commerce, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things. Google, Apple, and Amazon are dominating because they have developed and continuously honed customer-centric strategies to eliminate any and all frictions in their CX. Conversely, it is expected that up to 40% of current S&P 500 companies may not exist in the next decade due to a lack of innovation and the failure to keep pace with this shift.

The modern-day digital marketing juggling act

Digital marketing has rapidly moved from managing a single company website to overseeing a complex ecosystem of digital channels including web, search, display ads, social, email, SMS, mobile, and a variety of emerging touch points. Today’s organizations must support an ever-expanding list of devices and channels with not just engaging content, but experiences that are informed by each other.

And that’s precisely what today’s consumers, who navigate multiple smart devices on any given day, expect. This is clearly a tall order. To reach the diversity of customer segments, to identify all the personas, to deliver and optimize interactions for each complex individual across their unique life cycle, organizations need the right capabilities in place.

Solving the technology challenge

Without adequate marketing automation capabilities, organizations run into a myriad of challenges as they try to realize effective omnichannel customer engagement. These challenges include:

• Fragmented offline-to-online interactions
• Difficulty in pulling together vast amounts of data scattered across siloed sources
• Lack of tools to contextualize how each customer is engaged in real time and across touch points

However, this presents an opportunity for future-focused companies to deliver sustainable growth through a business-wide commitment towards real-time omnichannel transformation.

The complexity of the CX that needs to be weaved across all these disparate channels requires much more than just a series of cobbled-together legacy systems. Building an optimal CX in 2020 mandates that companies must employ a comprehensive digital foundation to execute omnichannel marketing successfully.

The following pillars are key to successfully implementing omnichannel marketing.

Map out the steps in your marketing transformation

Complete a thorough audit of where your marketing and data management maturity currently stands. Examine existing processes and map out user experiences, with an eye towards identifying the technology enhancements required to deliver the ideal set of individualized customer journeys at scale. Lastly, it’s critical to also establish the key metrics that will provide quantifiable objectives to guide the digital transformation process.

Foster an innovative mindset to enhance collaboration across the organization

Once you have mapped out the gaps in your marketing solutions and established some common goals across the organization, then it is time to define a single-value framework. This framework should guide everything from the introduction of new systems and processes enterprise-wide through to the onboarding of new technologies to boost operational scale and efficiency.

Build a solid data hub

Delivering personalized CX at scale requires a powerful data engine.

Sophisticated marketers know one of a company’s most valuable assets is its first-party data—e.g., recent purchases, location, demographics—as well as second-party data, which captures how people have interfaced with various marketing channels on the buying journey. Building a solid data hub enables companies to utilize all these data types and more to get a three-dimensional view of each customer.

Build the right martech stack

Ensure your martech stack Is built on a unified platform that is scalable and easy to use. It needs to be able to identify, profile, and track each and every customer across all touch points to provide a seamless, contextually relevant journey regardless of channel or device.

The martech stack needs to have the capability to orchestrate complex omnichannel marketing campaigns and dynamically adjust interactions based on real-time insights. It is equally important to ensure that the adopted solution can proved reliable, comprehensive, and timely analytics on not only omnichannel campaign performances, but attribution insights.

Finally, to overcome omnichannel roadblocks, set realistic goals for digital transformation within your business ecosystem. Reaching omnichannel maturity takes time, resources, and patience. Don’t forget to combine human and technological resources in your marketing efforts to facilitate creativity, empathy as well as scalability and connection with each of your customers.