Contextualization ?? What the heck is that?

Armed with modern technology at the cost Human touch?

Last night I was thinking about what I have done and doing for last 7 years. A sudden repercussion of neuron and I had my answer which is marketing (which again I am not sure how much is plain vanilla). Then there was another thought came creeping in, that this is not something I started working. Obviously as the time went by, along with corporate environment the marketing eco-system also changed a lot. From someone who saw this from ground zero, I think I have a ‘point of view’ about all these changes / movement / so called modernization (which is negative, to some extent).

But before you make your assumptions please read though. To start with let’s see about the innovation which came into the picture –

New technologies like marketing automation, statistics models (Being quite weak in maths, this segment translates as hebrew to me) changed the whole ball game. For instance, 

How I used to plan the marketing activities? Still remember those funnel planning to connect revenue with approx. number of leads or responses depending upon some numbers (they were easy though I must say than the current marketing models). Do we still follow this? I don't... I do it with the help of more statistical, probability models which seems to predict where we should invest and what to expect. But I don't think marketing is that easy. If you feel otherwise then would like to know with the growing complexity of marketing models did the results grown? Please don't tell me your sales has increased because that's bound to happen because of your existing brand value, increased market, increased budget of other companies etc. You are bound to get more than what you have got last year (Else you are almost out of business in this competition). If you are growing more than market's growth then I would say please don't rest of the topic because you don't need them your models and complexities are paying their price, but leave a comment so that I can learn something. 

What I feel about this whole scenario is, these technologies are taking out human touch. I forgot to understand our clients and started to define them with some attributes (e.g. persona) i.e. revenue, vertical, sector, employee number. And by doing so I might have increased the number of target market, responses, efficiency. But without increasing the conversion ratio, which resulted into nothing but ability to sustain in this market (either growing below market growth rate or running business as no profit organization). Personally I would say my previous work scenario was better because even though I couldn't target 100 people per day but I knew my target market personally. Because I had to understand each of them by their name not only by the attributes. Yes attributes then also played a role but not as main criteria instead it played a secondary subtle one to classify people. Now because of all these technology I missed that human touch to understand to each of my clients separately from each other. And along side I am not able to target them with their specific pain points and connect them personally.

This circumstance is available not only in marketing. For a better understanding lets take  another great example of this technological catastrophe. Think about your resume what it is today? A 2 page document with full of generic jargon's. Every-thing is point based, but actually point-less. We don’t feel like explaining things in details, at least for them who wants to read them anymore.  Lets think why this change happened? It’s because our HR friends (please don’t take anything personal friends because I might need your help too in future..) they search their fit for resume as per the key-words. But that doesn't give a proper selection panel / view? For an example suppose I have some previous experience in java, j2ee product selling and it’s mentioned in one line deep inside of my resume. But still I get java j2ee development job offers because our friends doesn't have enough time to check why I wrote those words.

Not sure if this helped anyone but creating a nuisance into the environment. I still understand that the volume of work is humongous. Adding up personalization into everything is gonna take 100% time than what’s current performance yardstick. And reading up resumes which are 5-6 page long is not gonna reduce the job. Instead I am advocating on the basis of penetration rate. Don’t you think if we are facing this issue it’s time for us to decide what we need, is it quality or quantity. I know many of us are thinking quality in our mind but while executing it, we will choose quantity way for it's thin risk distribution. I think this mindset is restricting our new ideas? Are we that afraid that can’t go beyond technology and place innovation above all?

After reading all these you must be thinking that I am against technology, I hate technology, sophistication, statistics. To all of you who are thinking in this way would humbly say that “no, I am not”. I love technology, automation but will withstand when technology suck out the best part us, 'human touch'. In current market it’s huge getting into this market without the help of technology will be a foolishness. Today’s market is not only driven but depended on technology like mobile, internet. So technology is the way-out and may be only one because traditional mediums are kind of either became or becoming obsolete day by day. But does that mean, there isn't a way to utilize the technology and personalization together? I would say “sure thing, mate” we just have to find the break-even point. Don’t let the automation do what you are supposed to do. Use your gray matter then take help of technology to make the best use of it. I would like to have a personal touch with every one of my clients, because there is no way better than hard-way. Because usage of internet and mobile doesn't change my client or their mindset, then why should I.

Sometime I also think about this if I am working in this way (without personalization), why shouldn't I be replaced by a fully automated marketing system which will automatically find its target audience based upon given criteria, finds out the best marketing campaign previously worked on them change it with relevant data (up to date numbers and stats again) and run the campaigns and then follow up. Am I doing enough to be relevant in this world? Am I using my gray matters (automation's can be the result of gray matter but can’t evolve because it’s not with them) to the best? I would like to use technology as a cart behind horse, but the horse.

This is a personal scribble ground. The opinions expressed here are all personal they do not express any direct or indirect linkage to the organization I am attached to. But I love changes so they might be changing time to time. :o)

Personalized marketing glorified. Rightly so?

Personalized marketing indeed is a buzz word now. Reason of this new topic / technique / theory is same old reason of making marketing investment more fruitful and to make the process more streamlined & effective. But the beauty of marketing is its impact are not bonded or related directly into ROI. That's more of a sales thing, marketing can have its impact but direct sales values (obviously there are few specifically designed campaigns can generate revenue but without a guarantee). Marketing is more of an impact business, and convincing people for your clients. Coming back to the point topic we are here to discuss or dissect.

Before the start, we need to understand what is personalized marketing? It's not a rocket science but science of grass root. It tells about customers who are the very first reason we need marketing. Personalized marketing from its name itself means planning your marketing around each of customers differently. Even you will understand that all your customers are unique in their personalities, business patters, needs, demands, and aspirations. If your each customer is so different from each other how one marketing campaign can create the traction/requirement pull from all over of them. 

So is it something came from any alien planet? is it something we never knew about? Is it an invention or Innovation? Here comes the fact that previously we used to do the same with little more crude way i.e. segmentisized marketing which is again fading because of the very reason of its existence. So how it's different than segmentized marketing and personalized marketing? Personalized marketing is nothing but more refined (market research) and intelligent (statistical analysis) than its forefather. e.g.

Personalized Marketing = Existing Data + Market research + Statistics + Persona + Specialized Campaign Design + Segmentation + Marketing 

In today’s world need more targeted or pinpointed marketing where the concept of segment is each of your customers. One big benefit of this is your customer gets an overall feeling of personal touch in your communication towards them. It creates faith, trust that they will be in a hand who will visualize her/his profits or goods as their own. Problem of their own will be handled with a specific view which is very own to their company.

This concept can be best utilized or followed in B2C business and service industry than a product base environment. The basic reason for that is product is a result of customer requirement and has a static foundation. So the there is a static amount of rigidity comes along like a mobile banking app will not give you a Restaurant review (bluntly). All in all it does what marketing wants to do in the bestest way possible. It creates the visibility, along with trust. It creates brand as if it's your clients own extension. It's will delight your customers and push them to say Wow. Kudos to the concept. But is it viable in today's landscape where cost is still a big thing and companies are fighting a silo slow-downed business?

To understand that let’s talk about the concept in details along with some ground zero implementation part of it and find if it's worthy enough for a shot. I, personally would say yes and no. Why yes will be because it's a new concept, it has all potential to pay you back in near future. It  give you a delighted set of clients who will be happy that you are taking care / helping their business in the best way it can be done. You can have an awesome word of mouth business with the help your delighted customers and a good word about your services can make or break a deal for you. 

But (I hate to say this but word) is it all bed of roses no thrones along? I will say no (toad is making its sound again) there are hidden thrones which you will come to know once you start walking on these roads. Like there is fixed success way/method of doing it, or a ration of traditional / and personalized marketing (yes I am talking about hybrid model because I am skeptical enough to believe it 100%).  The main question of this kind of marketing model will be what’s the cost involved. Because from open play eye it's actually, but virtually impossible to have a campaign for each single of your customers unless you have less than 50 customers (its ball park figure). 

Let’s get into one step deeper; to have this kind of model implemented you need to identify different flags (e.g. Revenue, size, location, vertical, action points, recent actions, infrastructure etc.) of your existing customer base & pipeline. When I say flags it can simple means criteria. The accumulate those criteria s or flags into different division buckets to create a persona (persona is a fictional customer type with given attribute with maximum probability to buy your product. Persona is nothing but a set of customer, remember segmentation?). These personas will be your eyes and ears for whole campaign. 

These persona's will define how your customer will look like, what they do, how they do, how is their business, how you can help them. They will have pain points, happy points and delight points (You must have heard about the first one but the last 2, will have another blog explaining them). And you will build a campaign around each of these personas, why because these personas will have a set of background details and a set of problems attached to them. What you need to do the draw those relationship line, find out the actual issues and fit your product in such a way that your product is bet fit or built only for them. These personas will give you a glimpse of your segmented market and you will divide your target market into those segmented ones by matching those flags into your personas, and there you go. You have reached a level where you can start your personalized campaigns.

Now let’s think about what all channels are best fit for this (as per me digital is the best channel except CSR level contacts in a simple terms cheap is best) like TVC is the worst channel you can think of because of the cost involved. But on the other hand internet / digital / online channel seems to be an almost fit because of low cost quotient.

Let’s do a SWOT analysis of this concept and try to understand the summarized picture, 

Finally does personalized marketing really convince people? I would say being a customer myself, yes it does. For an example, last year I was traveling to my native place for a festival and I booked my tickets from an airline online through a merchant website. Now I didn't know they were tracking my travel, so this year I get a sudden call from the airline that I have a subsidized ticket during this year festival and I can book them within a month of time, with in this one month the ticket price will not change for me. So for personalized marketing there is a fair chance that I will book with the same airlines again. 

This is a personal scribble ground. The opinions expressed here are all personal they do not express any direct or indirect linkage to the organization I am attached to. But I love changes so they might be changing time to time. :o)

Data – From Big to Small and Real to Old

From last couple of days I am thinking about different marketing campaigns their designs, usage of different channels and most importantly role of data playing in them. During this wasted thinking items I was asking one question to myself.

Is it a good idea to go after real time data or depend on your predictive models for marketing? Now let me tell you why I am behind data this time. If I am correct the most important and expensive piece in any planning is data. More specifically so called real time data, you must be wondering why I am calling it ‘so called’ when the whole world is calling it otherwise?

The main reason behind this is why we call it as real time is the data just came out of the system. It’s as true / valid as it can be. It gives you the knowledge of what your customers / listeners / readers / prospective customers / the WORLD is thinking right now or doing right now or looking for right now. It can make you king / queen as you have the power to use the data as you want to make you successful. Now after all these you must be thinking that if I am agreeing to this then why I am not supporting the concept of it? The idea of using the real time data and become successful is a myth.

Four points to support my points,

• Real time data are way too expensive and get the actual value becomes hard for some company
• Getting meaningful information from those huge / small and clustered / un-clustered data takes some time
• Mold your existing / planned campaign with respect to the market demand and the kind of information coming out of these real time data takes time
• Decision making process in every company takes its own sweet time depending upon the company size and decision making flexibility

In above four points last three ones can take any time between couple of days to weeks to months, which actually makes the data no more real time but old time. As you know real time data in consumers market changes every day and business market might be not that fast because but it changes every quarter. So by the time you are ready to take an action on the data it became invalid for current time as some vendor will be ready to give you real time data of that date.

Once all these thinking done, I was looking for an easy way out. And guess what I had one which cheaper too. Let’s use the older data (a year may be) and a proven predictive model to give you an answer of what you are looking for. I think the older data are cheaper than real time. And I always feel comfortable working with older data and a proven statistical models to get the answers regarding campaign planning. This plan does work for me (Would love to know your experience on this).

Exclude the artificial intelligence systems which are making use of real time data, because they are best combinations for this concept. Gist of it can be if you have to make use of real time data in proper way, prepare a human free model.

Now the question is whether you are ready to pay, loads for something which you can’t actually use as it’s sold. It would be great if you can let me know your take on this in comments below, as I love to change my concepts if I am wrong.

This is a personal scribble ground. The opinions expressed here are all personal they do not express any direct or indirect linkage to the organization I am attached to. But I love changes so they might be changing time to time. :o)