Are You Ready to Reinvent Marketing?

Join us April 30 to lead the charge at Journey Summit

Marketing as we know it is changing—and the exciting part is we’re the ones who get to transform the space. As Seth Godin, one of my favorite authors (and keynote speaker at our Journey Summit!), says: “The job isn’t to catch up to the status quo; the job is to invent the status quo.”

In today’s digital world, marketers are creating and sustaining lasting relationships with the customer. But the job is much harder today than it’s ever been. With more choice, more access to information, and less incentive to be loyal, customers are firmly in control of their relationships with companies. Consider recent research from Salesforce where 80% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services.

Marketers agree: More than two-thirds say their companies compete mostly on the basis of CX, according to Gartner. And in two years’ time, 81% say they expect to be competing mostly or completely on the basis of CX.

Suffice it to say, the nature of marketing itself is evolving—digital, social, mobile, data, analytics. Marketers are shifting their focus from pushing messages at people to engaging them in an ongoing conversation and relationship.

A Thought Leadership Event to Discuss the Latest Trends

With so much evolving, we wanted to create an event that brings together the best and brightest minds to discuss how to compete in this changing landscape. On April 30 we will host our Journey Summit in Philadelphia. The headline for business success comes down to the simplicity of putting the customer front and center. Give them what they want—relevant, helpful information so they can make the best purchase decisions.

The focus of the event is on the space we support, what we call major-life purchase (MLP) industries such as cars, loans, insurance, homes, and education. MLPs are big-ticket items that entail a complex buying decision with a high degree of financial and emotional risk. These decisions take significant consideration and research and require a unique marketing approach.  

MLP marketers are recognizing that their jobs have dramatically changed from being responsible for mass outreach to meeting the consumer at the right time with the right message to creating a great experience. The right time: when they’re known to be in market; the right message: depending on where they are in their journey.

During Summit we’ll discuss a simple, yet effective, framework to help ensure high customer lifetime value. This includes:

• Targeting people, not devices or opaque audiences. Access to strong identity resolution is a must.
• Concentrating on consumer behaviors as signals of where the consumer is in their buying process. Demographics can help by knowing characteristics of individuals, but do not indicate their intent.
• Utilizing analytics to understand how you can best meet the consumer where they are in the buying process.
• Making the shopping process helpful to the customer not spammy, annoying, or intrusive.
• Keeping your customers and your business safe, avoiding risky or non-compliant interaction.

An MLP marketer needs to stay in tune with customer decision stages, individual preferences, implicit behaviors, and which marketing programs (in a litany of choices) are attributed to success. Join us in Philadelphia to share your experiences, build valuable connections, and develop practical solutions to today’s constantly evolving business landscape. Together, we can transform marketing.

Check out the agenda and let me know if you have any questions. I hope to see you there!

Ross Shanken is CEO at Jornaya.