This week I attended Marketing Week Live (hello 6.56am train) as part of my commitment to continued learning. It was a vibrant and very busy environment and it was great to be surrounded by peers who are so passionate about our discipline. The event left me energised by a clear momentum in the industry to take responsibility to rebuild trust with our customers by caring more about the lifetime value of that customer.
There are four great themes or messages I come away with that I think deem worth sharing.
Curiosity is key
Several speakers highlighted the need for curiosity as an essential trait for any good marketer. An intrinsic desire to learn more and ask questions. This manifets as a motivation to try new things and new approaches. It should also manifest itself as an obsession with your customer – good marketers want to know more about their customer, really understand their needs, drives and motivations behind their purchasing or decision making behaviour.
Don’t be distracted by Data
It was very refreshing to hear multiple snr marketers encourage the audience to beware of getting so fixated on data and metrics they place less value on the creative process and marketing instinct needed to shape campaigns. Digitisation of our channels has enabled us to measure marketing interactions in a way that was not possible before – but it has also swung too much focus on acquisition marketing focused on short-term results. Building campaigns to deliver clicks and downloads will not contribute to long-term brand trust and loyalty. Good data should help shape and underpin a campaign – but not define it.
Keep it Simple…
Customers have more choice – and their tolerance and patience is at an all-time low. They expect a simple and personalised experience and they know that if they are not fully satisfied, it will be easy to find a similar solution or product somewhere else (they won’t even have to find it – thanks to re-targeting, it will find them!). So every step in the customer journey needs to be frictionless and simple. So it’s our job as marketers to spend time to expect their needs and make sure our campaign, call to action, purchase option is simple and instinctive.
Back to the Brand Building Basics
Despite all the shiny new channels, the power of influencers and the power of data driven insights – it all amounts to nothing if you don’t start with your customer and present them a brand they can trust. Brand trust and customer loyalty are build on the foundation of understanding your customer and communicating with them relevantly. This includes being really clear on what need your product or service addresses – and how it does that better than anyone else.
All in all, a great investment of time. Even worth the spike in follow-up calls and emails I will get from all the vendors on site who were so eager to showcase their wares!