People don’t automatically trust machines, so as personalisation and automation step up a notch marketers need to ensure they do everything they can to create transparent and user-friendly experiences.
As we near the first anniversary of the GDPR coming into force, the hope is shady tactics deployed by digital services will be whittled out and brands will prioritise ethics over economics.
Brands must avoid getting carried away with personalisation because while it can help improve the customer experience it isn’t the be all and end all it is often billed as.
There will be many uses for machine learning in the future, but right now marketers should focus on improving sales by continually tweaking communications.
Too many marketers are getting swept up in new ways to execute their campaigns, losing focus on the message in favour of the medium.
The fact it’s hard to map customer-centricity to the bottom line is no excuse: brands have got to join up their thinking around the customer to offer a consistent experience across all touchpoints.
There was a clear divide in the success of retailers this Christmas as those that offer cheap convenience win out over some of the nation’s ‘favourite’ stores.
Young marketers need to avoid getting stuck in commoditised ‘specialisms’ like social and SEO when the focus for brands is in strategy and experience design.
Given the most hyped technologies of 2017 have failed to make an impact this year, marketers would be wise to perfect customer experience on incumbent tech like mobile before shifting focus to blockchain, VR and voice.
Voice commerce may position itself as a seamless way to shop but in reality the services are rarely consumer-friendly and don’t save much (if any) time.
New data regulations held the promise of an improved user experience for digital services, but the reality is more pop-ups, confusion and inconsistency.
CMOs need to be wary of being suckered in by shiny new technology toys at the expense of more important tech or brand strategy.