Europe Executive summary

Transcription

1 A report from The Economist Intelligence Unit The path to 2020: Marketers seize the customer experience Europe Executive summary Sponsored by

2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Chief marketing officers (CMOs) are betting that personalised customer experiences will drive marketing from now through 2020, according to a global survey of 499 CMOs and senior marketing executives conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and sponsored by Marketo. This executive summary studies the outlook for Europe, which accounted for 30% of the global survey. It analyses selected responses from small and medium-sized European firms with less than US$500m in annual revenue and larger firms with more than US$500m in annual revenue. The survey data reveal that both small & medium sized and large European firms are focused on personalised customer experience and dialogue as a driving force in lieu of repeated exposure to mass advertising. However, different sized European marketing organisations diverge with regard to the tactics or time scales required for completing this transformation. Specifically, this executive summary highlights the following survey findings: l Europe s marketers are pivoting to customer experience: 90% of European respondents expect to own the customer experience in their organisations by 2020, up from 79% who believe that today. l Marketing must drive revenue: The combined survey data reveal that 85% of European marketers today believe marketing is a revenue driver, a figure that grows to 91% by Small & medium sized organisations are taking an aggressive approach, with 94% of respondents expecting the marketing department to grow revenue by 2020, up from 87% today. l evolves as a customer channel: By 2020, social media swaps places with the World Wide Web as the number-one channel to the customer for both small & medium sized and large European firms (62% versus 54%, respectively). However, as the third channel to the customer drops off precipitously. In the case of small & medium sized firms, declines from 48% today who think it is a topthree channel to 31% by Large firms recorded a similar drop from 46% in favour of today to 29% by l Talent and data are top-of-mind: By 2020, the top two objectives for European firms include having the right mix of creative and technical talent (49%), and having a single source of customer data across channels (44%). 1

3 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, ROI AND REVENUE GROWTH Europe s marketing organisations are pivoting to customer experience and two-way dialogue as the driving force for customer acquisition and revenue growth. According to the EIU survey, 90% of European respondents expect to own the customer experience in their organisations by 2020, up from 79% who believe that today. However, small & medium sized European firms (less than US$500m in annual revenue) and large firms (more than US$500m in annual revenue) rank their customer experience performance quite differently. Only 6% of Europe s small & medium sized firms today believe they set the standard for customer experience, while 16% of large organisations believe they set the standard. That said, small & medium sized European marketing organisations are pursuing greater ownership of the customer experience. The survey reported 76% of European respondents in small & medium sized firms believe marketing should own the customer experience, a figure that climbs to 92% by In contrast, while 82% of respondents in large organisations own the customer experience today, that figure grows just 6 points to 88% by This focus on customer experience, especially by small & medium sized firms, runs in parallel with a relative de-emphasis on demonstrating ROI connected to campaigns by marketing departments. In the combined European data, the number of respondents who agree that marketing must demonstrate ROI fell slightly from 86% who believe it today Please indicate your agreement/disagreement with the following statements describing your marketing organisation now and in 2020 (% of respondents) Now In 2020 Agree Disagree Agree Disagree Marketing must demonstrate return on investment (ROI) Marketing owns the customer experience Marketing has significant input into organisational strategy decisions Marketing has significant input into organisational technology decisions Marketing is a revenue driver Marketing has significant input into product and service innovation Source: Economist Intelligence Unit survey,

4 to 82% who believe it in Small & medium sized European organisations seem even less concerned with ROI, with the figure dropping from 92% of today s small firms to 82% of them by These data seem counter-intuitive. However, a plausible explanation is that Europe s marketers have become better at measuring and calculating the efficiency of a given marketing campaign. Consequently, they are now focusing more on how to grow revenue from marketing activities. The combined survey data reveal that 85% of European marketers today believe that marketing is a revenue driver, a figure that grows to 91% by Small & medium sized organisations are taking an aggressive approach, with 94% of respondents expecting the marketing department to grow revenue by 2020, up from 87% today. Large organisations are focusing on revenue growth as well, growing 5 points from 83% today to 88% by

5 TECHNOLOGY DRIVERS AND CHANNEL CHOICES European respondents selected mobile devices and networks, personalisation technologies and IoT as the three main technology trends that will affect marketing organisations most by Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) plus predictive analytics round out the top five forces that will affect marketing. Specifically for Big Data/AI, small & medium sized and large European organisations are separated by almost ten points (34% versus 45%, respectively) in how they view the effect of these technologies on marketing in In contrast, only four points separate small and large firms in their opinion of predictive analytics (34% versus 38%, respectively). One way to read the data is that large firms tend to have larger data repositories as a matter of course. They have more data to manage and potentially more value to gain by using Big Data/AI capabilities to sift these data stores for patterns. Undoubtedly, these new technology capabilities are influencing which customer channels will dominate the European marketing scene from now through When asked about the top three channels through which customers experience a marketing organisation s efforts today, the combined European survey population chose the World Wide Web (65%), social media (49%) and (47%). Small & medium sized European firms were more web-centric today (73%) than large organisations (59%). In addition, small & medium sized European organisations today are slightly less committed to social media (45%) than large ones (53%). By 2020, social media swaps places with the World Wide Web as the number-one channel to the customer for both small & medium sized and large European firms (62% versus 54%, respectively). However, as What are the top three channels through which customers experience your organisation's marketing efforts today and in 2020? (% of respondents) Today In Web Social media Print Mobile web Mobile apps Direct mail Television Radio Other Source: Economist Intelligence Unit survey,

6 the third channel to the customer drops off precipitously. In the case of small & medium sized firms, declines from 48% today who think it is a top-three channel to 31% by Large firms recorded a similar drop from 47% in favour of today to 29% by In the same time period, mobile web and mobile apps replace as the third main customer channel in In the combined European survey population, both mobile web and mobile apps ranked at 30% of respondents today who believe them to be a top channel to the customer. Fast-forward to 2020 and mobile web grows to 48% of all European respondents while mobile apps reaches 44%. 5

7 PRIORITIES, OBJECTIVES AND CAPABILITIES NEEDED BY 2020 Based on their choices for what drives change in marketing as well as preferred channels to the customer, it is clear that Europe s marketers are re-casting their organisations around sustained two-way dialogue and engagement with their customers. This is in contrast to orienting marketing organisations around the most targeted placements of marketing messages on various media platforms. The evidence of this shift goes beyond technology to include management and strategy. All European respondents are focused on improving customer retention and loyalty as their top priority (49%). A second priority is to improve conversion rates across channels (41%). There are more pronounced differences between small & medium sized and large firms when it comes to which objectives will meet the above two priorities. The top two objectives for small & medium sized and large European firms by 2020 include having the right mix of creative and technical talent (49%), and having a single source of customer data across channels (44%). At the same time, there is a wide gap between small & medium sized and large firms when it comes to the importance of having a single source of customer data. In this case, small & medium sized firms are fully 11 points above large firms (50% versus 39%, respectively) in their pursuit of a single customer data resource. Small & medium sized European firms are also well above the global survey population (41%) who ranked a single source of customer data as a strategic priority. Both small organisations (29%) and large What is the top benefit you are pursuing today with these transformation efforts around customer experience and building the marketing organisation of the future? What will be the top benefit you expect to realise by 2020? (% of respondents) Today In Better ability to measure and understand customer preferences and behaviour Better personalisation capabilities for customer experience Being an employer-ofchoice for top-tier talent in technology and creative Better ability to measure and understand marketing effectiveness and ROI Creating a data-informed culture of decision-making and innovation Creating new branding channels or platforms Better execution capabilities for creative and user experience (UX) across channels Source: Economist Intelligence Unit survey,

8 ones (28%) selected better understanding of customer behaviour as the top benefit resulting from their transformation efforts today around customer experience and data. This is above the global survey population (21%), which listed understanding customer behaviour as the top benefit today. Moving to 2020, European respondents both small & medium sized firms (23%) and large firms (20%) view better personalisation of the customer experience as the ultimate benefit of all this work, again somewhat above the global consensus (17%). 7

9 CONCLUSION: THE PAYOFF Both small & medium sized and large European marketing organisations agree that marketing s future will be dominated by data and analytics capabilities that enable customer experience-based dialogue and engagement with the customer to happen across mobile and social media at scale At the same time, Europe s marketers recognise they have significant ground to cover from now through 2020 to realise their goal of becoming custodians of the customer journey. Over the course of the survey, European respondents have shifted marketing emphasis from media channels and campaigns to personalisation and customer experience. This suggests that digital is now mainstream marketing in Europe and vice-versa. More broadly, the survey data suggest that Europe s marketers are focusing on datadriven conversational relationships with their customers more than reach and frequencydriven publishing relationships. 8

10 Whilst every effort has been taken to verify the accuracy of this information, neither The Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd. nor the sponsor of this report can accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this report or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the report Cover: Shutterstock 9

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