Digital Disruption from EX²

For many years, traditional marketing relied on hindsight to predict what might be successful in the future. Marketers relied on statistical data, such as the amount that sales increased immediately after a television ad appeared or how many customers used the discount code that identified the specific magazine in which a print ad appeared. Even surveys and focus groups provided dated information. By the time the results were compiled and forwarded to marketing, consumers had often moved on to the "next big thing," which often contradicted the information they had supplied weeks or even months earlier.

Of all the things that has affected what consumers want from a company, nothing has had more of an impact than technology. In the 21st century alone, there have been numerous technological advances that have been highly disruptive to the marketing status quo. Smartphones, wearable tech, cars and appliances that can connect to the Internet, cloud computing and virtual reality applications are just some of the technologies that are available for consumers, which marketers can leverage from.

Every time customers interact digitally with a company, they leave behind clues that marketers can collect. Sometimes, the data is limited; perhaps all that can be gleaned is the day and time of the interaction, the type of device used or the general geographic location of the user. At other times, users may voluntarily provide their email addresses, phone numbers, age or other personal data. If they make an online purchase, they normally must provide their physical address to have their order shipped or their credit card authorized. Their purchases give you the details on the specific items they bought while their activities on your site (the items they clicked on before making a choice or the length of time they spent on each page) offer insights into their behavior.

What this means is that marketers have unprecedented access to real-time information that they can use to engage consumers in relevant ways. Companies today are compiling massive databases of information on consumer attitudes and customer behavior. However, these databases are not of much use if you cannot leverage them. As one marketer put it, "I have a mountain of bread crumbs, but I can't see a trail. I know I have a lot of information, but I'm not sure what to do with it."

The answer is to use the data to create a better brand experience for customers. There are three keys to harnessing technology for effectively engaging your customers.

It is certainly no secret that to engage the interest of consumers, you need to provide them with a message. Your brand message may be delivered across many different channels, but it needs to be consistent. However, regardless of the message you want to convey, your customers must be able to find it — and you — if you want to turn content into revenue. This makes search engine optimization just as important as ever for you, despite frequent changes in how rankings are determined. 

To solve the various challenges wrought by the digital age and assist with their brand strategies, many companies have engaged the services of a third-party SEO and web management vendor. These vendors help you keep your online content relevant and current, optimize your use of keywords and links, monitor your social media sites and perform various other web management duties.

In recent years, however, businesses are realizing the issues involved in engaging these vendors.

In the simpler days before the Internet, attribution was easy. Perhaps there was an extension after the phone number given in a television ad or a department number included with the address for mail-in orders that could tie the sale to a specific campaign. Back then, sales tended to progress in a linear fashion. Now, however, the sales journey is anything but linear— and so are your marketing efforts. The problem is that this multi-channel approach makes it difficult for you to attribute your ROI to the correct channel or channels.

There are many different types of attribution modeling. Each has its own set of benefits and disadvantages. Most of them rely on the concept of search sessions, which can provide you with insight into the steps followed along the path to a purchase. Not every model is ideal for every business, but one is surely right for you.

Every industry seems to spawn a veritable forest of acronyms, but the IT industry seems to be more fond of them than many other industries. In recent years, the acronyms CMS, ECMS and WCMS have been cropping up in more and more conversations. The general consensus is that every organization needs one, but there is less agreement on what exactly each term means and how they differ. Perhaps beginning with a basic definition of each will be helpful.

The lines between a CMS, ECMS and WCMS have become increasingly blurred, but the fundamentals of each are listed below.

When the concept of the sales funnel was introduced shortly before the turn of the 20th century, the customer's purchase journey was a linear progression with four identifiable steps.

Marketing has never been easy, but it used to be much simpler.

Even during the days before the Internet, marketers needed to track their efforts to determine how to best spend their money. Perhaps they added a "suite number" to their mailing address that identified the specific ad that had enticed the customer to make a purchase. When placing an order by phone, the company's representative might have asked where the customer learned about the product. A television ad might have included a special offer code that the customer had to provide to get a discount. There were (and are) many different methods available to give marketers insights into which channels were providing the best return on investment.

In other words, cross-channel analytics is not really a brand-new concept. It has been called by a lot of different names, but the basic goal has always been to help plan future efforts.

Things began to get more complicated with the arrival of the Internet, mobile devices, in-store kiosks and other new technology. Now you are interacting with your customers on many different channels. You might manage a company Facebook page and a website, send email campaigns, transmit virtual coupons to customers' smartphones, advertise on television and radio, mail out flyers, employ iBeacons in your retail locations and insert ads in local newspapers. To complicate matters, your customers might receive your message on one channel and make a purchase on another, such as seeing a print ad before going online to buy your product.

You might think that you have all of the analytics you need. You have web analytics that let you track the amount of time visitors spend on your page, leads generated, conversion rates and page-loading time as well as a number of other items that are related to your website. What you are overlooking is that you are not a webmaster — you are a marketer. You need marketing analytics. Furthermore, you need cross-channel marketing analytics.

If you were all-knowing and all-powerful, you would have unlimited resources, no competition and able to provide every customer with a perfect service or product. Your brand would be the only name that consumers think of when considering a source to provide their needs. Unfortunately, you must conduct your business in the "real world" rather than an idealized fantasy environment. This means that you need an effective strategy to help you gain or regain control over your brand.