Thursday, April 28, 2016

Thoughts, Ideas, Quotes, and Insights from MME16

We have come to the end of another successful Modern Marketing Experience. Brands, CMOs, Modern Marketers, and vendors gathered for three days in Las Vegas. Below are some of the things we heard, learned, and thought about.



It Really is All about Customer Experience

Sometimes it is easy to cynical about Las Vegas, especially if you are not into the whole party all night thing, but there is something they do very well. Customer Experience. Every major hotel has one simple goal. Let's provide everything you need on your vacation so that you never have to leave the property. Fine dining, shopping, extravagant shows, lounging by the pool, late night partying, and games of chance.



There is a simple lesson here for any business. Think about serving your customers in a new way. Imagine that you could provide everything they need, so they didn't need to go anywhere else and work with any other company. It may not be entirely realistic, but how does it work scaled down to your industry or product category? Can your offerings be so complete in their needs to serve your customers that it generates a level of loyalty that you just haven't seen before? Remember, in Vegas, the house always wins. They must be doing something right. - Jeffrey L. Cohen, Director, Content Strategy, Oracle Marketing Cloud






"We wondered, could we fundamentally re-imagine how we do this? We knew we needed to change the way we talk to consumers. And in walked technology." – Eric Reynolds, CMO, Clorox 




"If we don't disrupt ourselves, we're going to be disrupted." - Nick Cerise, CMO, Western Union




"Personalization at scale is the biggest challenge at Sears." - Ryan Deutsch, DVP, Digital Marketing, Sears



Digital Transformation and the Modern Company

I'm in Vegas this week, as a guest of our friends at Oracle, for their Modern Marketing Experience event focused on the Oracle Marketing Cloud. The event is all about digital transformation and how companies of all kinds – B2B and B2C – are making the leap to digital transformation and a focus on customer experience. Read more - Shelly Kramer, Co-founder, V3*Broadsuite



Lessons for CMOs

There were two panels specifically for CMOs: The Age of Brand, Agency, & Customer Collaboration: How to Make It Work and The CMO Solution Guide for Building a Modern Marketing Organization. In the former we learned that the roles of key players in the brand/agency relationship have shifted greatly over the past 2 years, while data and how to disseminate it was identified as a key component in making the relationship work successfully. In the latter the panel spoke to the need to strike a balance between having the right people within a given organization with the right technologies. Two words at the heart of each of these discussions were people and technology.



Despite the rapid (and ongoing) proliferation of new technologies and the functionalities they deliver  - organizations must never lose sight of the fact that it is people, their employees and customers, who ultimately make the difference. - Steve Olenski, Senior Content Strategist, Oracle Marketing Cloud





"People have a responsibility with what they post on social media." - Zach King








Basking in the Glow

Modern Marketers spend so much time heads down in their jobs and they don't often step back to acknowledge the great work they are doing. And the Markie finalists are doing some great work. It really is an honor to be a finalist with these other companies, but to win a Markie is something special. It's great for our work to be recognized by the Oracle Marketing Cloud. - Nikki Candito, Marketing Manager, Eaton










"This is the beginning of the end of advertising as we know it." - James Cooper, Editorial Director, Adweek


"Now the right message to the right person at the right time also has to come in the right place and in the right context." - Rebecca Lieb, strategic advisor, research analyst, keynote speaker, author, and columnist







"Focus less on what product you should be selling, and focus more on what customer need you're fulfilling." - Andy Kennemer, VP, Omnichannel Marketing, Abercrombie & Fitch



People Want to be Involved

They want to feel like they are part of something. Let them in. Include them. From conferences like this one, to written content, to video, involve your customers, fans, followers. Don't focus on product. Focus on creating experiences that people will remember. - Lauren Harper, Sr. Manager, Global Social Marketing, Oracle Marketing Cloud






Put Content Where the Business Is

Competition for buyer time and attention couldn't be higher and as more companies jump on the content and social media bandwagon, companies are hard pressed to stand out.


 


We feel this at our agency as our blog attracts 2,000% more traffic than our company website. Yet, the website is far more effective at attracting attributable business inquiries. We know clients are educating themselves through our blog content but not taking the next steps to make inquiries there.


 


Creating a "best answer" destination that serves the interests of the entire customer lifecycle has become a major initiative. Combining our stand alone blog with the company website into an agency digital magazine will provide an engaging content experience that is integrated with agency services, case studies and end of funnel content. At the same time, this content hub will be optimized, socialized, publicized off site and influencer activated. - Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Marketing


 


"I am not who I say I am. I am who YOU say I am." - Tyra Banks






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