Chief marketing officers must strengthen their evolving role as chief customer officer to meet growth demands, according to a study.
A report by consulting firm Gartner, “CMOs: Time to be more customer-centric,” said channel-first marketing strategies fail to deliver on long-term customer loyalty, and a new approach was needed.
Marketers need to identify customer needs before focusing on channels to help build sustainable customer relationships, it said.
Mark Gambill, chief marketing officer at Board International, a business intelligence and corporate performance management software vendor, said marketers should consider the whole customer life cycle in their strategies.
“Marketers need to always have a channel where you can engage with the customer in a 360-degree manner,” he said.
“They need to humanise interactions with customers to give them a voice and ensure they are aligned with customer support, so there is connectivity in promises sold and promises kept.”
Marketers also need to engage with customers through their chosen channel by understanding their needs beyond the initial sales call, added Gambill.
The Gartner report found 63% of digital marketing leaders citing major challenges in leveraging integrated customer data for digital marketing execution.
“With so many touchpoints to understand your customer, marketers need to be able to refer to an all-encompassing customer profile that centralises those insights,” said Heath Barlow, senior vice president and GM for EMEA, SAP Emarsys.
Organisations must invest in digital channels backed with the right data, he added.
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