Each day marketers are challenged to provide customers with better, more seamless experiences and superior products and services. A group of the industry’s top marketers convened at DMA2014 earlier this week to offer insight, strategy and innovation to those looking to make compelling, data-driven, and effective campaigns that provide a stellar customer experience. Here are a few of the more insightful points from Monday’s keynote panel at the San Diego Convention Center that featured Ian DiTullo, director of loyalty marketing at Air Canada, and Francois Orhan, head of global CRM for Shell. The two skillful marketers offered advice that applies to marketers across all industries
“To marketers, every consumer can actually be two or three customers, depending on the platform they’re using and at what time.”—DiTullio
“When it comes to marketing, it’s about telling the story of the customer. Understand what the customer wants, says, and feels.”—Orhan
“One of the biggest challenges with customer experience for marketers is promising an experience that your team can truly provide and enable. Define what customer experience means to [your team], and determine what you can really provide. Then you can determine how to be impactful.”—DiTullio
“The question is, so often, what to do with 90% of the data that marketers don’t use. Extract insights. Help the frontline staff. And make sure that even if it’s useful for [marketers], it’s more useful to customers.”—Orhan
“How do marketers move towards personalization and relevancy? It starts with integration. It’s all about getting data, putting data in the right database; and after that, work to get the data to your staff so that they can infuse the information into their campaigns and customer experiences.” —DiTullio
“What’s a single view of the customer? It’s the view that includes all of the aspects—finance, website [behavior], transaction data—you name it. It’s everything [about the customer] in one single view.”—Orhan
“It’s not about not ever failing; it’s about failing at the right place. Then succeed in the right place.”—DiTullio
“Triggers may seem easy, but they’re not. It’s about getting the right email in the right person’s hands—and on the right device. We [as marketers] have to do a better job at listening. Then, present relevant, personal offers.”—DiTullio
“Diversity is important. You need to have a number of different types of dialogues with different people. Consumers expect to have that conversation with a brand.”—DiTullio
