Lockdown has accelerated trends in digital that were already in motion. The data from our latest webinar shows just how important it is for brands to embrace data-led customer understanding
The third in our recovery guide webinar series ran last week – covering ways to optimise online to win sales. It just proves that necessity is the mother of invention because, before the lockdown, I would never have thought I’d be organising a webinar never mind a series.
It’s like anything – once you’ve done it once you lose your fear of it, and realise its benefits. Before long it becomes a new habit.
The lockdown has had a similar impact on the rest of our habits. From click and collect to family Zoom calls, technology has helped us adapt to this new socially distanced world, and I think that some of these habits are going to stick.
That’s what I think, but we also checked the temperature with our audience during our webinar, too, to see what changes they have seen and how their businesses are responding.
We’ve all experienced the adoption of digital channels for online streaming, grocery deliveries and video chat. Each of these has seen rises in adoption of more than 30%, according to McKinsey's Consumer Pulse Survey – March 15 to May 3rd 2020.
Indeed, we asked our audience at the webinar: “What percentage shift online would you associate with your business?”. 80% of the audience had seen at least a 20% increase and 10% had seen a shift of over 60%. That’s a pretty staggering temperature check.
If a business can capitalise on that sort of market buying trend, perhaps just by making theirs a more frictionless process for the user, they will be streets ahead of their competition.
How well we understand people has a big impact on how relevant, personalised, and empathetic we can be. The same goes for a brand.
In the 'new normal', the brand winners will be the ones that treat people as individuals and can deliver this frictionless digital customer experience.
The two biggest opportunities offered by digital are the fact that it provides a direct channel to people, and crucially a pure source of data about how people are behaving and buying.
So, not only can a brand speak to its audience but they can listen to them too.
Over the course of our webinar we also asked the marketing audience: “how sophisticated is your targeting approach online?”
Our poll showed that most businesses run campaigns to people as individuals, but no one currently has the ability to recognise a customer and deliver dynamic digital interaction to them.
Almost 40% rely on anonymous digital targeting and profiling.
It’s possible to truly optimise a customer experience and deliver more relevant content if you already know where they are in the sales funnel. Stitching together recent browsing behaviour with their customer purchase data means a much fuller picture of the individual and the patterns that help optimise the digital estate.
When we asked our audience how 'intelligent' they consider their current digital set up, more than 70% indicated their current digital intelligence level had room for improvement.
The ‘old world’ broadcast marketing and footfall model is breaking down. It was already so with a 20% shift online, but this pandemic is accelerating that trend.
With a big and lasting shift to online buying habits (and there is good reason to believe that's what's coming) brands will need to get to know their audiences better and engage in a two-way dialogue.