CMOs Are Rethinking Performance Priorities

When Salesforce surveyed marketers around the world recently, they learned the Covid-19 pandemic impacted them in three significant ways: it accelerated implementation of digital strategies, data and the use of artificial intelligence became more important than ever along with collaboration remaining a vital aspect of successful workplaces, even when it’s remote. One finding from Salesforce’s State of Marketing report stands out more than any other: KPIs have changed dramatically. But the economic expansion after a year of widespread and stringent lockdowns is softening the challenges during this transitional period of the pandemic. “The biggest thing the pandemic meant for marketers is change,” Chris Jacob, Salesforce’s senior director of product marketing, told Adweek. “But change with optimism.” Jacob points to anticipated revenue growth as cause for optimism. 66% of marketers expect revenue to increase over the next 12 to 18 months, according to the report. They attribute it to innovation and real-time customer engagement, both driven by the digital transformation. What Marketers Can Learn From TikTok and Dating Apps About Loyal Customer Relationships However, many marketers’ biggest priorities are also their challenges. They include such KPI concerns as spending more on customer referral rates, managing customer acquisition costs, engaging with customers in real-time and creating seamless experiences across channels and devices. Delivering a solid customer experience is another constant priority—and expectation has become more calcified in the minds of consumers this past year. An overwhelming 80% of customers agree the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services, according to Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer Report, published in 2020. Marketers are feeling the stresses of those demands for quality experiences. About 72% of the survey’s participants say meeting customer expectations is more difficult than a year ago. The seventh edition of Salesforce’s report surveyed more than 8,200 marketing professionals globally and was conducted from May 4 through June 3, 2021. Digital drives growth While many companies planned to eventually digitize marketing pre-pandemic, they were forced to quickly implement those plans when the world went into lockdown in March 2020. Those that didn’t have strategies were forced to develop them—or fail. “Some companies were prepared and could switch reasonably quickly and adapt their business model to the changing needs of the pandemic,” Jacob said. “Others struggled, but recognized that that's what they needed to do.” 90% of marketers say their digital engagement strategy has changed since the pandemic began, and 89% say their marketing channel mix has changed. “The ability to adjust to rapid changes in market conditions is key in 2021,” Guillermo Plasencia, CMO and co-founder of joinmytrip.com, told the Salesforce survey. “This is both a year of transition and a year of opportunity.” With so much of life transitioning online, customers expect the companies they do business with to keep up. 61% of customers expect to spend more time online after the pandemic than they did before, according to Salesforce’s Connected Customer Report, published in October. And 88% of customers expect companies to accelerate digital initiatives due to Covid. Personalization is key TikTok, YouTube and Twitch helped video gain the biggest increases in value over the past year, followed closely by social media and display digital ads. The ability to use several channels together, particularly as they take customers through personalized journeys, has become increasingly important. That’s especially true as it relates to messages triggered by customer actions along their individual purchase path. More than two-thirds of marketers describe their cross-channel coordination as “dynamic”—meaning their messages evolve in a hyper-personalized manner based on customer actions. That compares to fewer than one-third of marketers who reported dynamic cross-channel coordination in 2018. Artificial intelligence is a significant driver of those messages. Marketers report using AI to facilitate a number of processes including: driving next best actions, automate customer interactions, personalization of the customer journey and personalization of individual channel experiences. Using data efficiently With third-party cookies going away, sources of data—and data type—is shifting. Digital identities such as email addresses and social IDs are now the most popular customer data sources, followed by transactional data and declared interests and preferences. Postal addresses and anonymized digital identities like cookies and device IDs saw the biggest year-over-year drops in popularity. To understand the reams of data available to them, marketers are utilizing technology such as customer data or customer relationship management platforms. 78% of marketers who identify their companies as high performers say they use a customer data platform, versus 58% of those who identify their business as underperformers. An important aspect of that is professional training. Since technology is changing so rapidly, marketers want to learn how to best implement it. Only 44% of marketers rate the employee training they receive as excellent. That has ramifications for the future. “It’s a hot market for talent, and the organizations that offer training are more likely to retain and attract talent,” Jacob said. The ones that don’t offer professional development are at risk of losing their best people at the time when they can least afford to.”

Performance Marketing

How the Pandemic Has Forced CMOs to Rethink Performance Priorities

Marketers are more ‘KPI-conscious'

Tara Weiss

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Tara Weiss