A 10-year retrospective by Dr Dave Chaffey F IDM (2000-2010)
The transition from direct to interactive marketing has presented many challenges and many contributors have helped the IDM by suggesting how marketing practices should change. Dave Chaffey's review is a personal perspective on the significant changes in marketing concepts and practice over the last 10 years as reflected by contributions to the IDM Journal. |
“In the last 10 years we have witnessed a transformation in marketing practice due to the impact of digital technologies. Over this period the innovations in marketing this has made possible have been highlighted by contributors to Interactive Marketing (more recently renamed, the Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice).
The transition from direct to interactive marketing has presented many challenges and many contributors have helped us by suggesting how marketing practices should change.
My review is a personal perspective on the significant changes in marketing concepts and practice over the last 10 years as reflected by contributions to the IDM Journal. When reviewing the range of papers published, some common themes emerged over the period, so rather than presenting a listing of papers, this review is based around these major themes:
- CRM and data management »
- Integrated communications »
- Consumer behaviour and attitudes »
- Branding »
- Multichannel marketing »
- Marketing governance »
- Marketing optimisation »
For each theme, I have selected what I believe to be the most significant, engaging and useful papers. These take different forms, whether they are academic frameworks, overviews of an emerging concept, descriptions of best practice or case studies.”
CRM and data management
We start in the first issue of Interactive Marketing in 1999 with a review by Robert Shaw [1] of best practice in measuring the success of customer relationship management (CRM) strategy, a fundamental approach that has remained a key marketing challenge over the past 10 years. Shaw notes that, at this time, business frameworks for goal-setting and performance assessment often did not take proper account of customers. In the appendix he provides a useful audit checklist which is still relevant for organisations to check today. The popularity of current approaches such as Voice of the Customer and Net Promoter Score show advances organisations have made in developing a customer-centred approach to marketing.
The second paper I have selected I clearly recall reading back in 2002 since it was a particularly detailed case study of a large-scale CRM implementation. The paper by Martin Nitsche [2] describes a methodology followed within Deutsche Bank to create the fabled "360 degree view" of the customer made possible through conjoined data sets; he describes a data model of over 1,000 fields in 100 different database tables! Of course, data integration from multiple and increasing sources is a technical challenge many organisations are still striving to achieve today. As well as describing the technical approach, this pair of papers is also notable for its description of how CRM aligned with business strategy and success measured through regular customer surveys.
Integrated communications and media synergy
Our third paper discusses another theme which has been important across the last 10 years. The paper Media synergy: The next frontier in a multimedia marketplace [3] from 2006 is by Don Schultz, a contributor to the Journal in 2009 on the same topic. In his original paper, he argues for a model of media neutral planning where the media planner considers the interaction between different media forms in a more holistic way. We return to this theme at the end of this review.
Consumer behaviour and attitudes
When we need to find a new product, supplier or experience, nearly everyone who can will unquestioningly turn to their favourite search engine and for many this means Google. This shift away from marketing push to consumer pull is one of the most dramatic changes in consumer behaviour over the last 10 years. A 2006 paper by Wilson and Pettijohn [4] recommends keyword strategies companies should use to tap into the rich seam of information that is available about customer search behaviour through tools such as the Google Keyword Tool.
Many would argue that an even more significant change in consumer behaviour facilitated by digital media is the growth in the online interactions directly between empowered customers and companies. Marketers have adopted the term "Web 2.0" to collectively describe the technologies and marketing approaches used to enable consumers to interact through a bewildering selection of feeds, wikis, social networks, reviews and ratings and mashups of all of these. Our 5th paper [5] explains five different categories of Web 2.0 applications and strategies marketers can adopt to exploit their potential.
But, consumer response to the digital technologies has not been entirely positive. Indeed, consumers are rightly highly protective about their personal data as companies like Facebook, Google and TK Maxx have discovered to their cost. Our next paper by Keith Fletcher [6] describes privacy as the "Achilles heel" of new marketing in its title. It reviews new consumer expectations for direct marketing within an era of request or permission marketing and outlines the importance of developing a privacy strategy and policies.
Branding
It has been essential for brands to develop new ways to remain relevant and engaging in the digital era. A paper from de Chernatony and Christodoulides [7] describes a holistic framework for using digital channels to support the brand experience. One of the key concepts covered is the need to develop what I term a compelling "online value proposition" which leverages the unique communications characteristics of online channels. The authors refer to this as a "differential reward" for the channel and suggest that brand marketers should ask why their customers would prefer a web or digital interaction to an interaction in other channels.
Multichannel marketing
Many of the concepts I have described relate to adapting to digital media. While a large proportion of products are now purchased or influenced online within some markets such as information products, financial services and travel, this does not mean that traditional media channels are unimportant in influencing sales. Companies that have succeeded in the digital era understand how to facilitate and measure the customer journey to purchase across channels. For example, Dell use E-codes and product category URLs to direct prospects to specific online locations and connects site browsers to its people through call-back and channel-specific phone card options. In this category, the paper by Bazett et al. (2005) [8] remains valuable in providing a balanced scorecard-based framework for setting goals and measuring multichannel effectiveness.
Marketing governance
Organisations which have thrived over the past 10 years seem to me to be those that have successfully adapted to the changes and have shown strategic agility within their markets. Managing changes to staff skills, organisational structures and the processes of defining and executing strategy have proved essential to remaining competitive. In this category, a paper by Andrew Parsons [9], then a consultant at McKinsey on "organising for the interactive marketing of tomorrow" was and remains helpful for considering alternative strategies and structures to support digital channels.
Marketing optimisation
Within the papers I have selected, there is a common theme of finding ways to increase understanding of customers and communicating with them in an integrated form across different channels. Our last paper by Angus Jenkinson [10] reminds us of the future commitment needed for optimisation of marketing communications in what some are now describing as the post-digital marketing era where digital interactions integrated with other channels are now the norm.
Jenkinson describes communications optimisation as involving deeper understanding of customer groups, managing customers on a lifetime basis and requiring a universal communication and planning framework. He also notes the importance of managing and exploiting customer knowledge collected across many touchpoints, with his research suggesting this is a particular weakness for many brands.
The wealth of information available to companies about their marketplace, their customers and their campaigns gives a fantastic opportunity to improve competitiveness. But it creates its own challenges of integrating the data sources and providing the best analytics systems and processes such that staff use this data to take action to improve performance. Communications optimisation across multiple channels and customer touchpoints will perhaps be the biggest challenge for marketing-led organisations into the future.
My nominations, therefore, for the most significant ten articles in the first decade of this Journal's publication are summarised below:
Ten most significant articles
[1] Shaw, R. (2000) Measuring, managing and improving the performance of CRM, Interactive Marketing, Vol. 1 No. 1
[2] Nitsche, M. (2002) Developing a truly customer-centric CRM system: Part one — strategic and architectural implementation, Interactive Marketing, Vol. 3 No. 3
[3] Schultz, D. (2006) Media synergy: The next frontier in a multimedia marketplace, Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, Vol. 8 No. 1
[4] Wilson, R.F. and Pettijohn, J.B. Search engine optimisation: A primer on keyword strategies. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, Vol. 8 No. 2
[5] Efthymios Constantinides, E. and Fountain, S.J. (2008) Web 2.0: Conceptual foundations and marketing issues, Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, Vol. 9 No. 3
[6] Fletcher, K. (2001) Privacy: The Achilles' heel of the new marketing — Keith Fletcher, Interactive Marketing, Vol. 3 No. 2
[7] de Chernatony, L. and Christodoulides, G. (2004) Taking the brand promise online: Challenges and opportunities, Interactive Marketing, Vol. 5 No. 3
[8] Bazett, B., Bowden, I., Love, J. Street, R. and Wilson, H. (2005) Measuring multichannel effectiveness using the balanced scorecard, Interactive Marketing, Vol. 6 No. 3
[9] Parsons, A.J. (1999) Organising for the interactive marketing of tomorrow, Interactive Marketing, Vol. 1 No. 2
[10] Jenkinson, A. (2007) Learning from integrated marketing: How to optimise personalised customer marketing strategies (Part 2), Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, Vol. 8 No. 4.
Related articles
The articles referenced by Dave Chaffey often form part of a series or develop a theme spread across Journal volumes. Here, for easier access, are some of those with a direct correlation:
Developing a truly customer-centric CRM system: Part two — analysis and campaign management, Martin Nitsche, Interactive Marketing, Vol. 3 No. 4 »
Integrated marketing and its implications for personalised customer marketing strategies — Angus Jenkinson and Brian Mathews, Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice Vol. 8 No. 3 »
Media synergy comes of age — Part 1 — Don E. Schultz, Martin Block and Kalyan Raman, Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice Vol. 11 No. 1 »
Media synergy comes of age — Part 2 — Don E. Schultz, Martin Block and Kalyan Raman, Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice Vol. 11 No. 2 »
Search engine optimisation: A primer on linkage strategies — Ralph F. Wilson and James B. Pettijohn, Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice Vol. 8 No. 3 »
Search engine optimisation: A primer on outsourcing key tasks — Ralph F. Wilson and James B. Pettijohn, Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice Vol. 10 No. 2 »
About the author
Dr Dave Chaffey F IDM of Marketing Insights Limited is a consultant, trainer and author specialising in digital marketing. His books include Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice and Ebusiness and Ecommerce Management. He helped develop the IDM Certificate and Diploma in Digital Marketing for which he is a tutor and examiner.
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