By nickjohnson - January 1st, 2013
This is the first in our series of blog posts on the big marketing themes that emerged from an in-depth period of primary research with over 100 CMOs and other senior marketers. The second is ‘The Accessible Consumer’, and the third is the revolution in corporate-consumer relationships.
I and my colleagues at Incite have spent the last 3 months talking to CMOs and other senior marketing executives from large brands.
Why?
Well, we work in business intelligence. We need to know the key issues/challenges/opportunities facing these guys in 2013. It’s how we make our money.
Today, we sat down and discussed our take on what came out of the research. Until today, we’ve kept all our research separate, and have avoided talking about our own conclusions - to ensure we’re not unduly influencing the others in the team.
And yet, we all came to the same conclusions.
There are three key shifts/themes/challenges/opportunities that we feel we influence senior marketing executives (responsible for strategy, not execution) over the next year - and beyond.
The first one is Customer Centricity. Essentially, getting to know your customer better, putting them at the heart of your business, and using that knowledge to improve your operations (and I don’t just mean marketing).
You can break customer-centricity down a little further, into four key goals:
- Know your customers better: Dig into your data to learn who your customers are and how to target them
- Put your customers at the centre of decision-making: Internal structures and processes to ensure your customer has a voice in every level of your organisation
- Move beyond demographics to individuals for effective marketing response
- Learn how to make efficiencies through better targeting - saving time and money
I’ll share the other two key shifts over the next couple of days. In the meantime, any feedback or commentary on the above is gratefully received.