It's the age of customers - time to rethink marketing

A Forrester study commissioned by Salesforce, titled 'The New Calculus of Marketing', says that marketers today have more channels to choose from than ever before. Thanks to increasing device proliferation, the Internet of Things and the digitisation of offline channels, the choices for marketers will become even more numerous, making the role and its responsibilities all the more complex.

Big data being put to good use

Forrester predicts that within the next two years, big data will finally be put to good use as marketers stop waiting for insights to reveal themselves and start finding actionable paths through the information. Using big data, marketers will start to develop smarter, more relevant programs across their mix by incorporating data-driven insights into their planning, and then using the new robust data they get out of those programs to inform their future plans.

However, there is work to be done as marketing executives figure out how to equip themselves in facing these new challenges. The study revealed that digital marketing technologies are a seemingly endless source of innovation for marketers. In recent years, marketers have gained access to real-time engagement, predictive analytics and behaviourally triggered automation, which has made a significant difference to their marketing decisions and plans.

Many marketers continue to use an acquisition marketing approach: targeting large-scale, demographically defined audience segments, defined by publishers and evaluated by the reach and frequency of impressions.

Build relationships

By considering digital technology, an organisation is able to build relationships directly with individual customers. This practice enables brands to target and respond to individual customers or prospects - anonymous or known - with personalised content and offers.

We are in the age of the customer; only customer-obsessed companies can survive the disruption caused by empowered customers. Marketing leaders, who are on the frontlines of this disruption, will need to pull money away from traditional areas of investment, such as brand advertising, and invest in creating real-time data intelligence and contextual customer experiences.

This type of transformation requires marketing leaders to rethink their roles, responsibilities and priorities as they prepare to steer their organisations toward customer obsession.