Baking Digital

Into the Marketing

MixToday’s recipe for success blends digital and traditional marketing

into one sweet dish.

80% of Marketers Will Increase Digital Budgets in the Year Ahead Pg 4

The Secret to Being Digital? Be More Human Pg 5

Belvedere Vodka Mixes Digital Strategy Into Its Marketing Pg 7

Where’s the Digital Diversity? Pg 8

8 Digital Transformation Tips Pg 9

Kellogg’s Rewards Program Doesn’t Flake Out on Digital Pg 11

5 Truly Game-Changing Aspects of Modern Marketing Pg 13

It’s Not Digital Marketing; It’s Just Marketing Pg 14

A Little Digital Marketing Goes a Long Way Pg 15

Don’t Let Digital Give You a False Sense of Precision Pg 17

Will Marketers Sink or Swim in the Digital Tide? [Infographic] Pg 18

Thoughts From the Twittersphere Pg 19

There was a time when having a solid digital strategy meant batch-and-blast emails and a barebones website—extra points if the site offered rudimentary e-commerce capabilities. There are no extra points these days. Many businesses sink or swim on the strength of their digital execution. Today email is among marketers’ most direct and powerful channels and websites are beautifully de-signed and optimized with users in mind. And brands are evolving to meet consumers’ mandate for a responsive mobile experience and relevant social interactions.

Not surprisingly, 80% of marketers surveyed plan to increase their digital budget in the next year, according to the DMA “2015 Statistical Fact Book.”

Although digital opportunities abound, marketers still face challenges as they iterate and innovate their digital marketing strategies to keep pace with consumers and market demands. Savvy marketers are finding creative ways to overcome those obstacles. Brands as diverse as Belvedere Vodka and Kellogg’s are baking digital strate-gies into their marketing mix in ever-more creative ways.

Read on for ways to address some of the high-level strategy issues many of today’s digital marketers face, as well as examples of brands with digital practices worthy of emulation. – Perry Simpson

It’s not easy being a direct marketer today: so many chan-nels, so much data, and so little intelligence or talent to figure out how to work out an efficient multichannel strat-egy. According to the Direct Marketing Association’s newly released “2015 Statistical Fact Book,” four out of five mar-keters will increase their spends on digital this year and the preponderance of them (45%) will focus on social me-dia marketing as their biggest area of opportunity. Coming in second was email, named by 40%. But another table in this annual treasure trove of PowerPoint fodder shows that marketers find email to be not only their most effec-tive Internet tactic, but also the most easy to execute. The most difficult? Social media—though the channel finished third (behind websites) as “most effective.”

The DMA’s annual Fact Book is a compendium of es-sential research in the field from 75 sources—300-odd pag-es of tables and charts broken down by categories.

Direct marketing is an exciting, variegated, and oppor-tunity-filled field—if one has the data analytics, the strate-gic vision, and human talent capable of navigating it. “Poor data quality, that’s the issue that’s at the forefront today,” says Neil O’Keefe, DMA’s SVP of CRM and member engage-ment. “Marketers are wrestling with getting a clear view of the customer. There’s significant difficulty in bridging the gap across email and social media.”

Poor data quality was the chief obstacle between mar-keters and a complete customer view, according to an Expe-rian Marketing Services study included in the book. It was followed by siloed departments, inability to link different technologies, and lack of relevant technology. Not surpris-ingly, another study by Mondo showed that three of the top five hires marketing departments are looking to make this year are in social media, data analytics, and mobile strategy.

“Understanding how to build out the tech stack is a much bigger challenge today than it was just a few years ago,” O’Keefe says. “There’s a lot of leaning on agency part-ners. Big retailers are borrowing staff from supplier part-ners, but they still lack the broad knowledge.”

But for an elite few, that is. Limited pools of tech talent often flow to technological innovators. Another Experian study, which tracked mail, phone, and Internet buyers over a period of three months, found them overwhelmingly engaged with three Internet pioneers. Amazon accounted for 30% of the field, followed by Apple (iTunes and Apple Store) with 12%, and eBay with 10%.

Email is topsSo, while direct marketers will be spending more time and resources attempting to harness new technologies and burgeoning channels, they also will continue to ride hard an old workhorse: email. “Email marketing continued to deliver exceptional ROI because people continued to re-spond positively to the commercial messages that reached their inboxes. They simply liked what marketers sent,” Re-turn Path CEO and DMA board member Matt Blumberg wrote in an introduction to the book’s email section.

Indeed, complaints from consumers about emails are few, according to a Return Path study. Entertainment com-panies heard the worst of it, but the worst wasn’t so bad—only 109 gripes per 10,000 emails sent. Retailers heard only 63 complaints, travel companies 70, and financial firms 84. In a Listrak study of email subscribers, 82% said they wanted more emails as long as they were relevant, 77% said they’d likely buy more if their mail was personal-ized, and 69% said they were willing to share more person-al information in return for that relevancy.

Another notable development in this year’s Fact Book was a higher intention on the part of marketers to step up responsive design efforts, largely due to a change Google made in its algorithm that favors mobile-friendly sites in search results. Although mobile marketing strategies are a must in a time when more than half of searches are initiat-ed on devices, the channel remains expensive. O’Keefe cit-ed a Merkle study showing that the cost of clicks produced by mobile ads increased by 20% in Q4 2014, while the price of tablet clicks rose by only 4% and desktop clicks by 11%.

80% of Marketers Will Increase Digital Budgets in the Year AheadSocial media leads marketers’ wish lists, but email still dominates their activities, according to the DMA’s 2015 Fact Book. By Al Urbanski

Airbnb. Kickstarter. Task Rabbit. Uber. All of these companies have been hailed for being innovative or disruptive. What do they know that you don’t? Don Scheibenreif asked that question of attendees during his keynote at the Gartner Customer 360 Summit. His answer: They know that technology and customer ex-perience are almost inseparable.

Scheibenreif, a Gartner VP and distinguished analyst, then asked, “Are you ready for this new era of customer engagement at the speed of digital business?”

The fact is, according to Scheibenreif, anyone has the ability to generate new and innovative business models using technology. There are companies that don’t have the burden of legacy technology or entrenched busi-ness models. They have no fear, he said, just the desire to make things better. And they’re using technology to crack the code of customer engagement, which Gartner

defines as the ability to attract and influence customers and engage them in a long-term relationship.

These companies are using technology to become digital businesses: ones that blur the lines between the physical and digital worlds. According to a recent Gart-ner study, only 22% of respondents define their compa-nies as true digital businesses. Fifty percent expect to become a digital business by 2017, and 83% say they’ll be one by 2020. “When will you become a digital busi-ness?” Scheibenreif asked attendees. His recommenda-tion: Start now if you haven’t already done so. “Develop your roadmap to becoming a digital business because it’s already here.”

Fortunately, he offered some advice on how to do so. “The first step to being more digital is to be more

human,” Scheibenreif said. “Help people realize their dreams and goals.” The way to do that, he said, is to be

The Secret to Being Digital? Be More Human.Brands that are digital humanists will get further with customers than those who are digital machinists. By Ginger Conlon

a digital humanist, not a digital machinist. The former puts customers at the center and uses technology to help them achieve a goal or solve a problem; the lat-ter uses technology to take people out of the equation. “Don’t try to engineer people out of the process,” he said.

Gartner’s Jenny Sussin had recommendations on be-ing a digital humanist, as well.

During her conference session, Sussin, a research di-rector, suggested that attendees follow Gartner’s three-part Digital Humanist Manifesto:

• Put people at the center• Embrace serendipity• Give people space

Put people at the centerSussin used a hammer analogy to explain what it means to put peo-ple at the center of the equation, instead of the product or service a company is marketing. Think of digital machinists versus digital humanists in this way: A machin-ist starts with a hammer and asks, “What problems can we solve with this tool?” Conversely, the human-ist says, “We have this problem (e.g., we need to put a nail in the wall to hang a picture), what can we create or use to solve it?”

Digital businesses that put cus-tomers at the center take the time to understand those customers, Sussin said. Know who you’re designing for and what they need or expect, she advised. But, she warned, marketers should do more than ask customers about their goals and preferences; they must also ob-serve customer behaviors because people can’t always tell you what they want.

Embrace serendipitySometimes opportunities present themselves, and companies simply need to capitalize on them, Sussin said. She cited as an example the #GartnerCRM hashtag, which the analyst firm started using in advance of its Customer 360 Summit to promote the event. Gartner’s marketers expected attendees to tweet about what they were looking forward to or expecting at the event. They did this to an extent. But, interestingly, some also posted tweets looking for other attendees who they

could meet up with for a pre-conference run in the mornings. Gartner seized the opportunity to set up a formal group run for attendees. The run, and a yoga class, were even added to the schedule on the confer-ence mobile app.

“It’s worth mentioning here,” Sussin added, “that a user invented the hashtag for Twitter…and Twitter em-braced it.”

Sussin quoted former Apple CEO Steve Jobs to pro-vide another example of how to embrace serendipity: Customers can’t anticipate what technology can do, he said; they may not be able to conceive what’s possible. But you can create that better ex-perience for them. “People can’t always tell you what they want be-cause they don’t know,” Sussin reit-erated. “So, you need to allow your customer experience to evolve as customers want it to, and adapt it to your customers’ preferences.”

Give people spaceThe final element of the Digital Hu-manist Manifesto is to know when to leave customers alone, Sussin said. For example, just because a company has the data and permis-sion to contact a customer via mul-tiple channels for a new campaign

doesn’t mean it should. “Don’t annoy [customers] because you can,” Suss-

in said, adding that marketers need to make sure that when they reach out to customers and personalize the experience, they actually do that—by delivering an experience customers actually want. “It needs to be mutually beneficial,” she said, adding that mar-keters should put personalization in context so it’s not creepy.

Companies also need to give customers the space to create their own enhancements to products and ser-vices—especially digital offerings. “People will do things with your technology that you’ve never thought that they’d do,” Sussin said. “People will experience your technology in ways you didn’t expect. Let them.” And let them improve on your experience, she advised.

“Put customers at the center,” Sussin reiterated. “Don’t put your organizational politics there.”

“Put customers at the center. Don’t put your organi-zational politics there.”

The wine and spirits market is a crowded one.But marketers for Belvedere Vodka say that they want-

ed to rise above the competition as the drink of choice. A simple aim, perhaps, but the team at Belvedere quickly discovered its goal wasn’t so easy to carry out.

They say digital marketing, however, would soon change that.

“Essentially, we’ve had to play a lot of catch up in the al-cohol category,” says Bianca Gardner, global digital director at Belvedere. “We can’t sell directly to our consumers. So, increasingly, digital has become the core of our marketing strategy, versus an add-on.”

Gardner says that in addition to selling to retailers—not directly to consumers—brand awareness outside of the United States has proven to be a challenge. “We want to change that mind-set globally, because it’s not just about the U.S., who already gets it,” Gardner says. “We want to bring those other 100 markets along this journey with us.”

“The reality is that in the various spirits categories, es-pecially in vodka, it’s an incredibly competitive environ-ment,” says Jeff Suhy, president of digital agency Modus Operandi (ModOp). “There are some well-heeled compa-nies that are already going after their pieces of the mar-ket. If you want to really compete, you don’t want to just spend a lot of money. You’ve just got to be smarter.” Agile

marketing, not just expensive campaigns, became the goal for Belvedere and strategists at ModOp. Marketers set out to create a campaign that appealed to a digital audience, would be centered on consumers, was easy to share and participate in, and would set the brand apart from the vast competition. The answer, they say, was World Martini Day. For the second consecutive year, Belvedere Vodka encour-aged consumers to share their personal photos on June 19—images that featured their fun activities, videos, and martini recipes by using the hashtag #WorldMartiniDay.

Belvedere curated all of that user-generated content and featured much of it in a gorgeous collective on the brand’s site. Marketers also recruited several influential food bloggers, such as famed foodie photographer Julie Lee, and each influencer shared her personal Belvedere creation with their devout audiences on social media and digital blogs. Alongside this digital campaign, which lasted through June 30, Belvedere announced the win-ner of The Challenge—the brand’s international contest for bartenders to create the best martini or cocktail with Belvedere Vodka. Plus, the brand shared several interac-tive how-to videos to help novices learn how to make a slamming martini.

“There’s a lot of noise in user-generated channels,” ModOp’s Suhy warns. “Along with the noise can come things that aren’t helpful to the brand. So, there just needs to be an element of curation and something that inspires people to contribute something beautiful to the brand’s message. Something that’s fun, valuable, and on brand.”

Belvedere’s Gardner says that although more than 20 other vodka brands jumped on World Martini Day, Belve-dere dominated the conversation.

Marketers at Belvedere say they saw a 400% increase in so-cial engagements, a 500% increase in WorldMartiniDay.com impressions, and participation from competitors jump from fewer than 10 last year to about 25 this June, including Elit, Grey Goose, and Stoli.

“It’s about inspiring fun, creative campaigns that real-ly tap into authentic audiences and advocates,” Gardner says. “At Belvedere we have a big focus in fashion, in food, in mixology. So, in addition to our traditional [campaigns] with search and video, all of these digital elements tie things together. That’s when we saw real success.”

Belvedere Vodka Mixes Digital Strategy Into Its MarketingShaken or stirred: Marketers for the spirits brand find the right digital recipe for its latest campaign. By Natsha D. Smith

One of the pervasive themes at Advertising Week this year has been the need for marketers to focus on diversity—or in many cases the lack thereof. Although millennials now represent the largest—and most diverse—generation, most marketing decisions and campaigns are decided by alarm-ingly non-diverse groups. Statistics show that important demos, such as minorities and women, are underrepre-sented among decision-makers—as well as in digital cam-paigns and messages. For example, just 3% of advertising creative directors are women—although women make up 85% of brand purchases, according to Sheconomy.

Again millennials—i.e. 18- to 35-year-olds—comprised roughly one third of the population in 2013, according to statistics released by the Obama administration, which means that the millennial generation will continue to be a sizable part of the population for many years to come.

With that reality in mind, marketers and advertisers need to shape their digital messaging differently than many do today. Digital is the millennial language. Al-though 51% of surveyed marketers in a recent study from Geoscape say they have some sort of multicultural initia-tive in place, leadership and talent in digital and traditional marketing remains homogenous in its demographics.

In a Tuesday panel moderated by Weber Shandwick President Gail Heimann, several leading marketers divulged what they’ve done to work on changing the landscape at the top of their agencies and what you can do in your indus-tries. Here are some of the more poignant pieces of advice:

“There’s a paradox. Forty-five percent of millennials are non-white. And if digital is the operating system of millennials, then the digital world—if truly shaped by

millennials—should be diverse.” —Gail Heimann, presi-dent, Weber Shandwick

“[Many] women and minorities are not growing up with as much opportunity in tech. I grew up with a personal computer, and that made a big difference. Education is the biggest thing that will address the current divide. The real challenge [in digital advertising and marketing] is in early education.” —B. Bonin Bough, chief media & e-commerce of-ficer, Mondelez International

“The data is rather bleak. If you were to look at the gen-der parity gap, it would take until 2095 to close it. But I’m optimistic because businesses follow customer behavior. Customers are already there; there is diversity behind the screen.” —Janet Balis, principal, advisory, media and enter-tainment strategy practice lead, Ernst & Young LLP

“We can’t necessarily put data on equality. But I agree with Janet that the industry has to follow behavior. We have to be realistic about what it will take to create rela-tionships. This has to happen now—today.” —Chris Perry, chief digital officer, Weber Shandwick

“If we’re going to look at the gender issue, we have to look differently at what and where talent is. Embrace a phi-losophy of including all types of talents and backgrounds. Everyone has to feel empowered and comfortable to be themselves.” —Balis

“These [successful and forward-thinking] companies are built on a world of iteration and change. Young em-ployees thrive on change. But there’s a big gap [in legacy brands]. What percentage of the Fortune 500 companies look like Uber where the average age is 26? And Uber is a $50 billion company.” —Bough

Where’s the Digital Diversity?Leading marketers at Advertising Week talk about how to get on the road to diverse dig-ital leadership. Hint: It starts with talent. By Natsha D. Smith

Consumer behavior is constantly evolving. According to a 2014 Altimeter Group report, mobile, social, and real-time technology trends (or what venture capi-talist Fred Wilson refers to as the “Golden Triangle of Disruption”) are changing the way consumers engage and discover information. And as consumers change, companies must evolve to survive.

The result is digital transformation.Digital transformation, according to the research

and advisory firm, is “the realignment of, or new in-vestment in, technology and business models to more effectively engage digital customers at every touch-point in the customer experience lifecycle.” Compa-nies that invest in digital transformation, according to the report, experience numerous benefits, such as improved customer journeys, greater competitive ad-vantages, and increased conversion and loyalty rates.

“We have to look at what the customer experi-

ence is and what it could be,” Brian Solis, author and principal analyst for Altimeter Group, said during a keynote presentation at the ONE Teradata Marketing Festival in Las Vegas.

However, not all businesses are able to recognize or keep up with these societal and technological shifts. The result is what Altimeter Group refers to as “Digital Darwinism.” Put simply, those who adapt live and those who don’t die.

Consider the following two examples Solis cited during his keynote presentation: Movie rental company Block-buster had the opportunity to purchase streaming service Netflix back in 2000 but passed on the opportunity due to its own popularity. Fast forwarded to 2010: Blockbuster files for bankruptcy while Netflix experiences a 43,101% sales boost since 1999, according to Solis. Likewise, he said that Amazon bankrupted what was formerly the number two bookseller, Borders, in less than a decade.

8 Digital Transformation TipsInnovation takes more than just technology; it takes people. By Elyse Dupré

“You can see that moment when consumers have changed so much that [they’ve] split off in an entirely different direction,” he said.

Of course, using disruptive technologies to enhance the digital customer experience isn’t easy. According to a 2013 survey conducted by MIT Sloan Manage-ment Review and Capgemini Consulting, 63% of near-ly 1,600 executives and managers said that the pace of technology change within their organization was slow. What’s more, an Altimeter Group survey found that 88% of exec-utives and digital strategists said that their company was under-going a formal digital transforma-tion effort in 2014; however, only a quarter of them had mapped out their customers’ digital journeys.

Still, bettering customers’ expe-riences through digital transforma-tion is important. So here are eight tips from Solis’ presentation that marketers should consider when creating their own digital transfor-mation efforts.

1. Always ask why: Just because a company does something one way doesn’t mean that it’s the right way. Marketers should always question their ac-tions and assumptions and look for opportunities to make experiences, products, and processes better and more efficient.

“We should be asking ‘why’ because that prompts ‘what if’ and ‘what if’ always prompts ‘what’s next?’” Solis said.

2. Build a culture that rewards people for trying new things: So often in life, failure is considered a negative; however, Solis argued that it’s really just the opportunity to learn from experimentation.

“That’s why it’s called innovation, not iteration,” he said.

3. Identify your purpose: Technology plays a major role in digital transforma-tion and innovation, but only if it provides a purpose, Solis said.

“Ideas can start with anything,” he noted, “but they can all be driven by a higher purpose.”

4. See something for what it could be: Digital transformation isn’t about reinventing the wheel; it’s about improving an experience. For instance, Steve Jobs didn’t invent the mouse or the MP3 player; he just made the user experience better.

“That takes seeing the world in a different perspective because we’re making decisions to-day [based on] life as we know it,” Solis said.

5. Think like a customer: To help gain a different perspective, marketers should ask themselves what they can do differently and what would their customers do, Solis said.

“Connected customers always see the world differently,” he added.

6. Remember, innovation isn’t just born out of technology: It also comes from people who are passionate about doing something better than the way they are to-day, Solis said. And marketers don’t need to have a C-suite title to initiate change within their organizations.

“Change doesn’t always have to come from the top,” he said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, lead-ership rarely comes from the top; leadership comes from the middle.”

7. Imagine what your brand would be like if you had to start over: Digital transformation can be difficult for companies built on a legacy. So Solis advised marketers to re-imag-ine their companies if they launched digitally today. What would be different, he asked, and what would your customers value?

8. Understand that you can learn how to be innovative: Innovation doesn’t always come naturally to people, and that’s OK.

“Innovating isn’t something that you have to be born with,” Solis said. “You can learn it. It’s like developing a skill, and we have to master it.”

“We should be asking ‘why’ because that prompts ‘what if’ and ‘what if’ always prompts ‘what’s next?’”

Americans hold 3.3 billion loyalty memberships, according to Colloquy’s 2015 Loyalty Census; that’s 29 loyalty mem-berships per household. But if brands don’t make rewards programs an easy experience for customers to partake in, then they’ll be the ones losing points.

Consumer packaged goods (CPG) giant Kellogg learned firsthand what it takes to create a seamless rewards experi-ence from both a consumer-facing and back-end perspec-tive when it enhanced its Family Rewards program this past June.

Loyalty isn’t just something you snack on...For Kellogg, loyalty is all about driving share of purchase in a particular category.

“We might have 35% share of a consumer’s or house-hold’s requirement in cereal,” says Dan Keller, VP of data-base marketing for Kellogg, “but in that household, we may only have 5% share of their cookie purchases and maybe 7% share of their cracker purchases, where we’d like to get 20 or 30%.... We always like the household to bring home an extra package more than they would have purchased previously within their category requirements.”

And few customers experience more category crossover

than the eight million members of Kellogg’s Family Re-wards program.

The Kellogg’s Family Rewards program first launched in June 2012. Members could earn points for purchasing Kellogg products by logging in to their Family Rewards program account and entering the 16-digit codes printed inside of product boxes. Participants could then cash in their points for coupons, gift cards, sweepstakes entries, or charity donations.

Not only did the program provide Kellogg with a wealth of transactional information but it also rewarded custom-ers for purchasing products they may not have otherwise realized were owned by the CPG company.

Unfortunately, the customer experience wasn’t as de-lectable as the company’s Cheez-It crackers or Pringles.

“There’s always been a bit of a struggle for consum-ers being able to read the codes, enter the codes, find the codes,” Keller says.

In August 2014 the company started brainstorming ways it could make its program more palatable. After sur-veying its customer database, Kellogg discovered that people were more likely to engage in or join the rewards program if it were easier to collect points, such as with a loyalty club card or receipt scanner.

The company then worked to enhance its rewards pro-gram by introducing new digital components to both the consumer-facing and back-end sides of its program. Do-ing this, Keller says, would hopefully boost engagement among its current rewards members, as well as encourage non-participating customers to join.

A double dose of digitalFrom a consumer-facing perspective, the digital elements are all about ease of use. Instead of forcing shoppers to dig through boxes of Fruit Loops or Corn Pops, Kellogg is now asking consumers to collect their points in one of two ways: First, shoppers can take a picture of their receipt and send it to Kellogg’s mobile site, desktop site, or via text. Second, if customers have a loyalty card for a participating retailer, they can simply enter the loyalty card number in their account on Kellogg’s website, which the company re-cently redesigned, and then present the card at checkout when purchasing their Kelloggs items in-store.

Kellogg’s Rewards Program Doesn’t Flake Out on DigitalThe CPG company revamped its rewards program by using new technology to simplify the member experience. By Elyse Dupré

However, the back-end and data collection side is far more complex. To facilitate all of this incoming purchase data from its website and texts, Kellogg built a new in-frastructure called “bus.” Here’s how Keller says it works: When a customer scans a receipt, the scanned image goes to a receipt processor called Snipp. Once Snipp validates the receipt, the platform sends the participating product information back to the central “bus.” Once back in the “bus,” the data is collected by Kellogg’s rewards partner Aimia, which provides a platform that handles the points accounting. After the point amounts have been assigned, all of the data flows into Kellogg’s database, which is built by Epsilon. The customer is then able to view his reflected rewards balance on Kellogg’s website.

If the customer decides to forgo the receipt scanning and instead simply enter a loyal-ty card number into Kellogg’s site, then the process is slightly different. In that case the loyalty card number flows through the “bus” to Saving-Star’s platform where the loyalty card is validated. SavingStar then recognizes the participating prod-ucts, passes them back through the “bus,” and Aimia collects and assigns the points. Then the information is displayed on Kellogg’s website and stored in the Epsilon database.

An appetite for dataKellogg can get right down to the nitty-gritty of what con-sumers purchased too.

“We’re able to pick up Kellogg purchases essentially down to the SKU level,” Keller says. “We know that the item you purchased [was] Special K, 10 oz, red berry—[that’s] what we would pick up [from] the receipt.”

The company is able to use this data to enhance its marketing. For instance, Kellogg can use the data gleaned from the rewards program to send targeted offers to con-sumers via email based on what and where they buy. “If we know that you shop at Meijer, we can tell you about Kellogg products at Meijer,” Keller explains.

Tasty resultsKellogg officially launched its enhanced rewards program on June 2, and promoted the initiative through sever-al channels, including email, social, digital, and product packaging. The company is already seeing appetizing re-sults. According to Keller, the brand saw “thousands” of

people participating in the program within its first few days in-market.

These results are especially sweet considering the chal-lenges Kellogg needed to overcome to completely revamp its rewards program in roughly 10 months. For one, the company wanted to get this initiative done quickly and had to balance working with many technology partners.

“The key is to have a really strong, solid project manager in the middle of it to keep everyone organized and a group of partners that all understand their role and understand that working together for the common good is a great way to go and [leads to] a great outcome,” Keller says.

Not only did Kellogg have to wrangle vendor alignment, but it also had to align teams internally—a challenge Keller says many marketers face. “It requires a fairly significant

investment, [and] it requires a strong belief that the program will work,” he says. “Once you get it going, you need to have a way to accurately measure results and prove to [y]ourselves or prove to the company that it’s work-ing. We’ve been able to do that and the return on investment that we’re making is incredibly positive; the en-thusiasm for the program continues.”

Finally, Keller says that the com-pany’s marketers knew that not all of Kellogg’s reward members would be excited about changing their behav-ior. They tried to remain sensitive to

this by providing several resources—including video tuto-rials, website and email instructions, and call center sup-port—to help less tech-savvy customers navigate this new digital world.

All in all, Keller says keeping the company’s end goals in mind helped the revamped rewards program snap, crack-le, and pop its way to success.

“We, as a collective team, have stayed focused on getting this program launched in a timely fashion and continuing to focus on the member or the consumer and making it the absolute best possible experience for the member,” he says. “We’re recognizing and realizing that we’re asking a number of people who signed up for a program with the intent of entering codes to switch to new technology.... We’ve been totally cognizant of the significant amount of change that we’re asking our members to go through. So, every step along the way we’ve been working incredibly hard to make sure that we make that change as easy as possible for the consumers.”

It requires a strong belief that the program will work.

NASA scientists announced yesterday that liquid water likely exists, or existed, on Mars in what could prove to be a game-changing development in extraterrestrial explora-tion. It got me thinking about that phrase—game changing. It’s a word that we liberally tag behind new trends and technologies, especially in marketing. But the art, science, and execution of marketing has changed so much from the romanticized days of marketing portrayed in “Mad Men” that the phrase isn’t entirely lost on this space.

Though much has transpired to bring us to this point, I’ve listed five marketing practices or trends that have had obvious, persistent effects on how marketers approach their trade, and how consumers absorb marketing content.Proliferation of augmented and virtual reality

Between the rapid pace of innovation in display tech-nology, mobile hardware, and wearables lies the consum-erization of augmented and virtual reality. This frontier technology was once confined to the imaginations of sci-ence fiction writers, before a brief and rudimentary stint in arcades around the country. Now, with the convergence of the innovation points I mentioned before, immersive vir-tual reality is fast becoming…a reality. >> 5 Growth Areas in Video That Marketers Should Watch

The evolution of word-of-mouthWord-of-mouth is a powerful thing. To organically gen-erate conversation about the brand—and especially rec-ommendations of its products—has long been a coveted

outcome for marketers. Unfortunately, the scale of this dis-course was largely out of the marketer’s control, or it was before social media came along.

Now, marketers can monitor, participate in, and (best of all) drive conversation about their business on social networks, with the added bonus of the possibility of the ever-elusive element virality. >> How to Spark (and Sustain) Brand Love and Passion

Marketing without marketingThe advent of social media saw the evolution of an age-old human practice (talking) in the form of word-of-mouth. However, as social media has grown more integral in our daily lives, so too has the phenomenon that is organic vi-rality. Through viral content, marketers can enjoy free and widespread pseudo-promotion of their campaigns and products. The downside? A profound lack of real control over these brief spats of memedom. >> The Most Viral Moments of 2015 (So Far)

The power of user-generated content (UGC)What better way to drive engagement than to bring consum-ers in on content creation? This is a question that undoubt-edly made the rounds during many marketing meetings of yore, but it wasn’t until the Internet democratized virtually everything that UGC really started to reverberate.

The video game industry is perhaps the most seri-al and effective practitioner in the enabling of UGC, but many brands have tapped this well of marketing gold as of late, including Coke and Peanuts. >> Consumers Make the Best Marketers

Inundation of customer dataMarketers’ access to customer data has forever changed the art and science of marketing; more so than any item on this list. Never in the history of business have market-ers had such insight into their customers’ behaviors and preferences, their very identities.

With this data, marketers can now ensure their content is deeply personal and relevant, bringing marketing clos-er than ever to the one-to-one ideal. However, with this abundance of data comes greater responsibility and scru-tiny for marketers in its ethical handling. >> How an Abundance of Data Is Changing Segmentation

5 Truly Game-Changing Aspects Of Modern MarketingMarketing in a world without these practices would be difficult indeed. By Perry Simpson

I find it interesting how some marketers still make the distinction between digital and other types of marketing. Most all of marketing has several digital elements—even direct mail pieces are collated, designed, and distributed with an infusion of digital strategy and technology.

Recently, a reader of Direct Marketing News wrote an in-teresting comment in reaction to one of our articles, Direct Mail Has a Greater Effect on Purchase Than Digital Ads. The article featured results from a recent Temple Univer-sity study that asserted direct mail tops digital media for engagement time, recall, and ultimate purchase. There are certainly some compelling statistics.

But the fervent reader, Michael Bann, responded with an interesting and noteworthy reaction. He wrote:

Personally, I would like less focus on raising any one channel’s arm in victory. I’m sure digital channel advocates have conducted a study with conflicting re-sults. The reality is that true success lies in the balance

of effective cross-channel. Often those digital ads that might not be clicked on can have an impact on conver-sions. Marketing is not a zero sum game, and testing has already proven that.

Continue to run digital ads; continue to use direct mail; continue to test. (Edited for clarity)

I found the comment interesting because I realized that even we, the editors at DMN, often make that distinction and focus more on channels rather than strategy, trends, and the holistic picture. I believe there are marketers out there who are more focused on the consumer rather than whether one channel trumps the other.

So, this week I thought I’d highlight a few marketers who are creating campaigns that are rooted in an omni-channel approach—that are meeting customers wherev-er they are at any time—with videos, mobile, direct mail, email, etc. Share some of your favorite campaigns that em-brace myriad strategies and channels.

It’s Not Digital Marketing; It’s Just MarketingA DMN reader explains how we should look at modern marketing. By Natasha D. Smith

Shopping for furniture isn’t what it used to be. Today shoppers generally go through several tiers of online re-search and then later, if at all, in-person browsing before settling on an item. Marketers for Value City Furniture say that with the help of today’s tech tools, they’re look-ing to change the experience for consumers who are on the fence.

“Customers view furniture buying as a hassle. It’s filled with friction. Our vision is to make furniture shop-ping easy—with the right digital tools,” says Steve Haffer, CIO and EVP of marketing, customer engagement, and information technology at American Signature Inc., par-ent company of Value City Furniture. Haffer says that customers are often undecided because the process can

be downright cumbersome.“You don’t know if you’re making the right decision;

you don’t buy furniture often; you’re unfamiliar with the store itself; delivery can be hard in the city; and so on,” he explains. “And so shoppers do a lot of research to feel confident about the decision they’re making—which tends to be a digital experience that’s influenced by oth-er traditional media, say print or TV.”

But the challenge for marketers at Value City Furniture was twofold: First was identifying a digital customer who had sauntered into the physical store. Reportedly, more than 85% of customers who come into a retail store are not identified. For Value City Furniture, that number was about 70%. The marketing team wanted to get to know

A Little Digital Marketing Goes a Long WayValue City Furniture helps shoppers navigate its stores with the help of digital tools. By Natasha D. Smith

and be able to identify their customers as soon as they stepped in the store.

The second issue was a prolific one: a fragmented, disconnected customer experience. The information for shoppers who’d been browsing online was not trans-ferred to their in-store experiences, and vice versa. Mar-keters for Value City Furniture wanted to create one seamless shopping experience.

“All retailers are aspiring for the concept of an omni-channel customer,” says James Yancey, CEO of Cloud-Tags, a platform that connects stores with customers by identifying shop-pers and then pre-dicting products they might want to buy. “And marketers want to do that because they find that when you [connect] all of those touchpoints with a single custom-er, he spends more time with the brand, is more deeply im-mersed, and spends more money.”

The solution, Haf-fer says, was in-store tablets. The tablets are powered by the same technology used by ApplePay—near field communi-cation or NFC, which is a method of wire-less data transfer that detects and then en-ables technology in close proximity to communicate without the need for an Internet connection. So, as soon as customers stepped into the store, several things hap-pened: First, the NFC in each tablet called up product information as a shopper carried the device and hov-ered around an item. The system also predicts and then recommends other products customers might like.

In-store, tech-enabled, real-time marketing.No app downloads. No logins. No sign-ups.Second, the tablets transferred customers’ wish lists

from the Web to the device. American Signature already has in place EASY PASS, a cart system that allows online

customers to save their lists and then view them while in the store. Conversely, customers can make a list in-store and then save it for online shopping at home. Whichever choice, the system knows right where the shopper left off.

Seamless shopping.Third, the furniture brand offered each customer the

chance to use the tablets to provide their email address-es to receive their wish lists via email.

All three steps allowed marketers at Value City Furniture to ID each customer and her preferences.

The steps also give the marketing team more customer data (e.g. email addresses, purchase intent) and enable the retailer to predict purchases, re-engage shoppers, and boost sales.

“Because we’ve changed our attribu-tion model, we don’t have the channel conflict,” American Signature’s Haffer says. “We’ve solved that problem.”

And when it comes to results, he says the tech-driven strategy did not disappoint.

According to Haf-fer, so far Value City Furniture has seen a 20% higher average order value from tab-

let users after they’ve left the store. About 20% of those tablet users have provided their emails to the brand. Ninety-five percent of those email addresses were new to the brand. And marketers saw a 23% click-through rate in the remarketing emails that included the collec-tions shoppers had browsed while in the store.

“We think this is a game-changing experience, for us as a brand and for the customer,” Haffer says on a final note. “Everything customers put into buying isn’t lost at any stage. And this is a part of a larger initiative to boost customer engagement and help them pick up where they left off.”

A friend once said to me, “When it comes to shoes, ‘need’ is a relative term.” We’ve all experienced a similarly loose definition of need when making purchase decisions.

As Shar VanBoskirk, a Forrester Research VP and prin-cipal analyst, pointed out in her keynote at Forrester’s 2015 Forum for Marketing Leaders: Most choices are the triumph of “something” over reason.

“We don’t reason our way through to the best answer, but marketers presume that we do,” she said. “Marketers believe that we’ll choose the right answer…. But we over-eat, oversleep, and consistently choose without regard for the consequences.”

The situation, VanBoskirk explained, is that people don’t have the processing power to review all the information the way they should. They take mental shortcuts. A long line outside a restaurant means it must be tasty. “We preserve mental energy by making habits,” she said. “We biologically crave comfort, and tend to be change-averse as a result.”

So, although digital disruption creates opportunity for consumers, it also provides stress, VanBoskirk said, add-ing that this situation can be a boon to marketers who approach it properly: by reducing customers’ stress in making a purchase decision, not by coercing a transaction. Doing the latter is a bad practice that’s also misleading to marketers. “Digital disruption provides marketers oppor-tunity to prompt decisions without rational consideration by consumers,” she said, adding that, as a result, “digital gives marketers a false sense of precision.”

VanBoskirk advised attendees to invest to be an anchor

brand for customers. “There’s no more important position to hold,” she said. An anchor brand is the reference point to which buyers compare all other options, and is the go-to option when buyers can’t decide. “So, even if you love direct response, you have to invest in your brand,” VanBo-skirk asserted.

She cited four types of purchase decisions that market-ers can try to help potential customers make through their marketing: Routine, leisure, urgent, and important.

Routine decisions are all about price, habit, and conve-nience. VanBoskirk cited Amazon Dash as an example of a service that helps consumers form a habit around purchasing from the e-tailer. “Make it as easy as possible to choose you,” she said. “Make your product convenient and habit-forming.”

Leisure decisions are considered decisions that people can get lost in while exploring options. VanBoskirk advised marketers for companies in this category to curate options.

Urgent decisions are about credibility, validation, and risk mitigation. Marketers’ role here is to instill confidence. Turbo Tax, VanBoskirk pointed out, prioritizes user con-tent on its site to show the former two, as well as offers its Refund DoubleCheck service, which helps with the latter.

Important decisions require guidance and information. VanBoskirk recommended facilitating important deci-sions for customers. Allstate’s GoodHome app is an ex-ample; users are 350% more likely to ask for a quote than those who don’t use it.

“Help people choose you,” VanBoskirk said. “Market to reduce stress.”

Don’t Let Digital Give You a False Sense of PrecisionConsumers make irrational purchase decisions; help them choose you. By Ginger Conlon

Thoughts From the Twittersphere

Joe Chengery ‏@jchengery In next 2 yrs:

#Contentmarketing budgets +59%. Daily: 5B #content pieces shared, 2B photos uploaded, 500M tweets made. #digitalmarketing

Jennifer Sanford‏@jbbs 105% increase in time

spent on the Internet since 2015 ... 31% decline in news-papers... #digitalmarketing #JDPAAMR

Kris JB‏@itskrisjbAs a Digital Market-

ing Guy I can safely say I am SICK of Back to the Future. Oh my god.

Robert Jones‏@exodusanalytics72% of all internet

users are now active on social media. (Jeff Bullas) #smm #socialmedia #inbound-marketing #digitalmarketing

Christopher Law‏@lawchristopherHumans are the

media. Everything else is a delivery system #DAU2015 #digitalmarketing

Robert Jones‏@exodusanalyticsE-mail open rates are

noticeably lower on weekends than on weekdays. #email-marketing #leadgeneration #digitalmarketing

Kedar Kanitkar‏@kedarkanitkarDigital marketing is

proved to be the most cost effec-tive way of advertising.Start ups are making most of it. SMART PHONES are game changers

jzavala‏@jzavalaWhat are the

steps to get a good customer: 3 steps: stimulus, first contact and experience#digitalmarketing

Rakesh Mital ‏@rakmit1#digitalmarketing is all

about an immersive and inter-active customer experience; follow-up & fulfilment with customers is imperative