DMAi 2014 Convention: Day two – E-mail marketing, privacy concerns and consumer experience

On day two of the DMAi 2014 Convention, Jodie Sangster, CEO and company secretary, Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA), presented on ‘Global trends and forecast’. She mentioned a research by The Chief Marketing Officer Council for ‘Media allocation in 2013’, which showed an increase in online media and mobile. The report cited big investments in mobile banner advertising and less investment in applications, which according to her should be the other way round.

Quoting from the global research, she also noted that print media was seeing a decrease in investment, and areas such as social media and search engine optimisation were attracting larger spends.

Sangster said, “For the first time last year, e-mail (marketing) has decreased. The effectiveness of e-mail is probably dropping. So e-mail needs to be supplemented with telephone marketing so when people are sending an e-mail, there is a telephone follow up to make sure that someone is actually responding to an e-mail campaign.”

She noted, "In the years to come, privacy will be the world's biggest issue." She supported her statement with a video that showed a man talking to various other people face-to-face, and telling them about their most recent purchase, with personal details on amount spent, credit card number, and so on. This left the individuals shocked and curious about how that man knew so much about them. Their Facebook and other social media accounts are shown subsequently. The film ends with a super on the screen: "Your entire life is online. Be vigilant."

Sangster expressed concern on obtaining a proper measurement system for customer engagement. “Currently, it is measured in terms of how many people are landing on your website, whereas that does not clearly state what they are doing after coming on your website and whether they are staying and actually connecting to your products or not,” she said.

According to her, the biggest challenge will be to produce the type of content that will make the consumer stick. She explained, “Every single brand knows something to put into a story. Now the challenge is how I am distributing it.”

She cited the example of McDonald's in Canada - the case of creating an open dialogue with consumers by telling them to ask any question on the brand, when health issues came into the spotlight. The campaign received phenomenal results and the brand won many awards for it too, she noted.

Sangster surmised by saying that the biggest focus area in future will be customer experience, underlining that putting the customer first will prove to be the differentiation for brands.