Marketing Suites – The Holy Grail for the Marketer? – Part II

Ein Artikel von Erik Obermeier, ehemaliger Mitarbeiter DYMATRIX

Welcome to Part II of my series of posts on Marketing Suites and whether they are the one and only solution for the marketer’s requirement to successfully propel business.

The communication channel and the content applied to your relevant 121 message (time, content, value, location fits the need of the costumer) needs to be determined by the data you collected and analyzed prior to the definition of the content and channel. Conversely, if you send all your messages via one specific channel and with the very same content, you send non-relevant communication to the majority of your audience. You “spray and pray”.

The good news is that all businesses have the data available to deliver relevant communication and lift conversion rates by stunning numbers!

The Email Service Provider or the SMS (Text) Service Provider or the letter shops or Mobile App Push SaaS vendors are explaining to you in detail that their channels are the most relevant channel. And without doubt, they certainly quote the most valuable research. Though, your customer does not care about the channel. Your customer loves to receive your message in the mail, on his Android, Apple, Windows, etc. smartphone, in his email inbox by whatever means if it is the channel she/he applies in this very moment of interest in your SKU (product or service). I.e. you should be in the position to display your message to your customer anytime on every medium: web, email, OTT (TV), Apps, letter, POS (Point of Sale), Text, etc.

Without the “what is relevant to your customer”, your communication or more precisely: your marketing effort becomes a “spray and pray” exercise. Your data and a cross-channel automation engine will deliver the answer to you and your customer. In this context, your email service provider will hardly deliver with the sophistication and maturity required to leverage your data to send relevant messages and beat your competitor.

Let us look at quite simple example where you will recognize how evident it is that each business should apply these basic steps. You want to enhance your customer’s engagement by providing additional relevant products or services plus generating an awesome customer experience. You have a set of offers and existing customers (and prospects). You must determine the Next Best Offer (NBO) spiced up with business rules like “achieve higher gross margin”, “achieve more revenue”, etc.

You implement the following:

In Detail:

These simple blocks will mean you (or your consultants) provide your data in customer profile tables and event tables (updated daily, weekly, monthly). A model is defined in SAS, KNIME, R or equivalent.

The utilization of the model is automated via a tool like DynaMine, where the quality of the model is automatically kept above your required threshold.

You apply your business rules in the campaign management tool, define your templates for text, email, push, OTT, POS (!), etc. The scores determined in KNIME and DynaMine are leveraged in the campaign management tool and automatically the most relevant product and channel for each specific customer are selected and sent at the right moment in time. You add geo location to the recipe and you speak with your customer when she/he’s awaiting your offer. The example above is from a project for a telecommunication provider in Europe and Asia. It is a real life show case with outstanding results in comparison to the spray and pray approach.

The key to success is not the channel you apply. It is the thorough and automated analysis of the data, based on sophisticated models, based on appropriate data preparation. There is no “one fit all” marketing suite solution to get the answer you require to be successful in terms of becoming a customer company in the context of the example above.

Though, this solution is quickly implemented and the model growth with your business. In the example it was a 4 weeks exercise. You will eventually have to invest in such a solution, though it is recouped in months and you turn insights into Action.