For Condé Nast, it’s not just about bringing more eyes to the media brand’s many websites.

For many organizations, the coronavirus has altered the way people work—with the most obvious change, of course, coming in the form of closed offices and people working remotely. B2B firms are no exception. However, in these days of social distancing, it’s especially important that companies remain connected with their employees and customers.

In this exclusive interview with CMO by Adobe, Heaps talks about how data has been a game-changer for Staples, fueling the retailer’s ability to drill into demographic clues, target each individual customer, and create a more personalized experience.

Millennials and Gen Zs view traditional loyalty programs as “manipulative,” “hierarchical,” and “built around exclusions.”

Those are highlights from VoC research conducted by ERDM for Detroit-based watchmaker Shinola, which was looking to revamp its loyalty program. These points also underscore findings from similar research done for other brands, whose customers, across all generations, have knocked loyalty programs for tying rewards to the number of transactions. They emphasized the betrayal they feel when brand love evaporates if they stop purchasing for a while.

Despite the fact “algorithms” is part of her title, Kamelia Aryafar, Overstock.com’s chief customer and algorithms officer, is all about gathering explicit feedback from customers rather than relying solely on computer data and making click-based assumptions.

If your key metrics focus on measuring how many and how much, it's time to expand your metrics to include human data which will tell you why customers are not feeling valued, and how they want you to improve their customer experience with your brand.

When we read about personalized marketing, we tend to think first about B2C—the ads for camping gear we’ll see on a website because we last searched for “tents” on Amazon, for example. Yet what about B2B personalized marketing? It exists and, perhaps surprisingly, welcomed.

Let’s discuss two factors that will derail your marketing: lack of trust and lack of feeling valued.

If consumers do not have a perception of trust regarding your company, they’ll have no interest in anything you have to say to them. Similarly, if you do not demonstrate to consumers that you value them, this will further erode their trust and they will move on. 

This article was featured on CMO.com, an Adobe-owned publication offering insights to marketing professionals. It is based on findings from nine months of customer experience-focused voice-of-the-customer research conducted by ERDM. 

A recent study by Retail Info Systems asked execs, ‘Who does personalisation best?’.* The highest-ranking answer? ‘No one’!

A colleague recently ran into a very frustrating customer experience. This situation raises the question— why are so many companies placing the burden for good CX on the customer?

Jon Affatato is a director in global marketing operations at American Express, where he is responsible for vendor management, execution of prospect and customer acquisition direct marketing, and web personalization. 

Personalization isn't just a buzzword; it's the cornerstone of any well-executed marketing strategy.

Too many marketers assume that their strategies and offers are engaging their customers. This assumption is often wrong. Unless you are engaged in two-way dialogue and providing value-added communications…you have NO idea what customers think about your business and your marketing tactics.

Sean Ebeling applies his passion for personalized, results-driven marketing at financial services firm Edward Jones, where he is a CX specialist and part of the client experience team. 

Use B2B and B2C information to drive proactive, explicit personalization. Start with our 24 Tips for CX Innovation by downloading the whitepaper.

During a recent conversation with Ruth Crowley, vice president of customer experience design at Lowe’s, I was struck by her statement that “to the customer, it is not an omnichannel experience. It is their experience.”