The modern day marketer’s dilemma is akin to a fashion lover’s knockoff designer handbag–she longs for the real thing of course, but doesn’t have the funds to buy it and figures the Canal Street replica is better than nothing (even as the stitching unravels before she has pulled the imposter out of its duster). Then on the way to a job interview one day the strap breaks. Unfortunate–yes. Catastrophic–probably not. Right? Wrong. Because the job interview is at a fashion house in the accessories department. She shows up with her fake, now broken bag, sending a message to her interviewer that she doesn’t “get” them, that she didn’t care to prepare for this encounter. Somebody else gets the job, which is too bad because our fashion lover really, really wanted it.
Let’s dissect the analogy a bit.
Marketers long for the ability to personalize communication to customers across devices in a very high end way yet, they currently lack the technological resources to do this. They have some stuff that they can use, but it’s not that great and breaks down too easily. Much of the difficulty has to do with the fact that marketers don’t have a single view of the customer and compiling the data is manual and time consuming. While this is an annoying problem, it’s not necessarily the end of the world. Right? Wrong. Because when brands don’t deliver timely personalized experiences (or deliver half-baked ones), it sends the message to their customers that they don’t care, that they haven’t “prepared for the encounter.” When this happens, customers tend to take their business elsewhere.
And customers and marketers both agree personalization is critical. 62% of consumers have chosen, recommended or paid more for a brand that provides a more personalized service or experience (Adweek). 94% of marketers say personalization is important to meeting their current marketing objectives (Adweek). So for brands it’s not a matter of “should we do this?” but rather “we’re doing this, but not particularly well,” “we’re doing this, but not in a scalable way.”
The fashion lover bought the knockoff designer bag in the hopes of attaining the same look as the real one at a fraction of the price, only to be disappointed when her strap broke. The moral of the story? It’s time for an upgrade. Such is the resolution to the modern marketer’s dilemma too.
Granular segmentation and real-time mobile personalization can only be made possible by an investment in technology. And with a single view of their customers, brands can understand their behavior and true preferences and earn their loyalty for a lifetime — which never goes out of style.
Does your brand’s legacy technology need an upgrade? Learn how we give Fortune 1000 companies a truly single view of their customers’ past and present behavior (including purchases, service interactions, social engagement, app behavior, legacy data sources, etc.) in real-time. Request a demo of SessionM’s Mobile Marketing Cloud today.
Suggestions