The Digital Transformation of Marketing
I was attending the Adobe Summit 2019 in London this week. There I could get an impressive overview of what a modern IT Giant like Adobe envisions for the future of (digital) marketing.
As with each industry today, marketing is turned upside down in the ongoing digital transformation.Imagine how far marketing has progressed in recent decades. From broadcasting ads like via television or billboards to a completely personalized customer experience is a very long way. In addition, many companies did not even start the journey.
On the other hand, companies in markets with a strong competition already embrace customer experience management (CXM) today. The goal of CXM is to transform customers into brand ambassadors. My father always says that a good product needs no marketing. What he means is viral marketing. What we in Germany call „Mundpropaganda“.
The advantages ly on the hand. Where companies paid millions in the past to get the pole position for advertisement on television or newspapers, there are completely new possibilities today. For a fraction of the previous budget. Moreover, and even better with reaching exactly the customers or leads, you want.
Big Changes Ahead
Influencer marketing is one example for the newer forms of marketing here. Working with influencers is much cheaper than placing ads on TV. At the same time, if you pick your influencers right, you will have tremendously higher conversion rates. This is because influencers have typically a very clear domain, e.g. beauty products, in combination with a loyal community.
Large companies of course will want to address all the channels like Social, TV, etc.
Therefore, companies, especially those that have little possibilities to distinguish themselves through their products from competitors, want to reap on the promises of personalized marketing. Nevertheless, it is not only about the adoption of new technology.
Digital Transformation is more than technology
People, organizational change and technology have to go hand in hand to master the movement towards a successful customer experience management. A notable takeaway from the key notes of the Adobe Summit 2019 were, that no Chief Marketing Officer spoke, like in the past. What we saw instead were CEOs, CIOs and CDOs. This is a tribute to the ongoing change where it is more and more important to have agile teams with a focus on interdisciplinarity. Also in marketing. Software eats the world.
However, coming back to CXM and more specifically to personalized marketing, the basis for all personalization is data. You need to know your customers very well to approach them in a tailored way.
Breaking up the data silos
Actually the situation today is, that many companies have access to a pool of data. On the other hand, there are still companies that even lack this basis. But even the companies that have a lake full of data often face the situation, that they cannot make use of it.
Adobe, as well as some other IT companies, offer services and complete solutions here. Let me clarify what is possible today by the example of Adobe´s portfolio, which I could discover the past days.
So, let us assume that we look at companies that have access to a lot of (big) data. Most likely this data will be in different databases, in different formats, redundant and maybe sometimes incomplete. Unique identifiers are often missing.
In the context of the Adobe Summit this week, a strategic partnership between Adobe and Software AG was announced. This perfectly addresses the situation of the above-mentioned data silos.
WebMethods of Software AG is the perfect answer for integration here.
As I have shown in this (german) article, the typical KDD process is then a good next step to make use of the data.
Adobe Experience Platform released
The biggest announcement of the summit was certainly the release of the Adobe Experience Platform, which bundles the product portfolio. It will be very interesting to see how Adobe is leveraging this new ecosystem. As a German, I am very keen to see how SMEs, not only large companies, could make use of this technology in order to transform to a customer centric, data-driven business.
Because one thing is clear. As with the words of A. Parasnis, CTO Adobe Cloud Technology: „Legacy systems cannot keep up with the customer expectations today. No matter which industry you‘re in. “
Further, the benchmark will not be your peers but the best in class. Customers expect the same customer experience that they know from Amazon. Therefore, B2B experiences shall be the same as B2C. It will be also interesting to see, how changes in society will impact CXM.
In this context, it is very interesting to see, how the brand new Amazon Store integration in the Adobe Commerce Cloud will help SMEs with Setup, Payment and Fulfillment.
Finally yet importantly, Adobe also announced a partnership with SAP and Microsoft in the Open Data Initiative with the goal to provide an end-to-end view on customers. The holy grail of each marketer. I‘m curious how the GDPR will play in here.
Therefore, we have exciting times ahead as Customer Experience Management is just getting started.
Personal Takeaways
My first Adobe Summit was a very nice experience. The location was exquisite, the content very interesting and the people I met were so inspirational. It felt great to be a part of the Adobe Insider team.
A special thanks to Gero and Sven, two absolute digital marketing pros, for giving me a good start in a new domain. Much appreciated.
The event and especially my journey was organized in an absolute perfect way. So last but not least a big thank you goes out to Ronja from Faktor 3.
One last hint, if you are interested in pretty cool 360° content, contact Claudia from Omnia 360.
In this article, I want shared my insights from the EMEA Adobe Summit 2019, London with you.
I have to make an obligatory FTC disclosure: I was invited to attend the Summit by Adobe completely free as part of the Adobe Insider program. Nevertheless, this article reflects my own views.
Header Image Source: Pixabay, Pixabay License
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