By nickjohnson - February 26th, 2014
The critical foci for Marketers on Europe and the West Coast right now. Click for a full-size version
Over the last few months, we've been asking visitors to the sites for our European and West Coast Incite Summits to let us know about their core foci for the next year.
The results thus far are above. Importantly, above we're only showing the foci that marketers labeled 'critical'. For the full data set, scroll to the bottom of this article.
There are some fairly significant differences here. The most obvious is the relative importance of big data to the two regions. Investigating data's role in a marketer's skillset is one of the top 6 topics for our West Coast audience. Yet it comes dead last for Europeans.
The next big discrepancy also concerns data. Our European audience is evidently not enormously interested in how new data sources can help prove value in the boardroom, while again it's a top 6 issue on the West Coast.
The top priority issues in the two regions are also different.
For those on the West coast, the two biggest priorities are:
- Storytelling - making the move from campaign-based marketing to a 'storytelling' approach
- Agile marketing - getting data where it needs to be, and doing so quickly to drive responsive marketing
In Europe, the two big priorities are:
- Doing multi-channel marketing well - ensuring a multi-channel approach works in harmony to hit customers when they're listening
- Content: Deliver relevant content to customers
Do differences indicate a somewhat more forward-looking approach on the West coast than in Europe? After all, content and multi-channel are hardly new. While 'agile marketing' has also been around a while, it's considerably fresher.
The data focus on the West coast is maybe slightly more difficult to explain - could this be a result of the concentration of tech-heavy companies in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area?
Please let us know your thoughts in the comments. And for those wanting a deep dive, here's the full data set:
| Corporate Topics | Europe: Critical | EU: Important | EU: Unimportant | West Coast: Critical | WC: Important | WC: Unimportant |
| Make multiple channels work together to reach your customer at the right time, in the right place | 56.00% | 42.00% | 2.00% | 71.43% | 28.57% | 0.00% |
| Brands as publishers: Understand your audience and reflect that through content creation | 56.00% | 36.00% | 8.00% | 39.29% | 57.14% | 35.70% |
| Collaborate better internally to present a seamless experience for the customer | 54.00% | 42.00% | 4.00% | 60.17% | 35.71% | 3.57% |
| Become a customer-centric business to deliver more effective marketing | 52.00% | 42.00% | 6.00% | 53.57% | 42.86% | 3.57% |
| Relevance: Get a 'high-def' picture of your customer to deliver personalised, targeted marketing | 44.00% | 46.00% | 10.00% | 29.63% | 62.96% | 7.41% |
| From pushing campaigns to telling engaging stories | 40.00% | 50.00% | 10.00% | 75.00% | 17.86% | 71.40% |
| Get business data where it needs to be. Get actionable insights fast. | 32.00% | 60.00% | 8.00% | 67.86% | 32.14% | 0.00% |
| Speed up your marketing department to do responsive - even real-time - marketing | 28.00% | 64.00% | 8.00% | 46.43% | 42.86% | 10.71% |
| How new data sources help you prove your worth in the boardroom | 16.00% | 58.00% | 26.00% | 50.00% | 42.86% | 71.40% |
| Big Data driven creativity: An oxymoron? | 6.00% | 54.00% | 40.00% | 50.00% | 50.00% | 0.00% |