63% of Australian marketers now include customer journey as part of overall business strategy – Report
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Sponsored content: This article was commissioned by Salesforce to let readers know they can access a free copy of the third annual Salesforce ‘State of Marketing’ Report.
The third annual Salesforce ‘State of Marketing’ global 2016 report has been released and gives in-depth insight into overall trends changing the role of marketing, and how high performing marketing teams approach marketing intelligence and customer experience.
The ‘age of the customer’ is clearly underway, with customer experience, satisfaction and feedback falling more and more under the marketing department’s focus. Top performing marketing teams are embracing this commitment to creating amazing customer journeys.
Australians in the study showed recognition of the importance of customer experience, and the majority also intend to increase spend on social media engagement, advertising on social and social media marketing in the next 12 months. 47% also anticipate growth of predictive intelligence and marketing automation.
63% of high-performing Australian marketers who took part in the study have adopted customer journey strategies as part of their overall business strategies, and 62% actively map the customer journey. 47% also anticipate growth of predictive intelligence and marketing automation.
This is highlighted in the report by Maggie Lang, senior director, marketing at Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, who says; “marketing keeps evolving because customers demand it. Customers have never liked feeling like a faceless number, but today’s customer unequivocally expects more. It takes a genuine intention to truly understand your customer, a commitment to marketing intelligence and relentless dedication to true personalisation to deliver on that expectation”
Top performing marketers are also shown in the report to be successful in creating a single, personalised view of the customer across multiple channels.
Mobile marketing continues to build momentum
From 2015 to 2016, every aspect of mobile usage covered in the report grew significantly, with marketers currently using the following avenues:
- Mobile apps: 27% in 2015, 54% in 2016,
- SMS messaging: 24% in 2015, 51% in 2016,
- push notifications: 19% in 2015, 45% in 2016, and
- location based mobile tracking: 18% in 2015, 44% in 2016.
A huge growth in mobile marketing ROI has occurred since 2015, too, with 77% agreeing that it generates ROI, compared to 43% in 2015.
Email marketing
As a result of the growth in email personalisation capabilities, satisfaction with email marketing ROI also increased.
In 2015, 53% in the study agreed email marketing generated ROI, whereas 80% agree in 2016.
High performers in this area were those who leverage predictive intelligence or data science to personalise email marketing.
Campaign types listed as the most effective were loyalty, exclusive deals, social selling, promotional content and mobile opt-in.
Social
82% of marketers now agree that social media marketing is core to their business. High performers on social, were those who successfully integrated social marketing activity into other tools and technology, such as CRM, and other social activities, such as customer service.
Content marketing
77% of marketers agree content marketing is core to business. Participants in the study rated it as a successful revenue-generating tactic, but also list creating unique content as a top challenge. In an effort to create engaging experiences, high performers make use of user-generated content as part of their content marketing mix.
Click here for your free copy of the report