“The new era of marketing begins now” – a bold claim. Especially when it is in a marketing manifesto (which you can have a look at here).
I have been an IBM client for 5 years, before joining the big blue in Australia. As a technical expert for marketing solutions, I have been exposed to branding and name changes within the IBM marketing solutions a lot. Most of my clients however always have been resistant to these name changes IBM has applied, as they still call our solutions by their original brand names, e.g. Unica or Silverpop.
So having undergone a new transformation in the beginning of 2017 is nothing new – you could argue. Moving to Watson Customer Engagement could just be another one of those name changes. You could not be more wrong this time though. IBM is moving things in the marketing world.
Looking now back on my 8 years relationship with this brand, I have never felt this energised and agreed more on where we are going. I am also not the only one. Recent months have shown an amazing flow of talented individuals to IBM’s Watson Customer Engagement.
Some examples, like Richard Hearn, our new GM & Chief Revenue Officer comes with heaps of experience from Razorfish, Mark Simpson the founder of Maxymiser is now running our product management and of course the talented team at the steering wheel, like Melanie Butcher, Jay Henderson and Arjen Van Der Broek.
So the foundation is in place for some true change. A cognitive set of solutions with Watson as a core driver for innovation. Here is part of our value statement:
“Watson Marketing combines business and marketing expertise with industry-leading solutions that are embedded with cognitive capabilities. Uncover new levels of actionable insights, deliver powerful and personalized experiences that customers want and value, and discover innovative ideas that provide a competitive edge.”
Simple, but yet powerful statement. Simplicity is also what drives our go to market. See below for the 3 major entry points we see for clients in the market:
Take the brand new Watson Marketing Insights (WMI) for instance. Customer data holds insights that can only be unlocked with analytics. The results can help you create campaigns that deliver a new level of success. An analytics solution for marketers that provide the insights to drive results. WMI is a cloud-based solution that surfaces critical customer insights and recommends target audiences to help marketers drive more effective customer interactions.
A solution that will also bring new ways to how we work with data in the first place, like performing segmentation with a graphical interface and learning on segment details as you drill down. Something I have been looking forward to for a long time. But more on this soon…
Another fantastic example of this new strategy coming together is the application of weather data to marketing. A feature called Weather FX…
One more example is the upcoming release of our Cognitive Rules Advisor.
Watson Real-Time Personalization helps digital marketers improve customer experience and makes personalization easier by learning through each interaction and delivering the right content to each visitor in the context of their previous interactions with the brand.
How all of this can work when in play? Take ING as an example in Australia. To meet the goal of doubling its primary banking base by 2020, ING DIRECT Australia needed to significantly ramp up customer acquisition efforts. The bank worked with IBM to build an automated, analytics-driven marketing process that provided more relevant offers, incentives and information to customers on every channel. The new capabilities allowed the bank to launch personalized campaigns 50 percent faster, which helped win the attention and business of more potential customers. ING DIRECT has successfully doubled its year-over-year customer acquisition rate while also boosting cross-sell rates. More on that here…
A core goal is to deliver solutions that embed better decision making into every step of the marketing process.
- Select ideal audiences: Identify the right target audiences based on your campaign and business goals without having to go to a data analyst.
- Design customer journeys: Anticipate and understand individual customer paths and behaviors throughout the customer journey to architect the right combination of interactions to drive conversion and maximize relationship value.
- Scale personalized experiences: Use machine learning in collaboration with marketers to identify best offers and content at scale and to proactively test and recommend rules, avoiding delays and setbacks.
- Proactively manage performance: Get alerts through embedded analytics when your campaigns are off course from projected goals or your customers are struggling so you can take proactive corrective action.
If you want to learn how some of these changes apply to your company or your future as a marketer, join me in Las Vegas in March 2017 for our global conference called Amplify.
