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      ROE² excels in these situations by providing a framework, and even an equation, to help marketers make these hard decisions.

      A Quick Look at the Past

      To get started, let's take a brief glance in the rearview mirror. When I started in marketing, the channels (TV, radio, mail, telemarketing) and types of campaigns were limited and the pace was slow. A direct marketing campaign generally meant direct mail or telemarketing. It might take three or four months for a campaign to go from ideation to execution. The job of the marketer was to run a few major campaigns every year. Success meant people expressing increased brand awareness, people carrying fliers into stores, bringing a friend with them, or calling a catalog order center. It was all one-way communication. We controlled the content, timing, and cadence of the messages – and the messages were inherently limited.

      Campaigns might have a couple of versions. They were launched every quarter or every year and evaluated strictly on the sales that could be directly attributed to them in a single channel. Brands could only learn about customers and their preferences three or four times a year, if they were lucky. We relied exclusively on market research to understand people's attitudes. There was no way to interact individually with customers at a large-scale level. It was simply too complicated and expensive.

      Now, Everything Has Changed – for the Better

      Major shifts in consumer behavior and the advent of powerful (and affordable) new marketing tools are driving a quantum leap in marketing sophistication, effectiveness, and complexity. Today's marketers have an unprecedented opportunity to combine the best of both disciplines – the reach of mass marketing and the targeting of direct marketing – opening up powerful new approaches to drive engagement and experience.

      Consider these facts about consumer behavior. There are more smartphones than people on our planet. Since consumers are totally mobile, channel distinctions don't matter as much as they used to – decisions are made on the spot, 24/7, at home, on the road, and in stores. The path to a buying decision may include a digital ad, an online search, a smartphone price check, and advice gathered via social media. In fact, more than 58 percent of U.S. smartphone and tablet owners are using their mobile devices to learn about products or prices – either online or while in a physical store, according to research from the website testing and personalization firm Maxymiser. Social networks have a huge influence on purchasing behavior as consumers take more control. And that's just one side of the story.

      On the marketing side, incredible new tools are available, and digital marketing spending is skyrocketing. Major players like Adobe, Salesforce.com, IBM, and Oracle are investing heavily in the marketing space, as traditional technology companies see the value of marketing and the impact that technology can play. Savvy marketers and the brands they work for are already beginning to take advantage of these incredible technologies and designing new tools, strategies, and techniques to make new inroads into the changing marketplace. They are working to take advantage of the unbelievable array of opportunities created by fast-paced, multichannel marketing. Content can be more relevant, personalized, and consistent. Campaign cycle times are measured in minutes rather than days. After all, marketers can reach millions of potential customers with a single click, e-mail, post, or tweet. Ultimately, new customer insights are triggering new transformations as organizations rethink their core processes and align them around customer-centric delivery.

      It All Starts with Customer Connections

      The ability to conduct dozens of targeted campaigns, to gather detailed customer data, and then to use it to generate impressive results – these possibilities make marketing exhilarating. Never before have marketers had the opportunity to drive such dramatic improvements in their business – engaging new consumers, expanding their customer bases, boosting revenues, and building their brands. Consider these recent results:

      • A major consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand generated one billion impressions via the use of emotionally engaging, multichannel, user-generated content.

      • A large bank reduced customer attrition by 20 percent by triggering client-specific content based on account engagement.

      • An e-commerce site increased its conversion rates on e-mail by 15 percent by doing device detection and retargeting e-mails based on whether recipients opened e-mails on their computers or on their smartphones.

      These impressive results aren't enabled by technological advances alone. They happened because marketers took full advantage of the capabilities available to them, injected great content, and nimbly avoided the downside. Understanding and balancing these two elements – the potential and the pitfalls – will determine the winners and losers. To succeed during a time of new challenges and great potential rewards, marketers must master the power of the new technologies and channels, while finding new ways to use data and rich media content to drive the emotional connection to a brand, the end goal that has defined marketing success for generations. To do that requires a new approach to customer connections and a new way to determine success – ROE².

      For Marketers of All Stripes and Types

      I wrote Igniting Customer Connections to help marketers like you use data, content, and technology to forge customer connections in ways that were unthinkable just a few years ago. This book is intended to help you take advantage of the amazing capabilities available today – and also get the respect (and promotion, of course) that hardworking marketers deserve. It provides a unique set of research and intellectual property designed to guide you to the next generation of successful marketing – turning marketing from a cost center to a vital function that systematically drives profitability for your organization.

      Start the Fire – Now

      Igniting customer connections starts with a single spark – a new idea, a revolutionary approach, or advice that makes a real difference. I think ROE² is that spark, and I'm very excited to pass it on to you. Let's begin.

      Part One

      Connect with Your Customers —Now

      Chapter 1

      The New Marketing Landscape

      Marketing successfully to an ever-shifting audience is always challenging, but even more so in a time of more and less. We have more channels for connecting with people, dozens of customer touch points, mountains of consumer data, and a global reach. But we also have closer scrutiny of marketing spend, a focus on consumer privacy, and less time to make critical decisions and deliver a message to a much more empowered (and possibly jaded) audience. In an era of Big Data and advanced analytics, of multiple screens and marketing-intolerant customers who can shut them off, what's the best path ahead? And how do we know what factors are creating customer engagement and driving profitability – not just today, but over time?

      Let's start by taking a look at the megatrends or tectonic shifts that have changed the way we produce and access information. Then we'll explore how these shifts have changed the way consumers behave.

      Tectonic Shift #1: More Media, Devices, and Disruption

For years, access to media meant TV, radio, billboards, and other content produced by large, centralized entities sending down content from the upper echelons of advertising, marketing, and communication. Now media is in the palm of every consumer's hand, and everyone is a producer. Smartphones, tablets, and more devices have enabled a major disruption in the flow of information, moving it from broadcast and controlled to free-form, decentralized content created by almost anyone. The proliferation and fragmentation of channels have led to shorter attention spans and less time spent by the consumer in any one channel. (See Figure 1.1.) Accordingly, spending has shifted (and continues to shift) from concentrated mass media to more data-driven, direct, primarily digital channels.

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