This article originates from a presentation at the Revenue Marketing Summit in London, 2022. Catch up on this presentation, and others, using our OnDemand service. For more exclusive content, visit your membership dashboard.
While revenue marketing has only emerged as a concept fairly recently, it’s something I've been actively working toward for years.
One thing that we all need to keep in mind is that it's not all about metrics, reporting, and KPIs – the ultimate goal is to boost acquisition and sales. And how do we do that? Via an elevated customer experience.
Here’s a fun statistic: 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. We all know this from our own experiences as consumers.
Brand loyalty and customer experience are closely connected, which means that your job doesn't stop when a lead enters your CRM; it’s only just begun.
Whether you're in B2B or B2C, you’ll be cross-selling and upselling, and if you get the customer experience right, those buyers will remain loyal to you.
With that in mind, I’ll line up the five key trends you should be harnessing in 2023 whether you’re in B2B or B2C, and give you a few tips on how to harness these trends to boost your customer experience and drive your revenue marketing efforts.
These five key trends are:
- Omnichannel personalization
- Virtual Reality
- Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things
- Data privacy
- eCommerce
So, let’s get into it!
Key trend one: Omnichannel personalization
To provide a bit of context, let’s look at a couple of stats that show why personalization is so important in marketing today.
- “Marketers report that personalization boosts revenues by up to 15%” – Adweek
- “Personalized calls-to-action convert 202% better than standard or default calls to actions” – HubSpot
In short, the more you personalize, the more you convert. The question is how to get personalization right through an omnichannel experience. While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, there are certain steps we can all take.
The main thing to remember is that at every step, you have to have a single source of data to be able to do omnichannel personalization. That means that the key message that you deliver through your marketing campaigns needs to be the same as the message that the sales and customer support.
Which, in turn, needs to match everything that’s going on in your digital campaigns, events, brochures, direct sales, and so on.
Now personalization is obviously about making marketing more human, but the funny thing is, I'm talking about using technology to do that. Still, we can’t forget that we’re humans selling to other humans. Personalization just adds a human touch to nudge potential customers toward a sale.
It’s not always possible to personalize for every single prospect, so I‘d recommend focusing on the most strategic 20%. How do you do that? Through data. To build a single source of truth that will allow you to personalize your approach, you need to take ownership of customer data and treat it like the treasure it is.
Don't forget that your personalization does not stop when a lead enters your system. That’s when you begin the post-sale nurturing journey.
Key trend two: Virtual reality
“80% of consumers feel positive about experiencing branded VR tactics.” – Touchstone Research
I’ve talked about personalization and the human approach, and now I'm telling you to use Virtual Reality (VR). That might sound like a contradiction, but I swear it’s not.
Think back to the height of the pandemic – we were all in our own little bubbles, living and working through a screen. Most brick-and-mortar stores were closed, but one of the tactics that helped businesses survive was VR. VR has seen a massive spike over the last few years, and if you're not using it in your company, you should be.
No matter what your brand, product, or service is, VR can have huge benefits. Take my company, SecurityHQ, as an example: we’re a managed security service provider.
All of our services can be bought and used over the internet, but during the pandemic our customers missed the experience of getting into a security operations center, seeing our analysts and big screens, and the sense of protection that comes with it.
We couldn't do that during the pandemic, so we came up with a new strategy to show our security operation centers to our customers around the world: we built a VR platform where a prospect can see what our work looks like without even stepping into our office.
Whether you use VR post- or pre-sale, it's all about the experience. It's a fantastic content tool as well. You can offer it over your mobile app, through your website, or in physical stores, and many brands are doing so already.
However you choose to use it, the most important thing is that it has to enhance the customer experience.
Key trend three: Artificial intelligence and Internet of Things
For years, we've been relying on "Contact us" forms to gather customer data, but now we know that everything can be connected – we all have Alexa or Siri on our phones, for instance.
If you're not using this technology, you should be. It's not just about the data we can compile but how we can use that data to help us build a community.
Now, how do you build and reach out to these communities? Well, you’ll need advanced analytics and a little help from IoT (Internet of Things). At SecurityHQ, we've been looking at advertising and how we can reach out to our prospects through different channels.
One of the options we’ve been exploring is smart home tech. This is a great channel for delivering your message directly to consumers.
Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are another brilliant tool you can leverage. Perhaps you use one on your website already. If not, you almost certainly will within the next few years.
Why? Because it's the most efficient way for inbound leads to reach out. If someone is browsing your website and is unsure about the next step, AI chatbots can help cut through their uncertainty.
Charley Gale
Key trend four: Data privacy
Many marketers are less concerned than they should be about data breaches. We tend to view them as someone else's responsibility, but cybersecurity should be at the top of our minds.
That’s because data breaches can destroy years of PR, branding, and reputation-building in one fell swoop, and when something goes wrong we're the ones who have to clean up the mess. If you don't know who's responsible for data privacy in your company, you need to find out.
The influx of new technology can sometimes contradict privacy laws. For example, visiting a website now often requires users to accept or reject cookies. While I'm in favor of privacy laws, I don't need contact data from millions of users in my CRM if I can't reach them or don't know them. It's better to focus on rich data from a smaller percentage.
To make this work, you need to know more than just your audience's contact details and company names. You need to know what types of content they prefer, what kinds of events they go to, what they post on social media, what keywords they search for, and so on. You can only do this with data they've given you voluntarily.
This is the hardest part for us as marketers, but it’s an essential part of building and maintaining customer loyalty. You need to analyze and segment your audience, and clean up and take charge of your data. Remember: data is your most valuable asset.
Key trend five: eCommerce
Throughout the pandemic, businesses had to rely on their websites, apps, and digital marketing to reach their customers. Now, as things get back to normal, it seems that digital transformation is here to stay.
Our research shows that 86% of consumers usually do their research online. So, if you don't have the option to sell your products and services via eCommerce, you're missing a trick. Make life easy for your customers.
As technology continues to progress, we’ll have fewer physical stores. However, that doesn't have to be a bad thing; if you’re running a hybrid model that includes eCommerce, you're using the best channel for you.
To make this model work, you’ll need to invest not only in martech solutions but in your teams to ensure that they have the skills to use them.
When I was starting my marketing career, technical knowledge was not on my CV, but now it is essential. All of us need technical skills as many of our roles are shifting towards martech.
How should we navigate this shift? A smart first step is to use AI and machine learning to deliver personalization to your customers and provide a better customer experience.
There are thousands of martech solutions out there, but not every one of them will be right for you, so do your research and choose carefully. Be brave, and you never know what the world will open up.
You’ll also want to focus on performance marketing and take a bird's-eye view to assess your performance. What revenue are you generating and how does that feed into the company’s goals?
Don't shy away from data but don't get bogged down with just reporting and building dashboards either. You need to know how everything connects with each other.
Last but not least, expand your horizons. Don't miss out on any internet revolutions. Instead, use up-and-coming social media channels like TikTok, but only if they work for your brand. It's about understanding your audience and their tastes and preferences.
The only way to understand that is by investing in marketing technologies that provide you with data. But again, you need to provide them with a great customer experience. Give something back; give some love to your customers, and they will stay loyal to you.
