Future-Marketing , becoming Big Social Mobile Connecting the Digital to the Physical – Data Bridges 101
Magazine columns are much like life — you have a plan about where you are going and then life steps in . At the end of the last column I wrote that we ’ d talk about what personalization really should be . But on a sales call last week I had a brush with reality . I was talking to a company that really means it when they said they want to connect more closely to their clients , providing great CX , and then using that to build a customer-centric value proposition .
Awesome . No surprise the CMO was super focused on the latest digital marketing methods and wanted it all : great content , delivered via personalized messages , tracking open rates and patterns of movement across their website , and integrate all of this into the sales and customer service processes . I hesitate to say it but , he wanted to be Big Social Mobile . I was quite happy .
He could explain every component , what content would extend his reach and improve engagement , the topics that his customers were sentimental about , and how each fit with each social platform . He also knew customer service had to provide a good experience , as did their installation and repair technicians in the field — although neither were his responsibility . And he had a basic plan on how sales would operate — although that too wasn ’ t his direct responsibility .
At the heart of being Big Social Mobile is providing a true omni-channel across both the digital and physical interactions , so it was a natural follow-on when I asked how he would connect all those digital efforts to the physical activities of sales , customer service and mobile workforce ? And was rewarded with a well-practiced social media answer , which is to say it was high in sentiment and low in content .
He was hung up on the most basic concept that eludes social practitioners , even social media experts : social media is purely digital in concept and execution , whereas no matter what customers buy , where they buy it , or from whom , the customer is always sitting in the physical world , and they will always use the product or service in the physical world — even if they are sitting alone in front of a laptop . The two must be connected because they are connected in the real world .
Consider Pokémon Go . It is revolutionary not because of its first insightful application of augmented reality ( which is really just the gimmick that draws people in ; it is typically turned-off by serious players ) but because it has completely broken down the barrier between the digital world and the physical world . Innumerable games take place in purely digital worlds , but none of them have the ability to influence what restaurant parents chose because their kids will sit quietly if there ’ s a pokestop nearby , or which hotels they will chose for the family vacation because it has a poke-gym in it . Say what you want about the craze , but it has change buyer behavior because it seamlessly connects the physical and digital — and that ’ s what your company must do as well .
Connecting the physical and digital isn ’ t actually difficult . But it is a data problem that marketers alone cannot solve and therefore notoriously difficult . It requires both process and technology changes that focus on data generation and integration , so that the resulting information bridges the digital divide .
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