Customer First Thinking

Marketing today has grown far too complex for decisions to hinge on loose assumptions and guesswork. A more disciplined and fact-based approach is needed, supported by rigorous performance analysis, testing and forecasting, according to Koen Pauwels, one of the world's leading marketing scientists.    

No one understands what marketing does anymore, least of all the CEO. For marketing to be seen as more of a difference maker, it must expand its role beyond branding, according to Accenture's Brent Chaters, and earn a greater say in the strategic direction of the business.         

Marketers have long sought to discover the motivations that explain why people make the decisions and buying choices they do. The answer, according to Valuegraphics founder   David Allison, is their values. To make more meaningful connections with customers, marketers must first understand how they differ in their values.      

The best way for brands to stand out today is to offer a distinctive experience that earns them an everyday role in people's lives. But that means knowing where the brand can make the greatest difference in the lives of customers, according to brand expert Allen Adamson.    

If businesses hope to survive the potentially lethal disruption ahead due to massive technological change, they need to accelerate their digital transformation. The first decision they must make, according to digital transformation expert Howard Tiersky, is to embrace the need for continuous transformative change.

 The top priority of CMOs is to grow top-line revenue. But the best way to achieve that growth is a matter of debate. Do you go after as many buyers as possible, or focus on winning the loyalty of existing customers? Wharton Professor Peter Fader says the answer lies in examining the behavioural patterns of current customers.     

Marketers have an opportunity to play a lead role in helping their organizations adapt to the massive wave of change expected in the years ahead. But first marketers will have to "future-proof" themselves, according to Alison Simpson, the new leader of the Canadian Marketing Association.

The mainstream banks are facing massive disruption due to the rise of fintechs, forcing them to speed up digital transformation. Leading those efforts at BMO Financial Group is Greg Brown, whose mandate is to change how the bank does business.  

Brand positioning has been part of marketing orthodoxy for over half a century now. Yet marketers often fail to get it right, due mainly to formulaic thinking. To come up with truly novel positioning statements, according to global branding expert Ulli Appelbaum, marketers must treat it as more of a creative exercise, coming up with as many potential ideas as possible.

To turn customers into lifelong fans, brands will need to put community development at the heart of their marketing plans. It is the "last great marketing strategy", according to the acclaimed marketing consultant Mark Schaefer. People "long to belong", he says, and that presents an opportunity to connect with them on a more meaningful level.

In a bid to earn front-of-the-wallet status, the Scene loyalty program has been transformed into a full-fledged coalition program with the addition of new partners in the grocery, e-commerce and travel sectors. But its greatest strength, claims Scene's Senior Vice President Matthew Seagrim, is its strategic emphasis on creating membership value.

Many corporate leaders now accept the need to define a brand purpose beyond making a profit. Yet most purpose statements fail to resonate with people. The only way to excite all stakeholders, argues Scott Goodson, is to activate it through a grassroots social movement. 

Marketers have relied on lifestyle segmentation for half a century now, targeting people based on their shared values, interests, and attitudes. And it remains a highly effective tool even in a digital age due to the increasing segregation of society into like-minded communities, according to Jan Kestle, head of Canada's largest marketing analytics company.

Despite all of the effort being made by businesses to improve the customer experience, it is not paying off in higher satisfaction ratings. A large gap still exists between what customers expect of that experience and how they actually feel about it. What businesses need to do, advises CX pioneer Colin Shaw, is design a more memorable experience, focusing on those parts of the customer journey tha...

Every transformative era in the evolution of marketing has been triggered by a dramatic shift in people's media habits. Now marketing has entered a new phase of evolution, according to Professor V. Kumar, only this time the catalyst for change is the desire of customers for more meaningful engagement.

Finance and marketing have always been implacable foes, unable to agree on the performance metrics that matter. Before they can ever see eye to eye, suggest MASB's Neil Bendle, they need to develop a standardized measurement model that validates the contribution of marketing to the financial health of the business.

Despite its lowly status e-mail marketing continues to thrive as a media channel. The reason for its enduring popularity amongst marketers, according to leading e-mail expert Chad White: its versatility as a one-to-one communication medium. 

The Net Promoter Score has become the primary method of calculating customer loyalty, adopted by companies everywhere as a beacon metric. Earning a top NPS score often requires a big shift in management culture, according to its creator Fred Reichheld, driven by a top-down commitment to enrich people's lives.

In a post-cookie world marketing will need to give up campaign-building in favour of delivering a more dynamic and real-time omnichannel customer experience. But the quality of that experience will hinge on harnessing first-party data to drive more personalized interactions. And that will require a single view of customer tightly connected to a next generation engagement platform, according to Sal...

Tired of waiting for IT to build them a "single view of customer", marketers are turning to commercial solutions called Customer Data Management Platforms. That trend is likely to continue in coming years, according to the world's leading CDP expert David Raab, as more companies recognize the value of first party data.

Battered by the pandemic, and facing even more disruption ahead, the retail industry is in crisis. With even more stores expected to close in the coming years due to declining foot traffic and the flight to ecommerce, retailers will need to offer shoppers a more distinctive experience if they hope to survive. A new retail model is needed, argues retail futurist Doug Stephens, which will pull shopp...

Marketing technology is now essential to business success. Yet marketers continue to struggle with the complexity of their bloated marketing automation solutions, citing lack of application integration amongst their toughest challenges. The answer, according to Hubspot's marketing technology expert Scott Brinker, is to develop more open and compatible platform ecosystems that make it easy for mark...

The discipline of brand building has atrophied over the past two decades, as corporate chieftains focused mainly on short-term growth objectives. But for companies to succeed in a post-pandemic world, the brand must become the face of business strategy, argues branding expert David Kincaid, with the CEO leading the way.

The pandemic has been costly for traditional retailers who were slow to adapt to omnichannel commerce. In Canada, Canadian Tire avoided that fate, launching its Triangle Rewards program three years ago to deepen its relationship with customers. Under the stewardship of Senior VP Shawn Stewart, the 10-million member program has become instrumental in the retailer's shift to a digital-first model.

Under pressure to act fast during the pandemic, businesses sped up their digital transformation plans, compressing their timetables from years into months. Now they face the next phase of evolution, what digital prophet Brian Solis calls the "novel economy". For businesses to adapt and thrive, says Solis, they must take a more profound and humanistic approach to transformation.