7 WAYSTO MAKE THE MOST OF

MARKETING TECHNOLOGY

Current issues preventing marketers from optimizing marketing technology, and how to address them

LIFECYCLE MARKETING

Presented by

Table of Contents

Introduction

Relevancy. Delivering the right degree of personalization for your organization.

Focus. Uniting teams and preventing culture clashes.

Coordination. Meeting customers each step of their journey across multiple channels.

Expertise. Discovering the talent resources needed to achieve marketing success, whether internal or external.

Processes. Using the right tools for specific activities.

Balance. Balancing business objectives and affordable marketing technology solutions.

Analysis and measurement. Rising from the data deluge to derive real value from those bits and bytes, and maximize marketing spend in the process.

Conclusion

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

7 Ways to Make the Most of Marketing Technology

M arketing technology is moving fast. Marketers are under pressure to maximize the tools available to them—now. Corporate leaders read stories every day about how savvy companies are successfully disrupting the status quo, so

they’re expecting their marketing team to do the same. No wonder marketing is projected to spend more on technology than IT by 2017,

according to research firm Gartner. But harnessing marketing technology is about more than taking advantage of its

functionalities. Getting the most from these tools requires a comprehensive underlying strategy. Companies may also need to put new processes in place—as well as restruc-ture their teams—to improve collaboration and achieve their desired results.

Written in conjunction with Yes Lifecycle Marketing, this eBook discusses seven key issues preventing many marketers from deriving real value from today’s marketing technology solutions:

1. Relevancy

2. Focus

3. Coordination

4. Expertise

5. Processes

6. Balance

7. Analysis and measurement

The encouraging news is that overcoming these challenges can help marketers leverage mar-keting technology to its fullest extent across channels and throughout the customer lifecycle.

1. Relevancy

C ustomers today want to be recognized or feel understood. And it can start with something

as a simple personalized suggestion on an ecommerce site or an order confirmation email

such as, “You may also like...” These personal touches can significantly drive sales and

bolster customer loyalty. In fact, according to eMarketer, 46% of shoppers say they would purchase

more from retailers if the shopping experience was personalized across all channels.

No company has shown greater proof of this than Amazon. The e-tail giant’s sophisticated

recommendation engine is well known for providing online visitors with highly personalized

offers based on factors such as age, purchasing history, and region. But marketers need not

rely on sophisticated computer algorithms and massive amounts of data to craft relevant com-

munications. In fact, “you don’t have to be an Amazon to label a personalization program

a success,” says John Hollands, SVP Sales for Yesmail, the email solutions provider within

Yes Lifecycle Marketing. Rather, Hollands says, formulating personalized messages based on

something as simple as age, gender, and activity level can be enough to produce an uptick in

sales and loyalty.

Creating those personalized interactions may not require Amazon-like investments, but it does

require the right marketing automation tools and up-to-date, high-quality data. “It’s not enough

to simply purchase the technology for personalization,” Hollands says. “You need the right data

to support these strategies.” For this reason, Hollands recommends that marketers take a close

look at the types of data they’re collecting about their customers and how they plan on applying

it for greater personalization. He advises marketers to gather data that enables personalization

that will resonate with their customers—and as a result, get customers to take action.

2. Focus

These days it’s not uncommon for a brand’s marketing organization to be divided into one

faction that focuses on marketing technology and another that focuses on communica-

tion strategies. Unfortunately, that can create culture clashes within the marketing organi-

zation, as well as too many hand-offs among team members and in many cases, outside agen-

cies. Either way, it’s a sure-fire recipe for disconnected processes and sweeping inefficiencies.

To overcome this challenge it’s important that marketers and technologists work closely

together to create a successful approach to cross-channel marketing, as well as to effective-

ly execute individual cross-channel campaigns. Just ask Michael Penney. Managing Director,

Yes Lifecycle Marketing Agency Services, Penney says that while “technologists can always

find a tool for every task; what they really find helpful is when their marketing colleagues have

taken the time to determine the value of improved marketing and translated that into specific

customer experiences with objectives and targets.”

For example, an organization may be in need of a best-of-breed email marketing platform. In

this case, IT professionals can determine whether a solution’s technical requirements, such as

infrastructure and network support, are a fit with their company’s existing tools and approach

to technology. But it’s critical that marketers join the conversation by assessing what impact a

particular email marketing platform will have on other marketing processes and strategies, such

as social media programs and e-commerce, that may be handled in collaboration with external

marketing agencies. Only by focusing on technology and agency cohesively can an organization

“design a holistic customer experience that considers how a customer might interface with a

single brand in multiple different ways, from a smartphone app to digital signage,” Penney says.

3. Coordination

Retailers taking advantage of multiple channels are more profitable than those that rely

on only a single channel, according to a Harvard Business School study. That’s be-

cause consumers use everything from social media to smartphones to connect with

their favorite brands and purchase products. As a result, marketers can no longer afford to op-

erate in silos. Rather, they now need to consider the total customer experience across multiple

channels when devising their marketing strategies.

Consider, for example, an organization that enlists its IT team or an agency to create a

smartphone app that will better engage customers and encourage them to shop online. What

if a user “downloads the app and is lured from the app online, and then discovers a real dis-

connect with the brand’s website,” Penney warns. “Unfortunately, many organizations haven’t

properly thought through how limiting the experience will be and how desperately they’ll need

to round out the experience by integrating the app with other touchpoints.”

Penney admits that there’s nothing easy about creating a single, holistic customer experi-

ence—but the effort is worth the payback in increased sales and customer loyalty. By encour-

aging an organization’s email experts, e-commerce team, direct mail and digital mavens, and

brick-and-mortar aficionados to all work together, marketers will be one step closer to creating

a consistent customer experience across multiple channels.

4. Expertise

W ith marketing talent scarce, many organizations are wondering if they have what it

takes internally to maximize the value of marketing technology. In fact, according

to the 2014 Marketing Score report, which surveyed 318 marketers, executives,

and entrepreneurs, business leaders don’t believe that their internal marketing teams have the

skills needed to launch successful, high-impact marketing campaigns.

One way to tackle this challenge is to turn to a third-party provider for assistance. Many

agencies can serve as a one-stop shop for a number of solutions. Data and analytics, technol-

ogy, communication strategies, and creative—are often offered by a single service provider.

Better yet, because agencies tend to work with a broad spectrum of clients from varying

industries, “the collective knowledge they offer is much greater than what could be achieved

on the client side alone,” says Yes Lifecycle Marketing’s Hollands.

And finally, in these fast-changing times, marketers must be able to switch gears quickly,

scaling back on some projects while ramping up on others. As a result, staff levels can fluc-

tuate dramatically, creating a costly cycle of rapid hires and fires. “The benefit of outsourcing

is that you gain access to experienced talent relatively quickly,” Penney says. “Suddenly, you

have a source of experts with a breadth of experience that you can turn on and off quite easily.

You can get started on new projects right away rather than wait a year to increase headcount.

And then, when a project is done, you can turn off the tap just as quickly.”

5. Processes

Most marketing organizations have multiple technologies supporting their initiatives.

Often these platforms have overlapping features and functionalities. Unfortunately,

issues arise when a marketing team lacks the processes needed to ensure the right

tool is used for the right activity.

Take, for example, an organization that wishes to perform audience selection for a cam-

paign. Some members of the marketing team may suggest using the email database; others

may opt for the CRM database. Both are reasonable approaches, but without clear-cut pro-

cesses in place marketers will struggle to determine the best approach for a given circum-

stance. This is particularly important when considering how to measure, report, and attribute

marketing activities. Overcoming this hurdle requires marketers from different parts of the

marketing organization to sit down together and establish processes for applying various mar-

keting technology solutions to different activities. “This is another area where the right kind

of road map can lay out the needs for process development in an organization,” Penney adds.

6. Balance

I t’s easy to get caught up in the hype surrounding today’s most talked-about marketing

tools. “Marketers get hung up easily on hot technologies,” Hollands warns. “But they really

need to assess where they want to take their marketing programs, and to find a solution

that fits those specific needs.”

As an example, let’s take a multichannel retailer who wants to move away from constantly

pushing promotional offers, and build more profitable relationships. Developing and imple-

menting a loyalty program can help them get there, as it opens up many options for generat-

ing compelling and engaging non-promotional content. The right loyalty solution for the job

may be the turnkey, configurable option, as opposed to a far-reaching, custom engagement

better suited for programs like those of leading airlines, with multiple currencies and earning/

redemption options through their marketing partners. Penney recommends that marketers

“find the balance between achieving business objectives, providing relevant content, and in-

creasing loyalty” with the right mix of affordable technologies.

Another strategy for achieving greater balance involves “building financial scenarios to de-

termine the trade-offs for different approaches,” Penney explains. How effective would a loyal-

ty program be at increasing online purchases? Or would a clever mail marketing strategy drive

greater long-term revenue? Only through proper planning and in-depth analysis can marketers

answer these questions, and thereby strike a balance between marketing technology spend

and overall business value.

7. Analysis and Measurement

M arketers are constantly ques-

tioning the dollar value of

marketing technology. And

for good reason: A consumer’s purchas-

ing journey charts a highly complex

labyrinth of overlapping channels, from

in-store signage and digital coupons to

email messages and mobile display ads.

Figuring out which marketing channels

encouraged a consumer to engage with

a brand and make a purchase is often a

mystery. In fact, some companies have

as many as 100 touchpoints, making at-

tribution next to impossible.

“Attribution is complex,” Penney says. “There are certain marketing techniques that are

directly measurable and attributable, and there are even more where a marketer’s judgement

needs to be applied.”

For many, the answer is simply not choosing to view attribution as an exact science. Rather,

Hollands recommends that marketers consider both traditional and non-traditional metrics for

measuring a campaign’s performance. For example, instead of looking exclusively at how an

email marketing campaign increased basket size, marketers would be wise to also examine

other metrics such as dwell time on an e-commerce site, which can indicate influence on fu-

ture purchases.

Another challenge with attribution—and marketing analyses in general—is the volume of data

available to analyze. Marketers are feeling unprecedented pressure to make heads or tails of

today’s data deluge. In fact, a recent IBM study reveals that 82% of chief marketing officers feel

under-prepared to deal with all the data they’re collecting, up from 71% of CMOs in 2011.

According to Penney, part of the problem is that too many marketers are focused on gath-

ering data rather than determining what insights they wish to derive from it. “A lot of organiza-

tions aren’t crisp in their thinking on what they want from their data,” he says. “They need to

figure out what questions they want to have answered first.”

Hollands agrees. “Organizations need to be very good at asking the right questions of their

data as opposed to just deciding they need more data, amassing it, and then sorting out what

to do with it later. Who are your best customers? What are your top-selling products? Answer-

ing these questions requires building analytic road maps, testing plans, and learning agendas.

The combination of these three can lead to the kind of structured thinking and planning re-

quired for marketing success.”

Conclusion

M arketing technologies abound for every type of activity imaginable—from email and

digital marketing platforms to data analysis and content creation. But accommodating

today’s multichannel marketer takes more than trendy tools. Rather, making the most

of marketing technology requires overcoming some key challenges. These include:

1. Relevancy

2. Focus

3. Coordination

4. Expertise

5. Processes

6. Balance

7. Analysis and measurement

With the right strategies, organizational collaboration, and processes in place, marketers

can leap these hurdles to derive real value from their marketing technology spend. And by

thinking holistically about data, technology, analytics, and communication strategies—as well

as collaborating effectively, either internally or with an experienced third-party provider—mar-

keters can make the most of marketing technology across multiple channels for maximum ROI.

Yes Lifecycle Marketing is a solution provider that brings

together multichannel marketing platforms and data, with

creative and strategy services honed on the optimization of

delivering relevant marketing messages. This gives marketers the

ability to source best-of-breed technology and creative and strategy

services from a single vendor at a cost-effective price point.

For more information, visit www.yeslifecyclemarketing.com

LIFECYCLE MARKETING

About Yes Lifecycle Marketing