Top Takeaways From Technology For Marketing Summit

I had the great pleasure of being able to attend the 2018 Technology For Marketing summit, with my colleague, last week. The seminars were had several channels: Content Marketing & Experience, Customer Engagement, Marketing Automation, Email and Multichannel, Madtech and Data-Driven Insights. The event is aimed at giving a holistic view of how marketing and businesses will be affected by technological innovation. As to be expected this event was crammed with valuable insight and some of the best Tech and SaaS companies in the world.

Take A Customer Centric Approach 

A stand out seminar was led by Mark Harrison covering some of his experience as a CXO at Shell. Exploring some of the ways in which iPhone created a truly immersive customer journey he explained what it means to be customer centric and how it improves the business top line.  A key point here is that businesses need to create a system enabling you to accurately get the feedback from your customers and understand what they want first hand. It is not good enough to just assume what your customers thinks. Shell reduced their 20 different customer persona’s down to 6 based on their in depth customer feedback. This allowed Shell to communicate more effectively and drive their customer retention levels to over 60% and drive sales to above $750m. Key questions like “what are your customer needs and how can the tech enhance their emotions?” should be  asked to ensure that technology is used to create a better user experience.

Get A View Of Your Content 

Its imperative to have a long-term view of your content plans and communicate what your strategy is. A combination of the right software, detailed notes and regular weekly meetings allows your business to be proactive in your business communications, as well as reactive to the most recent trends relevant to your brand. A recurring theme was the centralisation of communication across teams as a Head of Strategy revealed how top brands, such as Starbucks and The New York Times, prioritised their content processes to ensure they communicated consistently and effectively.

2020 Content Awareness

As we hurtle towards 2020 there will some undoubted mammoth shifts in organisational practices as innovation continues to disrupt every area of business. One key innovation in the periphery is AI and its potential implications for businesses. Microsoft are already getting ahead of the game with their Microsoft AI offerings, however, there will many more implications as different technology pops up. One key aspect to consider will be the how your business adapts to these technology changes and your marketing teams adaptability to these changes. Teams will need to be trained in their ability to utilise these technologies to the best of their ability and effectively use all the available data. It will be imperative to use training programs to upskill your whole team.

The event was a great experience reiterating that technology and strategy must be combined strategically with effective processes for big results. The technology should underpin a strategy which helps your business be more efficient.

To keep up to date with the latest tech and industry insight join our mailing list. Do you want to upskill your technology awareness or are looking for extra Microsoft CRM Support or find out more about what Advantage can do for your business then contact us.