MAIN INSIGHT 09
Christina Walls
CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER
How can companies incorporate the human element into the current digital experience they’re offering their customers?
There are multiple ways of incorporating the human element into the digital experience. One would be process versus experience – technology can be a fantastic enabler of automating processes, which then alleviates people to deliver experiences. The key here is to identify at what stage the customer is looking for the personal interaction and at what stage they’re looking for the automated process.
There are also numerous in which that digital experience can be delivered. If people want to get a personalised experience, it doesn't necessarily need to be human interaction – it can be a personalization of emails, for example. A lot of it comes down to identifying the need you're looking to fulfil and if that can be automated or if it requires human-to-human contact.
In your opinion, what are some points of competitive differentiation in your market?
I believe competitive differentiation is dependent on the target audience. We’re starting to see massive trends, where the adoption of digitization across multiple experiences is becoming much more prevalent, but at the same time, there is still a place for direct mailing. To that end, having a premium paper that delivers a tactile experience and represents the brand can really cut through competitors in a luxury market. Therefore, it’s all about clever marketing and basing everything on your brand, proposition to market and consumer segmentation. There's no ‘one size fits all’ approach anymore.
It’s all about clever marketing and basing everything on your brand, proposition to market and consumer segmentation. There's no ‘one size fits all’ approach anymore.
I believe this depends on your audience segmentation. Right now, we’re seeing younger audiences starting to shift their focus from what a product is to what the business stands for and what their values are.
In a digital buyer journey, what are some key metrics to track and what is the best way to track them?
I believe this depends on your audience segmentation. Right now, we’re seeing younger audiences starting to shift their focus from what a product is to what the business stands for and what their values are. This is all coming from a need and willingness to treat people differently and to have a greater global impact. So, how do you track that?
Traditional marketing metrics from a MQL or SQL perspective are not going to work very well here, which is why we use them only as guides and not something that’s definitive. Now, we look at the bigger picture – building brand awareness, brand personality and trust.
It’s still the ‘quantitative and qualitative’ mindset–taking into consideration KPIs and stats in order to validate the work we're doing–but also putting a qualitative lens from a behavioural aspect. The quantitative will get you to a place where you've got a hypothesis; and the qualitative will give you the why and the validation if that's right or wrong. You can't use one without the other anymore.
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