“Contextual” engagement still delivers more value to marketers, not consumers…
Over 80% of consumers will pay for better experience, and a third would switch after a single poor experience. And digital marketers, punch-drunk on the promise of “contextual” engagement and “right place, right time, right message” activation through AI and mobile these past 5–10 years or so…. are not sufficiently prioritizing their customer’s experience. We’re just SPAMming better while consumers have yet to receive the benefits of ‘contextual’ engagement. To address this imbalance and deliver ongoing “experience value,” marketers must pay increasing attention (at once) to the three main drivers of experience value — new product delivery models, superior digital experience design, and meaningfully integrating digital to improve offline marketing activities.
First —the Uber and AirBnB generation looks at products and pricing delivery as context-driven, so marketers with ‘traditional’ products will need to monitor, evaluate, and even adjust their models to to stay relevant and grow mindshare and revenue. In a world where you can furnish your apartment by subscription (retail averse peeps — imagine not having to suffer through the Pottery Barn or IKEA visit! Or pay full-price up-front! Heaven…), marketers will have to do the hard work of explaining the value of their products and services, rather than bludgeon a demographically-appropriate audience to follow them over the declining business model cliff.
Second — the arms race of online content and search engine-optimized offers searching for clicks is symptomatic of a broader disease — that marketers have not delivered a sufficiently elegant digital experience that consumers, raised on CGI, VR/AR, and the like, are increasingly expecting. Even the most sophisticated and well-heeled marketers are not consistently delivering promotional experiences to persuade and convert likely audiences. We are still in the mass experimentation phase of digital experience design, with creative and differentiating experiences very much the exception not the rule when delivering ‘experience value.’ Marketers must collaborate more aggressively with technologists to solve this issue.
Third — as retailers reshape their in-store experiences in response to e-commerce, the future of retail is supposed to be an increasingly personalized and entertaining experience across sectors. But if you put the few high-profile “Apple store-like” examples aside, much of the digital integration with offline is in the geo-tactical wasteland of proximity-based mobile app-driven offers, or in-store screens that serve to orient the visitor but really deliver much more value to the marketer in the form of ‘contextual’ on-screen offers and data-driven insights on popular products. This ‘value imbalance’ extends into B2B, where event managers derive great value from badge-tracking technologies and geo-fenced advertising while attendees might receive a bit ‘contextual’ value through navigation support and presentation slides through an event app…
Delivering ‘experience value’ is a mandate for digital marketers — and those who instrument their platforms, processes, and investments to address the current ‘value imbalance’ will inevitably SPAM less and meaningfully engage more. Consumers recognize the value in a ‘contextual’ experience, even if they understand they are being blatantly marketed to in the process. Long-term high customer satisfaction and retention will result from rebalancing the value equation between marketers and consumers — achieved by prioritizing “engagement value” across touchpoints.
