Groundhog Day
Stop making the same mistakes: Preventing a ‘Groundhog Day’ scenario
Stop making the same mistakes: Preventing a ‘Groundhog Day’ scenario Are your marketing campaigns tired and predictable? Contributor Mike Sands discusses ways to advance customer relationships to create better marketing and outcomes. Mike Sands on February 7, 2018 at 4:50 pm
Last Friday, I awoke at 6 a.m. to my alarm blaring Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe” and scanned my daily newsfeed, headlining the latest retail fatality, the next big thing to take ad tech by storm and speculation on whether Punxsutawney Phil would see his shadow on Groundhog Day — the latter the only story reporting something new. Quickly, I was reminded of how little marketing has evolved. And I wondered what it would take for brands to see the dawn of a new day. Much like Bill Murray’s character in the 25yearold classic Groundhog Day, which redefined an agesold winter tradition as a symbol of evolutionary stagnation, marketers are recreating the same poor experiences day after day, impeding their ability to advance customer relationships and drive better outcomes. In the movie, Murray finally wakes up to a new life (and Andie MacDowell) after realizing that in order to stop reliving the past, he must stop repeating the same mistakes and find ways to improve. In this byline, I hope to inspire the same realization in marketers. Because when it comes to building direct customer relationships, personalizing brand experiences and creating new engagements, most marketers are replaying ineffective, ultimately destructive strategies.
Same Mistake #1: Customer Data Is Still Out of Control For starters, consider how marketers are working with customer data, a brand’s single most important asset for understanding the unique characteristics of its users and informing ways to build profitable relationships. Today, marketers have seemingly endless amounts of data, and an ever-evolving martech marketplace now offers over 5,000 solutions to help brands foster deeper, more intimate bonds with consumers. However, less than 9 percent of U.S. marketers use just one. When a brand’s data is scattered among multiple disconnected platforms, channels, applications and silos, customer connections are broken. Instead of fostering long-term relationships, these intermediary point solutions essentially leave marketers with a series of one-night stands. Of course, brands have Facebook and Google — the duopoly that the digital ad industry loves to hate but that marketers hate to cut loose. Yet while their massive scale and identity-driven capabilities are seductive, these walled gardens aren’t really any better at helping brands foster direct customer relationships. With limited visibility into what happens within these closed ecosystems, marketers are left with little to no insights to inspire the next step in a brand-customer relationship, leading to irrelevancy, distrust and, eventually, churn.
Stop making the same mistakes: Preventing a ‘Groundhog Day’ scenario
Basically, the digital players meant to bring brands and consumers closer together are pulling them further apart. And as technologies continue to advance, increasing interconnectedness, direct brandcustomer relationships will be pivotal to success. This means brands can’t continue handing over their data to intermediaries to broker customer relationships. Rather, they must devise better ways to work with marketing partners and directly with consumers to control this most precious enterprise asset and use it freely, wisely and responsibly to maintain consistent and meaningful connections across channels and throughout the lifetime of each relationship.
Same Mistake #2: Personalization Is Still Not Actually Personal As with all relationships, the one between a brand and customer is a personal affair. But when it comes to creating personalized customer experiences, many brands are still not fully committed — and consumers can tell: new research reveals that last year businesses lost $2.5 trillion worldwide due to poor personalization and a lack of trust, with U.S. companies suffering $756 billion in lost retail and brand sales alone as over 40 percent of customers cut ties. With nearly a decade of data technology solutions behind us, this is somewhat surprising. But the reality is that many marketers are still working with legacy systems within organizational silos without a clear personalization mission. While technology and functional concerns may be out of a marketer’s scope, determining ways to honestly and openly collect customer data at each possible touchpoint to create delightful, persuasive and meaningful experiences should be top priority. When done right, personalization not only adds value to customers’ lives, it adds value to the company: according to McKinsey & Company data, personalization can reduce acquisition costs by half, increase revenues as much as 15 percent and improve marketing spend efficiencies by up to 30 percent. A few brands are on the right track. Ralph Lauren and Rebecca Minkoff, for example, installed interactive, touchscreen-based smart mirrors in their stores so customers can personalize what is one of the most intimate (often intimidating) shopping experiences: the fitting room. Now shoppers can adjust lighting, view personal recommendations and request help from in-store associates as needed — all data points for future engagements. Another personal fave is Lowe’s. It’s taken home improvement to a whole new level with its in-store virtual reality tool Holoroom, which lets customers play around with various cabinets, fixtures and paint colors to envision a kitchen or a bathroom, clueing in Lowe’s to personal shopping preferences.
Stop making the same mistakes: Preventing a ‘Groundhog Day’ scenario
Same Mistake #3: Technologies Still Lack the Human Touch Obviously, when it comes to creating personalized brand experiences, technology is going to be key. But before investing heavily in augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence or what have you, marketers must consider what technologies are actually relevant to their customers. Technology is not just a mechanism for communicating with customers; it’s actually changed how consumers behave at each stage in their buying journey. Marketers need to adapt to meet customers on their terms and integrate technologies thoughtfully, with customer experience topofmind. Otherwise, bound by technologyspecific strategies, brands risk losing the human touch and alienating their customers. Research from Accenture reveals that 83 percent of U.S. consumers prefer dealing with human beings instead of digital channels for customer service issues, and 77 percent feel the same when it comes to seeking advice. By no means am I underplaying the importance of technology. I’m merely playing up the importance of remembering the fundamentals of marketing and using our heads, not just machines, to craft genuine and significant brand engagements. Hey, we all make mistakes. And I realize the ones I’ve just called out may seem like insurmountable challenges. But by evolving our marketing mindsets, they can all be overcome. Similar to how Murray’s Groundhog Day character transformed, by paying attention to the behaviors and activities of customers, understanding what they need at the right moment, anticipating what they may desire next and using all of this knowledge to improve how we engage with them, marketers will establish longterm relationships and a new era of opportunities — and that’s every brand’s true Hollywood ending.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Sands Mike Sands is CEO of Signal. Prior to joining the company, he was part of the original Orbitz management team and held the positions of CMO and COO. While at Orbitz, Mike helped take the business from start-up to IPO, then through two acquisitions (Cendant and Blackstone). After Orbitz, Mike joined The Pritzker Group as a partner on their private equity team. Mike also has held management roles at General Motors Corporation and Leo Burnett. His work at General Motors led him to be named a “Marketer of the Next Generation” by Brandweek magazine. Mike holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications from Northwestern University and a Masters in Management degree from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management.
Stop making the same mistakes: Preventing a ‘Groundhog Day’ scenario Are your marketing campaigns tired and predictable? Contributor Mike Sands discusses ways to advance customer relationships to create better marketing and outcomes. Mike Sands on February 7, 2018 at 4:50 pm
Last Friday, I awoke at 6 a.m. to my alarm blaring Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe” and scanned my daily newsfeed, headlining the latest retail fatality, the next big thing to take ad tech by storm and speculation on whether Punxsutawney Phil would see his shadow on Groundhog Day — the latter the only story reporting something new. Quickly, I was reminded of how little marketing has evolved. And I wondered what it would take for brands to see the dawn of a new day. Much like Bill Murray’s character in the 25yearold classic Groundhog Day, which redefined an agesold winter tradition as a symbol of evolutionary stagnation, marketers are recreating the same poor experiences day after day, impeding their ability to advance customer relationships and drive better outcomes. In the movie, Murray finally wakes up to a new life (and Andie MacDowell) after realizing that in order to stop reliving the past, he must stop repeating the same mistakes and find ways to improve. In this byline, I hope to inspire the same realization in marketers. Because when it comes to building direct customer relationships, personalizing brand experiences and creating new engagements, most marketers are replaying ineffective, ultimately destructive strategies.
Same Mistake #1: Customer Data Is Still Out of Control For starters, consider how marketers are working with customer data, a brand’s single most important asset for understanding the unique characteristics of its users and informing ways to build profitable relationships. Today, marketers have seemingly endless amounts of data, and an ever-evolving martech marketplace now offers over 5,000 solutions to help brands foster deeper, more intimate bonds with consumers. However, less than 9 percent of U.S. marketers use just one. When a brand’s data is scattered among multiple disconnected platforms, channels, applications and silos, customer connections are broken. Instead of fostering long-term relationships, these intermediary point solutions essentially leave marketers with a series of one-night stands. Of course, brands have Facebook and Google — the duopoly that the digital ad industry loves to hate but that marketers hate to cut loose. Yet while their massive scale and identity-driven capabilities are seductive, these walled gardens aren’t really any better at helping brands foster direct customer relationships. With limited visibility into what happens within these closed ecosystems, marketers are left with little to no insights to inspire the next step in a brand-customer relationship, leading to irrelevancy, distrust and, eventually, churn.
Stop making the same mistakes: Preventing a ‘Groundhog Day’ scenario
Basically, the digital players meant to bring brands and consumers closer together are pulling them further apart. And as technologies continue to advance, increasing interconnectedness, direct brandcustomer relationships will be pivotal to success. This means brands can’t continue handing over their data to intermediaries to broker customer relationships. Rather, they must devise better ways to work with marketing partners and directly with consumers to control this most precious enterprise asset and use it freely, wisely and responsibly to maintain consistent and meaningful connections across channels and throughout the lifetime of each relationship.
Same Mistake #2: Personalization Is Still Not Actually Personal As with all relationships, the one between a brand and customer is a personal affair. But when it comes to creating personalized customer experiences, many brands are still not fully committed — and consumers can tell: new research reveals that last year businesses lost $2.5 trillion worldwide due to poor personalization and a lack of trust, with U.S. companies suffering $756 billion in lost retail and brand sales alone as over 40 percent of customers cut ties. With nearly a decade of data technology solutions behind us, this is somewhat surprising. But the reality is that many marketers are still working with legacy systems within organizational silos without a clear personalization mission. While technology and functional concerns may be out of a marketer’s scope, determining ways to honestly and openly collect customer data at each possible touchpoint to create delightful, persuasive and meaningful experiences should be top priority. When done right, personalization not only adds value to customers’ lives, it adds value to the company: according to McKinsey & Company data, personalization can reduce acquisition costs by half, increase revenues as much as 15 percent and improve marketing spend efficiencies by up to 30 percent. A few brands are on the right track. Ralph Lauren and Rebecca Minkoff, for example, installed interactive, touchscreen-based smart mirrors in their stores so customers can personalize what is one of the most intimate (often intimidating) shopping experiences: the fitting room. Now shoppers can adjust lighting, view personal recommendations and request help from in-store associates as needed — all data points for future engagements. Another personal fave is Lowe’s. It’s taken home improvement to a whole new level with its in-store virtual reality tool Holoroom, which lets customers play around with various cabinets, fixtures and paint colors to envision a kitchen or a bathroom, clueing in Lowe’s to personal shopping preferences.
Stop making the same mistakes: Preventing a ‘Groundhog Day’ scenario
Same Mistake #3: Technologies Still Lack the Human Touch Obviously, when it comes to creating personalized brand experiences, technology is going to be key. But before investing heavily in augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence or what have you, marketers must consider what technologies are actually relevant to their customers. Technology is not just a mechanism for communicating with customers; it’s actually changed how consumers behave at each stage in their buying journey. Marketers need to adapt to meet customers on their terms and integrate technologies thoughtfully, with customer experience topofmind. Otherwise, bound by technologyspecific strategies, brands risk losing the human touch and alienating their customers. Research from Accenture reveals that 83 percent of U.S. consumers prefer dealing with human beings instead of digital channels for customer service issues, and 77 percent feel the same when it comes to seeking advice. By no means am I underplaying the importance of technology. I’m merely playing up the importance of remembering the fundamentals of marketing and using our heads, not just machines, to craft genuine and significant brand engagements. Hey, we all make mistakes. And I realize the ones I’ve just called out may seem like insurmountable challenges. But by evolving our marketing mindsets, they can all be overcome. Similar to how Murray’s Groundhog Day character transformed, by paying attention to the behaviors and activities of customers, understanding what they need at the right moment, anticipating what they may desire next and using all of this knowledge to improve how we engage with them, marketers will establish longterm relationships and a new era of opportunities — and that’s every brand’s true Hollywood ending.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Sands Mike Sands is CEO of Signal. Prior to joining the company, he was part of the original Orbitz management team and held the positions of CMO and COO. While at Orbitz, Mike helped take the business from start-up to IPO, then through two acquisitions (Cendant and Blackstone). After Orbitz, Mike joined The Pritzker Group as a partner on their private equity team. Mike also has held management roles at General Motors Corporation and Leo Burnett. His work at General Motors led him to be named a “Marketer of the Next Generation” by Brandweek magazine. Mike holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications from Northwestern University and a Masters in Management degree from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management.
