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Six Things Every CMO Needs To Know In 2013

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This article is by Ben Straley, VP of social technologies at Rio SEO and lead instructor of interactive marketing at University of Washington’s Continuing Education program.

Recently, I found myself mesmerized by my five-year-old son’s battery-powered Hex Bug toys that move in and out of different habitats in an impossible-to-predict fashion. It got me thinking that today’s consumer is like one of those Hex Bugs: moving in and out of different media on different devices continuously. Forrester Research says some 87 percent of U.S. consumers and 98 percent of Chinese consumers regularly jump between multiple devices – mobile, web, and in-store – to research and make purchases.

For CMOs and marketing organizations, reaching and engaging consumers has become a frenetic, ever-shifting, always-on exercise. The rise of social media, big-data analytics, and smart mobile devices has given use more real-time information about their target audiences and customers than ever before, but also has made reaching them more difficult. Here are a few “must-dos” to run successful marketing organizations in 2013.

1. Strive to master all digital media.

Consumers today are “transmedia.” We use our phones to tweet while watching the Grammys. We play Words with Friends on our tablets in between email exchanges with colleagues.

People are more connected, but also more distracted. To reach and engage consumers effectively, marketing organizations must understand the different ways people use devices and the different types of media they prefer on those devices. We must also understand the main differences between each media channel, and why and when consumers switch between them. Creating campaigns specifically for each type of device requires understanding how, when and why people use those devices.

2. Lead the charge on attribution.

Want to blow your CFO’s mind? Create a clear attribution model that show her what marketing investments in which campaigns, clicks, actions and messages impact bottom-line sales. The complexity of today’s economy demands that marketers know exactly what works and why. Did the investment in display advertising really drive the increase in sales, or was it digital word of mouth that compelled your target audience to search and then buy? Or was it both? Attribution modeling is evolving from an art to a science.

3. Re-think and then re-invent lifetime value.

In the old days, when marketers talked about lifetime value (aka LTV), they were talking about a customer’s cumulative purchase history. Now LTV is all about creating long-term brand advocates who don’t just continue buying your products, but also recommend them to their social networks. A customer’s influence over others (word of mouth) is now just as important as his or her loyalty and repeat purchases. In 2013, make sure to incorporate concepts like advocacy, influence, and the Net Promoter Score system into your consideration of LTV.  If you don’t, you’ll miss the tremendous potential consumers have for driving discovery of and loyalty for your brand.

4. Think and act like a publisher.

In today’s content-fueled world, brands must move far beyond hiring agencies to create ads and launch campaigns. Instead, we must continuously create videos, posts, articles, apps, games and tons of other compelling digital content that is built for discovery and sharing. For example, the dramatic rise in “native” advertising is allowing brands to insert their own content directly into the flow of the sites and apps that are capturing the attention of millions of people – blurring the lines between ads and articles, commercials and videos, and posts from a friend and posts from a marketer. Marketing with compelling content is the future, and it means your job as a marketer will become a lot more like a publisher and less like an “advertiser.” Create content that gets discovered by the right audience, captures attention and compels people to share it. What’s the right type of content? For starters, it’s anything that makes people laugh, takes their breath away, or saves them money.

5. Get your arms around your audience data.

You’re sitting on a gold mine: the megabytes of customer data you’ve collected and already own and are generating more of every day. Your websites, YouTube channel, Facebook pages, and mobile apps are all getting real people to visit, engage and share. This activity generates valuable data that you can use to better understand your audience and re-market to them. If you are not using the latest big-data analytics tools to capture and analyze this information, someone else is – and they’re selling it to your competitors, in a lot of cases.

6. Think “serendipity,” not “stalking.”

Use your goldmine of data wisely. For many people the discovery of a new product or a great deal that’s relevant to their lives and tastes is the ultimate. With the scale and precision that things like programmatic buying offer, in 2013 it’s possible to create these moments for millions of your consumers. So don’t settle for following a user online reminding/begging them to buy a product they just looked at in passing. Ensure your media dollars work smarter and harder on behalf of your target audience and create those memorable moments of serendipity. That is the secret to creating lasting brand value with your media dollars.