18 Sep The Impact of Predictive Marketing Automation
Marketers across all industries gathered last week for a sold-out Panel & Power Hour at the Hilton Garden Inn. The topic uniting us? How we, as marketers and business strategists, are adapting to the new age of customer experience. Guest mingled and enjoyed a complimentary beverage from Village Brewery as they discussed the challenges of mastering the customer journey. Some marketers are adopting machine learning technology to understand, anticipate and act on the needs of their prospects.
One of our several expert panellists, Sean Leonard, CEO of ActiveDEMAND has harnessed this idea of software fueled by machine learning in order to predict what is most effective for each prospect and customer. By using machine learning capabilities, businesses can tailor content and the customer journey through predictive marketing automation. Our panel brought insights from different industries, technologies, and approaches. We were able to chat further with ActiveDEMAND to hear their story of what led them to the creating of an in-house, integrated technology stack to service digital marketers and small business owners.
The Value Dilemma
It’s a buyer’s world, and customers are in control of the journey. Marketers are challenged to keep up with the buyer expectations of one-to-one marketing, dynamic personalization, and predictive personalization while balancing value to the customer and value to their own organization. Leonard feels that many agency models are challenged with, “over delivering and undercharging, further, that we [are] great at delivering value, horrible at demonstrating value delivered. The only time [our clients] ever see our brand, is at the end of the month with their bill.” To surmount this challenge, ActiveDEMAND built a toolset that allowed them to follow and nurture their prospects through the entire customer experience within their own branded technology. Leonard says they made the decision to bring everything in-house with the intent to do two things, “firstly, surrounding the prospects in an immersive experience allows us to guide them through the customer journey from the first encounter with the website, to becoming brand loyalists. Secondly, to create a tool that was scalable by building an account vertical template to onboard new clients quickly and still deliver extreme value.” ActiveDEMAND saw an opportunity to pivot to a B2B model, “we realized there were many agencies struggling, implementing technologies and tools for their clients that they couldn’t always afford.” Leonard says their business model was built to create a “pricing model and technology platform focused on those who market for many, to enable journey acceleration through the use of content automation”. What that means is that an automated system of dynamic content helps guide their customers through the sales journey, “all of our 2000 website pages are completely dynamic and personalized; the pages adapt to the buyer profile in real time…. we detect where our customer has a particular interest, and then the content adapts to that customer for a personalized experience. “
Personalization in the digital world
Customers are too discerning for generic e-mail blasts, off-target communications, and inauthentic appeals. If you want to speak to your customers and not at them, you need one-on-one, personalised interactions and services tailored to their needs. Leonard agrees that personalization is important but that, “many businesses are challenged in that they are marketing and serving several buyer profiles, at very different stages of the buyer journey, with one website”. Leonard feels this, “limits your approach to two options; go deep on a specific buyer profile, tailoring to that buyer but potentially alienating others, or go generic and try to be everything for everyone.” ActiveDEMAND has created a third option, which Leonard describes as the adaptive journey, “if you come in and we don’t know who you are, you get a generic experience, but, if you have been here before, your experience is customized to your needs and interests.” The idea is not to push them forcefully through the funnel but adapt the journey to help the prospect find a solution for their unique problem. For some, this may feel eerily Big Brother, but Leonard feels if you put the customer at the core of the strategy and you are truly helpful and provide real value, you will delight buyers through the journey. Leonard gives the relatable Google example, “I don’t mind when I get into my car and Google (having read my calendar) tells me it will take me 35 minutes to get to the airport in light traffic and I will be on time for my flight.” With the power to aggregate data and personalize the customer experience, comes the responsibility to be authentically helpful. Leonard feels that, “if [predictive marketing automation] is done right, the customer doesn’t see it happening.” Amazon’s product recommendations are an example of how they are using machine learning on their e-commerce site through up-selling and cross-selling tactics. If the recommended products are relevant and helpful to you, we don’t see it as an intrusion, despite the fact that the predictions have been made based on our buyer behaviour.
The future of customer experience
Customer preferences are rapidly changing, not only in what they want to be sold but how they want to be sold to. It’s incredible to see the innovation that arises when technology is leveraged to solve marketing problems. Machine learning is improving content, marketing automation, personalization, and sales forecasting with a new level of accuracy and speed. As buyers demand an enhanced customer experience, businesses will be challenged with how to improve the buyer journey and leverage data to deliver value. Predictive automation is one way that marketing departments will be able to not only strengthen customer relationships but deliver revenue growth as well.
About The Author
Jenelle Peterson, BComm MBA is a Senior Marketing & Research Consultant with Tenato Strategy, a Marketing Educator, and a board member with the Calgary Marketing Association. Jenelle’s passion for technology, design, and innovation has given her opportunities to work both on the business and agency side in a variety of industries; Oil & Gas, IT, Education, Health Care, and Consumer Goods. She loves the outdoors, making bad art, and all things Sci-Fi. Tweet her @petersonjenelle