Marketing Challenges and Pain Points
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Unica Corporation revealed the results of its "Marketing Challenges 2004" study, conducted by Forrester Consulting. The study was commissioned by Unica to gain an improved understanding of the key issues marketers face and how they are responding to trends such as changing consumer attitudes, a proliferation of new marketing channels, increased regulatory compliance and a sharp focus on marketing accountability and ROI. More than 250 executive marketers across industries that include financial services, manufacturing, technology, travel/hospitality, consumer goods, retail and government participated in the survey.
Proving Measurable Value Tops Agenda
Seventy-two percent of marketers polled said they believe the primary objective of marketing within their organizations is to drive sales leads or directly influence revenue. However, when asked how top non-marketing executives within their company perceive marketing, only 37 percent responded that marketing is strategic and capable of delivering measurable value. Another 31 percent indicated that marketing is viewed as strategic, but its effects cannot be measured. It’s not surprising then that more than half (55 percent) of the marketers polled said that making marketing more measurable is their greatest challenge for 2004. Regardless of company size, measurability was most frequently selected as the greatest challenge by survey participants. In addition, companies of all sizes cited improved coordination of marketing programs across channels as one of their top three greatest challenges.
Customer-centricity Still a Business Challenge
While approximately 70 percent of executives polled indicated that their companies have a centralized customer data warehouse, less than 20 percent of respondents indicated that their companies have a 360-degree view of each customer across the organization, and only four percent of those polled indicated complete satisfaction with their firm’s customer-centricity.
"It is our recommendation that marketers must have processes and supporting technologies in place to rapidly leverage the customer intelligence they collect to deliver actionable insights and interactions tailored to each customer across the life-cycle. The lack of a 360-degree view indicates that while companies are gathering customer information, marketing within many organizations has not yet been provided with the applications they need to unleash the value of customer assets," said Carol Meyers, vice president of marketing, Unica Corporation.
Privacy Regulations Not Driving Widespread Change...Yet
As the effects of recent and still looming privacy-protection legislation (e.g. Do Not Call, CAN SPAM) take hold, marketers will be charged with finding innovative ways to reach customers. But while over 60 percent of those surveyed expect recent privacy legislation to have a greater impact on marketing during the next two years, Unica’s survey finds that less than 20 percent have changed their email and telemarketing practices as a result, and less than 20 percent allow customers to determine frequency of marketing.
"Today’s marketers know that branding and loyalty only occur when the customer-experience matches the brand promise. The survey results show that marketers are challenged to deliver the customer insights and processes needed to make this happen while delivering compelling customer-centric marketing with measurable impact on the top and bottom line," said Meyers. "Clearly, marketers need to infuse their organizations with new skills and technologies to unlock customer insights and measure marketing’s impact. Further, marketers must streamline processes to create more time for strategic endeavors, such as investigating emerging channels and developing a differentiated customer-experience."
EMM technology, software designed exclusively for marketers to support demand generation, customer analytics and marketing resource management, can help automate and measure all aspects of marketing, leaving marketers more time to focus on investigating new channels, refining marketing strategies and planning for future growth. Given that 40 percent of surveyed companies plan to increase their marketing spending by three to 11 percent or more this year, Unica believes the time is now for organizations to investigate new technologies for measuring marketing results and ensuring that increased spending is focused on the right initiatives.
Forrester Research’s recent report Left Brain Marketing echoes this need. According to the report, issued on April 6, 2004, Eric Schmitt stated the most effective left brain marketing organizations will have a voice in every customer contact, no matter the channel or the point in the customer life cycle. CEOs can encourage this by vesting marketing teams with political and budgetary clout – then infusing them with enough technology savvy to get the job done.
Published: 08/2004
Author: Unica Corporation
Unica Corporation’s enterprise marketing management software, Affinium, powers marketing innovation for more than 300 companies worldwide.
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