A recent analysis by Microsoft Advertising found that, of more than 200 marketers from companies of varying sizes and industries, 20 percent far outperformed the rest by both understanding what consumers want in an experience and executing that exact experience.
One thing that elite group had in common was a commitment to utilizing data and technology to achieve their goals, as Lynne Kjolso, PhD, vice president of global corporate sales at Microsoft, wrote in a recent article for Advertising Week 360.
Dr. Kjolso described four ways those high performers use analytics, artificial intelligence and other IT solutions to craft a high-quality customer experience:
1. Informing customer-centric marketing with data: The most successful strategies look beyond their own data — which only encompasses 54 percent of the full customer picture, per Dr. Kjolso — to draw insights from third-party data gathered from sources such as market researchers, location data companies and data management platforms.
2. Optimizing marketing performance: Marketers who use data to predict each time a given consumer will interact with their organization and develop corresponding customized experiences reap a 45 percent greater return on investment on ad spend than their peers.
3. Mastering the right technology: Most of the top performing marketers in the Microsoft study were using AI, cloud solutions and machine learning to map out and deliver smarter, more desirable consumer experiences.
4. Protecting privacy and data: Those high performers are 4.5 times more concerned about consumer backlash regarding data protection; half reported having transitioned from collecting data using cookies to getting it directly from consumers, all in an effort to establish more transparent data-gathering processes and protect consumer privacy.
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