To meet customer expectations, IT needs to be included in the marketing department’s plans and aid in delivering the customer experience at every touchpoint along the customer journey. However, while there is much hype around the benefits of technology and marketing working together, there continues to be a great divide between these departments. And yet when marketing and technology come together to achieve a common goal, they can achieve great things and drive business success, states Paula Sartini, founder and CEO of BrandQuantum.

Business confidence across the country declined throughout 2019 on the back of the tough economic climate which is expected to continue in 2020. The need to win customers and gain their trust against increasing competition is a key challenge for most companies. As such, customer experience is growing in importance as a key differentiator for companies to attract and retain customers, particularly within a tough economy.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MELDS MARKETING AND TECHNOLOGY

Customer experience has previously been the marketing department’s responsibility, however, new technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence can transform the delivery of customer experience. This creates the opportunity for the IT department and marketing department to work together to achieve a unified goal of delivering customer experiences that meet and exceed tech-savvy customer’s expectations.

Both departments offer a diverse range of strengths to organisations. Marketing departments bring a creative and customer focused approach, whilst IT provide both a technical and problem-solving perspective. At the same time, marketing is often seen to want to adopt the latest technologies while IT is focused on governance, security and enterprise architecture. Both of these are critical to the success of a company. As customers are starting to hold companies accountable for keeping their data secure, the role of IT and marketing need to align to meet customer expectations in terms of customer experience as well as in keeping their personal information secure from potential data breaches.

SURVIVING A RECESSION WITH THE HELP OF TECHNOLOGY

The role of technology continues to grow in importance across organisations of all sizes. However, while companies recognise the benefits that technology can bring to various departments, the organisation and the customer experience, in many instances, adoption of these technologies has been slow.

Yet, technology is a critical component to helping companies overcome several business challenges, including helping companies to overcome the impact of a recession. According to research findings published in Harvard Business Review, recessions can create performance gaps between companies, but investing in digital technology before a recession provides analytics and agile business practices to help companies better understand the threat they face and respond more quickly to market changes. Based on the findings, companies that invested in technology outperformed those that did not during a recession.

There are several factors attributed to the role technology plays in helping companies overcome the impact of a recession. Firstly, technology provides access to data that gives companies the ability to make decisions to meet their customer’s needs. The technology solutions also provide companies with the flexibility they need to adapt to the environment and respond to their customers with tailored solutions. Technology also aids in cost-cutting, which helps the company to save money when it matters the most.

Many of these benefits can spill over into marketing departments, for example, giving marketers access to the right data enables them to make decisions to meet their customer’s needs. They would also benefit from the flexibility that technology allows in adapting to the environment, helping them to develop or change campaigns according to the market.

However, in many instances, marketers have collected customer data for several years, but have not had access to the tools needed to extract and interpret this data. This is where marketing and IT should be working together more closely to improve marketing insights and close the loop on the customer experience.

DELIVERING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

The customer experience is a key focus for the marketing department. However, marketers are unable to deliver customer experiences in isolation. With tech-savvy customers, marketing departments are becoming more reliant on IT departments to develop technology solutions for customers to interact with the company at a time and on a platform that is convenient to them. This experience needs to align with the overall brand experience and requires insights from the marketing department to achieve this.

More broadly, marketers require the support of the entire organisation to meet customer expectations at every touchpoint across the customer journey. This means that the marketing department needs to implement technology solutions that help employees to deliver experiences aligned to the brand in every customer engagement.

According to a report from Forrester, businesses often deploy technologies that aren’t aligned to their business strategies and do not understand how these technologies affect customer journeys. Ultimately, the consumer experience strategy should be central to technology purchasing decisions. The marketing department needs to implement solutions that will help employees across the organisation to deliver consistent brand experiences in every customer interaction.

This will remove pressure on the marketing department to play the role of brand police, give marketers peace of mind that the correct information is being sent to customers and empower employees to meet customer expectations in every interaction. However, marketers also stand to benefit from implementing automation technologies to streamline their functions and help improve efficiencies.

AUTOMATING MARKETING FUNCTIONS

Marketers have a strategic role to play within organisations but are often chasing the next deadline or working on name tags and invitations for an upcoming event. These repetitive tasks can keep marketing departments bogged down in the finer detail and detract them focusing on the broader strategy of the department and the organisation.

In some instances, marketing departments have started implementing automation software that enables them to automate time-consuming repetitive tasks. By implementing these software marketing departments, which are usually made up of a small team of marketers, are freed up to focus on strategic elements of the business while delivering on the brand and marketing elements beautifully without investing a significant amount of time and effort on the delivery. 

Marketers are already starting to recognise the value that automation software can bring to their department with the Digital Marketing Institute finding that 44% of marketing leaders believe that automation software will become more important in 2020.

While some strides have been made in terms of bridging the divide between the marketing and technology teams to meet customer’s expectations and deliver consistent customer experiences, in most cases locally marketing and IT continue to work in silos. However, globally technology and marketing departments are working together more closely and reaping the benefits of this relationship that has a direct impact of improving customer experiences and increasing company profits, helping them to adapt to a customer-centric environment and weather the storms of the tough economic climate.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can bring great benefits to businesses across various industries. Already companies such as Google and Microsoft have invested significantly in this technology and are benefiting from it.

Companies that don’t have AI solutions in place yet don’t need to rush off too quickly to implement it in an effort to catch up, but they should start planning for AI as to not fall too far behind the curve.

Marketing departments in particular stand to gain vast benefit from using AI, most notably in their ability to deliver consistent experiences and exceed customer expectations. However many marketers are cautious in adopting new technologies, and as AI can be a massive task to implement, marketers stand to benefit from easing into the process of AI adoption by following the steps below.

START WITH AUTOMATION

Automation software enables marketers to automate repetitive tasks such as applying the correct branding to company documents. Whilst these are important tasks, they can impact on productivity and detract employees from focusing on more pressing matters within the business. This is supported by research conducted by McKinsey[1] which found that 45% of work activities can be automated by implementing technology solutions. With automation, companies will benefit from cost savings, improved productivity and improved reliability.

Before implementing brand automation, marketers need to conduct a brand audit to determine how the brand compares to its competition, what the brand strengths are, how customers interact with the brand and where the key customer touchpoints are. It is important to look broadly beyond a specific department and include the “messy and complex” things too as this is often the stuff that no-one wants to do but that will provide the most valuable insights. For example, marketers may suggest that email signatures are the responsibility of the IT department, however, customers don’t discriminate between the internal departments within a company, they expect their needs to be met and view the organisation as a whole regardless of who they engage with. As such every element of the brand should be audited.

Once you have conducted a brand audit, the next step is to determine which functions can be automated. These are the functions that require a time investment from staff but deliver minimal return on the investment. For example, complex customer requests should be handled by employees but if a customer is calling for a statement, this process could be automated to free up employees to handle the more challenging customer issues. The most important thing to remember when automating tasks is that customers are often looking for human interaction, particularly when dealing with sensitive or complex issues. 

In the case of the customer experience, companies need to get the balance right between what can be automated and what should be handled by employees. Ultimately the best approach is to remove human intervention from the repetitive and menial tasks in order to free them up to handle the more important and complex functions that make the real difference to customers and ultimately build the brand. Once these function have been identified the next step is to identify patterns within customer engagement by analysing the data.

MOVING BEYOND AUTOMATION

For many years marketers have been collecting customer data but haven’t been able to use it effectively until now. With a mountain of data, combined with established parameters, technology is able to move beyond mere automation to bring marketers intelligent and intuitive offerings. For example, in the case of email, employees could select pre-developed content to drop into emails they send to customers.

Initially this would require these employees to make decisions in terms of which content to select, however, over time the technology would become intelligent and intuitive and combining the data with usage patterns, it would simplify the process even further for users by automatically inserting the correct content for the recipient.

However, marketers should also pay attention to unstructured data as this is where the real magic lies. By identifying patterns in unstructured data, you’ll be able to find opportunities to innovate and identify real behaviours rather than rely on what people say they are doing. With greater insight into who your customers are, and a clearer understanding of their needs, it is easier for employees to engage with them using relevant, personalised information, sent at the right time and improving the overall customer experience.

INTRODUCING AI TOOLS

Once marketers have become comfortable using these technologies, the next step would be to assess their business needs to determine which AI applications are the best suited to meet their specific needs. There are several AI solutions available and marketers should be cautious not to implement AI for AI’s sake but rather determine which solutions are best suited to help them achieve their business objectives.

It is also important that you consider the legacy systems within the organisation as this can often be a stumbling block to implementing new technologies. Marketers need to clearly articulate their requirements and collaborate with the IT department to implement solutions that meet the business needs.

The most imminent AI solutions available for marketers include anticipating future customer purchases and presenting offers accordingly, improving media buying, monitoring social media comments to determine brand affinity and tailoring promotions. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what AI can bring to the marketing table. With the correct data combined with the right AI solutions, marketers are able to gain greater insight into customer sentiment and behaviour to more proactively plan and target campaigns that deliver the best results and enhance the customer experience across every customer touchpoint.

GET STARTED NOW

There is no doubt that AI brings about some uncertainty with the promise of great things for marketers and business. While still in its infancy, this is the time for marketers to slowly start implementing technologies that lay the foundation for AI at a later stage. Marketers should start getting familiar with automation technology and determine exactly what they expect from AI technology before making the leap and introducing AI solutions into the organisation.

While it can be tempting to jump in head first, by adopting a slow and steady approach to AI implementation, they will be setting themselves up for success in the long-term. But the time to start is now.

Marketing needs to evolve into a fully integrated role – it should own the customer experience, embrace technology to meet customers’ digital requirements and have a seat at the boardroom table to drive and influence product development based on marketing insights.  This was the key take-out from a BrandQuantum marketing round table held earlier this year to debate the role of marketing in today’s digital business environment. 

Other issues discussed at the round table include the fact while digital isn’t new, several marketers are still grappling with it, and in many instances, it remains a separate function from the marketing department. Marketers agree that they lack the knowledge and skills to use digital tools and technologies to their advantage and need to upskill quickly if they are to own the customer experience.

Customer experience, which is critical in giving businesses the competitive advantage, is a complex phenomenon that is greatly influenced by every customer engagement at every touch point. With so many touch points throughout an organisation, consistent brand experiences that are not diluted are crucial.

Companies must adapt to the new business landscape, which is driven by customers’ requirements and regulatory changes. Organisations have restructured accordingly, and marketers believe that an integrated marketing approach has to be adopted to respond to customer needs quickly and deliver a consistent customer experience.

A key challenge for marketers in larger organisations is legacy issues – traditional processes and systems that prevent change, as well as time frames that do not allow for long-term strategic planning.

Smaller organisations may have the advantage of having teams in place to meet customer expectations and keep up with the latest trends, but they don’t have the brand strength to help them overcome potential hurdles they may encounter in building the brand reputation.

Macro-trends such as the Protection of Personal Information Act, privacy issues and data protection present new challenges to marketers, who need tools to help them to be nimble and compete against local and global organisations.

THE BIG TAKE-OUT

In a changing business landscape, both the marketing department and the chief marketing officer need to redefine their roles and gain a deeper understanding of the technologies available to them to build strong brands, with consistent messaging across platforms.

Adding to this, marketing departments are under pressure to demonstrate their value to the organisation. Today’s marketers are being asked to marry marketing with sales functions and put measurement metrics in place to determine their combined output and the contribution to the company’s profits. In some instances, the role of marketing heads are shifting to that of chief growth officer and they are held accountable for the company’s sales success. With the right tools in place, marketers will be able to pull metrics that analyse their activity and show the success of various initiatives based on these metrics.

Brand remains a critical component of the success of the organisation, and while marketing is under pressure to deliver immediate results, its real value will be seen only in three to five years on the brand scorecard. Marketing’s success should be measured by customer experience over time and not just by the company’s profits.

In organisations where marketing has a seat at the boardroom table, marketing insights drive and influence product development and determine how the company moves into the market, effectively positioning the company against its competitors. A brand’s values remain critical to driving a company’s success. For this reason, marketers believe the greater the brand trust and love the greater the impact on the income statement.

Equally important is having employees buy into the brand and the company culture. Often larger, established organisations have an advantage over newer or smaller organisations, as the culture is already entrenched, and potential employees buy into it when applying for a position to work there. But it is important for both large and small organisations to take their employees along on the journey of building the brand and providing them with the right tools to deliver according to the company brand in all customer interactions. After all, if a company doesn’t pay attention to the smaller details, how can their customers trust them to get the more complicated things right?

Paula Sartini is the founder and CEO of BrandQuantum.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) brings a lot of promise for organisations. Marketing departments, in particular, stand to gain significantly from using AI, most notably in easing delivery of consistent brand experiences and exceeding customer expectations.

However, it can be daunting implementing AI so here are a few steps to help you ease into AI adoption:

1. Brand audit: Conduct a brand audit to determine how your brand compares to your competitors, what your brand strengths are, how customers interact with your brand and where the touchpoints are. Take a holistic view as if you were a customer, as customers do not look at each department individually but rather view it as an entire brand. It is important to focus on every element of the brand, even those that may not traditionally be thought to be the responsibility of the marketing department such as the content included in letters from the credit department, the call centre script or email signatures.
2. Segment critical from none critical functions: Once you’ve completed the audit, you need to determine which functions can be automated. Typically the functions that take a lot of time to do but deliver the least amount of value should be automated, for example, typesetting of business cards, requests for artwork or logos and the typesetting of forms could all be easily automated. According to McKinsey, 45 percent of work activities can be automated by implementing technology solutions.
3. Automation software: Find a technology solution that automates the specific functions that you need to automate. While there is often some uncertainty to the functions that can be automated, generally it the time-consuming tasks that don’t add strategic value, such as creating a PowerPoint slide deck or typesetting employee certificates. By implementing automation software the company will save costs, improve productivity and reliability and deliver a return on your investment.
4. Use your data: For years marketers have collected customer data, now is the time to use it. By combining data with technology solutions, intelligent and intuitive technology solutions can be introduced to combine customer insights with personalised, relevant information that is sent at the right time to impact customer behaviour. It is also valuable to look at unstructured data as patterns can emerge in unexpected places and give real insight into behaviours than the structured data could provide on its own.

   To gather relevant information, rather than waiting for monthly reports, patterns should be identified from the data throughout the month. This provides interesting insights that can be used dynamically and put you ahead of the competition. It is also key that the information is sent to the right person so that they are able to use the information, for example, if recipients open up banner adverts, the sender should be alerted to this and use this information to touch base with the interested recipient.

5. Assess the business needs: With the fundamental technology solutions in place, easing delivery and utilising data effectively, you can now determine your businesses specific AI needs. There are several solutions available but not every solution may be the right one for you, so unpack your specific needs and then determine what the best solution would be to meet them. It is important that you consider the legacy systems and collaborate with the technology teams when looking at technology solutions for your business.
6. Implement your AI solution: With your strategy in place and your planning well underway, it is now time to implement your AI solution. It could be anything from anticipating future customer purchases, presenting offers to customers timeously, improving media buying and monitoring social media comments to determine brand affinity. There is a list of options available to meet your needs. Again you should work closely with the technology teams within your company to determine which solutions are the best to meet your particular business needs.

There is no doubt that AI brings about some uncertainty with the promise of great things for marketers and business. While still in its infancy, this is the time for marketers to slowly start implementing technologies that lay the foundation for AI at a later stage. Marketers should start getting familiar with automation technology and determine exactly what they expect from AI technology before making the leap and introducing AI solutions in the organisation.

While it can be tempting to jump in head first, by adopting a slow and steady approach to AI implementation, they will be setting themselves up for success in the long-term. But it is important to start implementing the technology now.

BrandQuantum has developed software solutions that can help companies to deliver consistent brand experiences across all communications. BrandOffice empowers every employee across an organisation to automatically create consistently branded documents across Word, PowerPoint and Excel. BrandMail is an email solution that helps companies to deliver consistent emails with beautifully designed, tamperproof email signatures that are sent out with every single email, both to internal and external recipients.

With BrandQuantum's BrandOffice all content across email, Word, PowerPoint and Excel can be predeveloped and approved to enable quick and easy access while ensuring brand consistency in all customer engagements. For more information about BrandQuantum and our brand consistency software solutions, please visit our website brandquantum.com.