One-to-one Marketing for Millions: Winning in Dialogue Marketing

Consumers today have numerous options to choose from and want relevant offers across all channels. Companies across industries need to connect with the consumers to know them better and have one-to-one dialogues with them to develop meaningful relationships across multiple geographies, segments, channels and brands. Dialogue marketing can play a crucial role in making CPG marketing effective. It is about sending personalized messages to consumers consistently across channels.

The CPG marketing strategy requires marketers to contend with a raft of complicated inputs—from a dynamic channel mix and multiple brands to an unprecedented data influx and geographies with diverse languages and cultures.

An effective one-to-one marketing campaign requires a combination of strategies, data, analytics tools and automation technologies. CPG marketers must use these together to get a real-time and cost-effective action at scale that balances global brand identity with local market influences.

This point of view discusses in detail the importance of dialogue marketing in the digital age and what should companies do to be successful in their CPG marketing goals.

With consumers increasing demanding a personalized experience, the digital channel can help marketers create relevant and distinct consumer experiences cost effectively. Several studies support the significant impact that digital channel can have on strengthening consumer’s connection with the brand and its role in enabling successful dialogue marketing.

Marketing mix today is an increasingly complex combination of multichannel campaigns, loyalty programs, social communities, e-commerce, mobile and online advertising. A company’s size, geographic presence, number of brands, target audience and marketing budgets influence how it uses different elements of the marketing mix.

Irrespective of the marketing mix, CPG marketers must embrace dialogue marketing to successfully deliver personalized consumer experiences that drive value and competitive distinction. They must shift from traditional push strategies to more dynamic pull strategies to connect with the consumers.

One-to-one marketing is crucial to drive revenue generation and cost savings. It also helps marketers manage consumer preferences, attain consumer loyalty, promote brand upscaling and increase the share of wallet from the best customers.

Companies that do not distinguish themselves or fail to reach parity in dialogue marketing will not realize these benefits and most likely lose customers and market share.

Working with marketers across industries, Accenture has found three essential components to create an effective one-to-one marketing campaign. These are as follows:

• Acquire: Consumers accept brand communication at the point of purchase or through e-mail, social networks and mobile messages.

• Engage: Companies create an experience across every channel, one that develops an emotional connection with the brands.

• Optimize: Every relationship is mined to build more incremental sales. Using in-depth customer profiles, companies optimize the content and offers, and deepen the relationship.

To achieve the desired returns from one-to-one marketing programs, CPG companies must focus on:

1. Maintaining a relentless focus on content: Use customer relationship management as a foundation to engage in meaningful dialogues with customers based on insights from their social activity.

2. Delivering relevance at scale: Unleash relevant experiences across all channels, consumer intent segments and geographies consistently. This requires scaling every essential function—channels, actionable data insights, segmented content and enabling technologies—cost effectively.

3. Relying on the right technology foundation: Use technology to provide immediate, personalized responses. This requires an integrated technical platform to facilitate customer data integration from multiple sources, including consumer databases, e-mail service providers and social media. The platform must also provide actionable insights.

4. Developing a plan for big data: Leverage all consumer data—from sources including e-commerce platforms, product registration, e-mail campaigns, Web analytics, social media, service and support databases, product reviews, and demographics and psychographics—to provide a 360-degree view of the consumer.

5. Maintaining a continual focus on performance outcomes: Evaluate performance metrics to understand which tactics work the best. These metrics also establish organizational memory, allowing companies to move faster and more confidently when metrics are monitored continuously.