Kenneth Wagner, the Director of Marketing Cloud Services for EMEA North, shares the three common pitfalls for companies, how to avoid them, and why data points and designing to scale are essential. <\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Data points and designing to scale are critical when working to avoid the most common pitfalls for companies. For context, a data point (or observation) is an individual unit of information. In statistics or analytical content, data points are typically obtained from research or measurement and can be represented graphically and\/or numerically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Generally, companies aim to grow revenues, reduce costs, or change their operating model. They do this by embarking on a transformation. In marketing<\/a>, many seek to increase the ability to pick up data points, react, and take the right action. The goal is to create value for a specific person in a specific moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Building execution capabilities that match customers\u2019 expectations has become even more important. Together it brings greater revenues, lower costs, and higher satisfaction scores. Additionally, it brings with it an organisation that is ready to adapt to the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the path to success, I\u2019ve noticed that there are three common pitfalls for companies. This blog suggests three ways you can avoid common pitfalls, collect insightful data points, and adequately scale your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s always somebody who decides on the technology or tools available to the team<\/a>. These tools are essential for the marketing and digital teams. They are what enables them to deliver the needed business results. But, if the exec sponsor signs the license contract and then loses interest, from what I\u2019ve seen, it\u2019s a bad omen. In many journeys, it has signalled a tougher journey ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every so often, I engage with customers who are stuck on their journey<\/a>. For the majority of them, the root cause of why they are stuck falls back to the foundational design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A common goal for many is to go deliver a quick MVP (Minimum Viable Product). But what I found was that often they had failed to envision their end state. Failing to do that, often ended up slowing and sometimes stopping their transformation<\/a> journey. They had to go back and fix the foundation before they could move ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, there\u2019s nothing wrong with the MVP-based approach. In fact, at Salesforce<\/a> we champion benefits realisation as early as possible. But it\u2019s important to start envisioning and making assumptions about the end state when you start setting up the platform. This must happen from the start, so we make sure we know what we\u2019re building towards. That is also why it is such an integral part of our method. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As with any new technology, you don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know. To mitigate this, we recommend bringing in people with the right experience. They are essential in building the right foundation for your journey. Still, to help reduce the risk of building the wrong foundation, it\u2019s important that you:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Understanding what makes a good data strategy and when you have enough data points is no easy feat. Beyond that, it is very industry and sometimes company-specific. For some, solving basic attribution and personalisation on the website is a massive leap. Others are looking into Amazon and Netflix-level recommendations and personalisation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As you move up the data maturity curve, you improve your ability to execute and the ability to analyse. You make it possible to get key insights and create the right experiences for your customers. This inevitably ends up as an influencing factor in your targeted KPIs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The common theme? You need more data points to capture more signals. Without it, you won’t be able to deliver the above capabilities. Still, many are stuck in the \u201cpermission and transaction\u201d paradigm. They communicate because they have permission. Most fail to focus on humanising the approach and building relationships at scale. You can find many insights on how to shift the approach in the book, Context Marketing Revolution<\/i><\/a>. It is a recommended read for anyone who\u2019s in the digital domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, engage your exec sponsor from the start. Create a vision for scale that includes your sponsors’ buy-in. Finally, figure out what you know, what you need to find out, and how the data points can help you drive results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n1. Lack of executive engagement<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What do you need from the exec sponsor?<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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2. Design to scale<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Important questions to ask:<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Overlaying questions to design topics:<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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3. Mature the data strategy with data points<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
To maximise ROI from MarTech\/AdTech, you need to map out and understand:<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Capabilities you\u2019re looking to enable:<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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In conclusion<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n