Another Year, Another Mixed Bag of Results.
First of all, this is not an intervention! Through the ups, the downs, the opportunities, and the challenges, it’s been a wild time for businesses. While some managed to secure budget increases and new technological support in their initiatives, others struggled due to supply chain issues, the cost-of-living crisis, and changes in customer behavior.
Even if your brand sits on the winning or the losing side of the scale, remember this: history often repeats itself. The current challenges or opportunities you’re now facing may be similar to what other brands have already faced and conquered previously.
Instead, this blog post is all about conservation. We’ll address the three main areas your business needs to focus on to help save your team thousands of hours per year, increase your productivity levels, and improve your ROI with marketing effectiveness. So, let’s kick off with the first one!
1. Talent: Do you really need to “shake things up?”
We’ve all thought it: maybe the reason our performance isn’t up to par is because of our team. It’s that classic “We need to shake things up” moment. The Great Resignation is still prevalent in today’s market and as a massive pool of industry experts are ready to move, the idea of bringing in “true” specialists to take your brand’s customer experience to the next level is tempting.
After surveying 203 directors and MarTech decision makers, Forrester found that 57% of them believed the lack of skilled talent was their biggest hurdle, followed by breaking down data silos being a close second with 55%. However, interestingly, when evaluating the least successful customer experience strategy improvements, improved talent was first on that list.
Do you really need to shake things up? Perhaps not.
If expanding your headcount isn’t an option, prioritizing consistent learning within your team is essential. While general training options are important, cross-department collaboration also makes a significant impact. Collaborating with other departments can help your team gain a better understanding of your brand, its positioning, and customer behavior, leading to useful information-sharing.
For example, instead of having departments review and adjust parts of the customer journey independently, think about having the process in a cooperative manner. Teams can understand the challenges and opportunities from other areas of the business, which will help them understand why and how activities are set up and how that can potentially influence their own approach.
But don’t forget what lies behind the tech! Each marketing software your team uses needs to be accompanied by strategic support, and this guidance must be non-negotiable when buying software or hiring agencies for marketing. Because behind these tools are true industry specialists that can help your team through expert advice and tactical insights to help you get the best out of your tools.
Additionally, your team can also understand different approaches to engage with customers and gather valuable insights which can influence your business’ strategy. As marketing continues to evolve with new tools, channels, and complex customer journeys, your team needs to stay updated. Yet with the mounting responsibilities, time is money.
2. Time is of the essence
How much time is your team wasting on tasks that should be more straightforward? For instance:
- Spending hours manually compiling a report from different sources because they’re not automated and the data is stored in multiple locations
- Manually uploading data from one tool to another because they’re not integrated
- Investing a long-time preparing content because the software interface is not very marketer-friendly
Your team needs to focus on customer insights and adapt their marketing strategy accordingly, rather than being victims of ineffective tools that should help them in the first place.
To help determine the true value of our solution, we commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact (TEI) study on Mapp Marketing Cloud. It uncovered a common challenge of marketers struggling with productivity before adopting our platform. So, what difference can a platform like ours make when it comes to time and productivity?
Our intelligence dashboards enable easy-to-access insights to help marketers accelerate decision-making and reduce time spent reviewing data. By identifying optimizations, it helps facilitate a faster iteration of campaigns and simplified creation of customer segments. Streamlining this effort put into these types of tasks could save thousands of hours per year in your team and increase productivity levels by 25%.
In another study conducted by Forrester, brands with advanced insights-driven business capabilities are x8.5 more likely than those still at the beginner stage to report annual revenue growth of 20% or more (24% vs 3%).
By saving time and increasing efficiency in these simple tasks, it helps the team spend time on valuable KPIs, such as analyzing customer behavior and adopting a true insight-led approach. You’ll also be able to become more familiar with complexities and create more advanced customer segments and campaign workflows based on these. This is how your team can save and manage time effectively to drive your business’ real revenue.
3. “Tech” the value of your stack
We’re not here to give you that same old lecture about what software you need. Instead, we’re here to talk about something much more important: the value your tech stack brings to your brand.
Our State of Customer Experience survey found that 30% of marketers are investing in improving their technology this year. The three technologies to invest in are:
By investing in these three fundamental insight-led marketing technologies, businesses equip marketers with the tools to make smarter data-driven decisions. In this economic climate, customers’ priorities and budgets are shifting and businesses look to stay updated with their evolving needs. Customer Insights and Analytics top the investment list at 71%, as businesses look to understand customers’ near-real-time needs and behaviors. This becomes essential as it ensures digital experiences remain relevant and meet their expectations effectively.
Additionally, B2C marketing leaders will prioritize tools like marketing resource management and performance measurement to ensure process, resource utilization, marketing, and media cost efficiency.
It’s important to note that these types of digital investments affect all value chain stages. We have reached a point where traditional ROI methods you’re probably familiar with are extremely limited and biased towards one area: cost savings through automation. Instead, look for other methods, such as Forrester’s Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) framework, which really excels at helping business technology consumers build a financial analysis for their own internal technology decisions.
Conclusion: It’s About Refining the Basics
Planning your marketing priorities can be puzzling, especially with numerous exciting opportunities and potential investments on the horizon. But it’s important to remember that by focusing on the basics of your team, time, and tech, you can operate more smoothly and keep your team performing at its best without unnecessary distractions. If you’re interested in how Mapp Marketing Cloud can support you in these areas, download the Forrester TEI study!
Download your copy of The Forrester Total Economic Impact study on Mapp Marketing Cloud
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