Are you ‘Always On’ and marketing in real-time?
A new Adobe sponsored Razorfish study, The State of Always-On Marketing surveyed 685 ‘C-suite executives’ to reveal that 76% of marketers do not make use of segmented or behavioural data in their marketing.
“Razorfish defines Always-On Marketing as data-driven, content-led experiences, delivered across channels and devices in real time."
Some other key insight from the research
- Less than 5% believe that they are managing experiences for an “always-on” consumer
- Only 38% believed they are capable of targeting prospects versus returning customers
- Just 13% feel that their companies are pushing segmented experiences and measuring the results
"“Regardless of channel type, there is a huge difference between spending money on speaking to someone who is never going to buy your product or service versus investing in speaking to someone who is likely to convert or influence other converters”. Pete Stein, CEO of Razorfish, New York
Sounds high? Probably, but is it really surprising. After all, so many organisations wrestle with old technologies, struggle to integrate digital around the consumer and we already know strategic planning is weak, so for most cash strapped teams this is advanced stuff, even if it is ‘obvious’ to the experts.
Real-time is reality
- Just take a look at the numbers referenced in the report:
- - In 2013, the average time spent with digital media per day surpassed TV viewing time, for the first time, in the U.S.
- - More than 75 percent of people in most developed markets, and even more in emerging markets, use social tools
- - In Western Europe, smartphone penetration is expected to jump to 67 percent by 2016. More than half of U.S. mobile subscribers owned smartphones in 2013.
The Razorfish PACE framework
Creating a real-time marketing blueprint
You’d have to say so. These numbers don’t speak well for the state of either mobile or real-time marketing, so how do you get started?
It’s some strategic planning that’s likely holding marketers back. Here are 5 practical considerations:
- Change - Marketers need to start by embracing the reality that consumers are demanding information in real time and make changes. Mobile and social are changing everything. This is not about iterating what you’ve got. Review your data: How do the significant segments behave across your platform (owned media)?
- Segment - the research suggests this is the most basic failure, and direct marketing taught us long ago that all customers are not the same, the difference today is we have all the information to do something about it. Review your data. What channels are segments using, for what purpose?
- Beliefs - What does your audience believe they’re looking for, what information are they seeking from you. It’s likely that they’re working overly hard to get it from you right now. It’s important to think up the sales funnel since the majority of your segments will be early in the sales funnel.
- Serve - How will you position your brand through an effective content marketing strategy to provide a uniform experience, one that can serve the needs and beliefs of different segments whilst being consistent in what you want to communicate?
- Technology & data - Underpinning the solution is a number of technologies and an analytics dashboard that manages and informs the implementation, and improvement. This is actually the easier, and expensive, bit though does need expert opinion.
How are you preparing for an always-on world?