Jan Kestle
If you go by the Chinese character for “crisis” – a combination of “challenge” and “opportunity” – then marketing is definitely at a crisis point. Marketers are being buffeted by powerful cross-currents such as the rise of mobile and social media, the proliferation of TV and online channels and the constant battle for the consumer’s attention.
But from my perspective as the leader of a marketing analytics company, those predicaments are precisely why today is a great time to be in marketing. With so many challenges and so many opportunities, the main question we face is, where to start?
Let’s begin by identifying our challenges in 2015:
- Empowered consumers are in charge of how they are marketed to. They can turn brands off at will. In order to be effective, how can we connect, resonate and engage with them?
- Online, mobile and social have disrupted the traditional media mix. Silos exist inside advertisers and within agencies. Getting one view of the customer is harder than ever. So how can marketers reach across multiple touchpoints with consistent and appropriate messaging?
- Data and analytics have become ubiquitous buzzwords. But what are we analyzing? What business problems are we trying to solve? To move beyond buzzwords, we need to measure marketing’s ROI and socialize the necessity of data-driven insights to inform strategic initiatives that drive profit.
- New and powerful tools are emerging every day. How do we choose the right ones? What are the best practices?
- Just as CMOs have finally gained a seat at the leadership table, they’re being joined by CAOs (Chief Analytics Officers) and the CDOs (Chief Data Officers). Who’s in charge here? Who owns the customer data and who is ensuring a privacy-compliant customer journey?
Fortunately, each of these challenges presents an unprecedented opportunity for marketers:
- Empowered consumers are in charge. If we use the insights we’ve developed about consumers skillfully, we can connect with them like never before. With the right offer and the right medium, we can save them time and increase their satisfaction – and make their lives better.
- Online, mobile and social have disrupted media. Marketers can lead the charge to bring traditional and non-traditional media together within advertisers and agencies alike. There’s no divide between a digital and non-digital consumer. Our customers are integrated, multi-faceted beings; it’s time for us to reflect that reality, too.
- Data and analytics have become ubiquitous. Marketers can now bring data-driven decision making to all enterprises and to all functions within the enterprise. We grew up with measurement, tests and adapting to the results. By bringing together the stakeholders, identifying available data and helping to formulate the business questions that need answering, marketers can propel the enterprise to profitable growth through informed strategies.
- New and powerful tools are emerging. Marketing technology abounds. Purpose-built systems are agile and available. By collaborating—rather than circumventing—the IT department, marketers can produce insightful results tailored to different audiences and ready for implementation. A decade ago, who would have predicted marketers would get their own tech budgets?
- CMOs are being joined by CAOs and CDOs. Now that the C-Suite has recognized the power of data and analytics, corporate leaders have begun to change the culture—ensuring data governance, privacy and the socialization of insights and results. The collaboration of all these leaders to drive the analytics journey is resulting in more customer centricity and better marketing – and ultimately improved profitability.
For marketers today, the best way to thrive is to recognize that the “crisis” the industry faces holds as much opportunity as challenge. Marketers must embrace the opportunities even as new challenges emerge almost daily. For those who can adapt to this new landscape, it is indeed a great time to be a marketer.
Jan Kestle is the president and founder of Environics Analytics.
