Tag: martech-featured-on

I met Max Koziolek and his start-up Spectrm a couple of years ago, when I was still at Benetton Group. Max immediately struck me as one of the brightest people I had ever met and his martech – an enterprise platform to create and scale chatbots and digital assistants – looked and still look promising the same way.

This is enough to make you understand why I did not hesitate to accept the invitation to participate in One to One: the Conversational Marketing Podcast, an initiative of the start-up itself, in an episode entitled Zero-Party Data and the Future of Marketing.

I did my best not to give obvious answers to ultra-discussed topics; if you want to listen to my 20-minute chat with Benjamin Gibert you can do so on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Youtube.

If a reading is more your style, well… scroll below the video version.

[Question] Could you define “zero-party data” for us?

[Answer] I could say it’s the data that you own, but I don’t like this definition as it’s pretty tech. Instead, I prefer to say it’s the data the users are sharing with you somehow explicitly by interacting with your brands’ touchpoints, whether it’s a website, a store or, why not, a Web3 experience or your Discord community (and believe me, if you are still not into Discord, you will be impressed by the number of opportunities it can offer in terms of user data enrichment).

[Q] Why is zero-party data so important today?

A: If you expect me to say it’s important given what is happening around cookies, sorry, I won’t. There’s a lot of debate around this already, and I won’t bring anything new to the table. To me, zero-party data is important because, as I was saying earlier, it’s somehow explicitly shared by the user. That means brands should care about it more then they care about other forms of data, because as users are proving some kind of trust sharing these data, they are supposed to get something back. 

However, I’m a tech guy and I feel I’m not the right person to discuss about engagement strategies. The only thing I would say is that there’s too much talk about how to collect more data and too little about how to distill and activate it in a meaningful way for the users.

[Q] Can you please elaborate on this point, and suggest some approaches you think work well to distill and activate data to provide value to users.

[A] Some weeks ago I was reading a research that was saying that over 99% of marketers will achieve the single customer view by the end of 2022. This is bullshit, and sorry for being so explicit. That won’t happen, and those kind of headlines are only good to stress out marketers. 

Likely, best scenario is that it will take years to achieve a single customer view. You can do it, I’m not say you shouldn’t. My only recommendation is to go for a phased approach: start with choosing a small subset of user data and activate some basic personalization, the rest will come.

[Q] What role do chatbots play in collecting zero-party data?

[A] One of the pillars of customer centricity that I like the most is “being where your users are,” and we know that people right now are not necessarily on your website. They might be on the social media scrolling your feed, on Google searching for the nearest store, or on Discord interacting with your community. That means a very basic “chatbot strategy,” if that makes sense, will allow you to be in the right place at the right time, allowing users to chat with you. You can help them to discover and buy your products or get some support 24×7 simply by leveraging NLP or having them interact with a guided workflow.

On top of that, it’s all about creativity. Think about quizzes and surveys: all of these were cool ideas to enrich your user data, but I feel they are a bit out-dated, and there’s some space here for chatbots.

Back to your question, whether it’s product discovery, customer support, or gamification, any kind of chatbot potentially generates data that will be available to activate on other channels. 

[Q] What are the top 3 pieces of advice you have for other marketers just getting started with zero-party data?

[A] Again, if you are asking me for concrete advice on what to do with zero-party data, I won’t make you happy. I’ve been both on the client and agency sides, and I see that the main issue is not about technology or data but individual mindsets and organizational complexities.

That being said, here are my 2 pieces of advice:

• First: everything changes fast and you can’t predict, but you can prepare. So, my first tip is to embrace ambiguity and don’t be scared to test. The role of a marketing technologist is to help businesses create a significant impact on customer experience introducing small wins within a longer-term roadmap or vision.
• Second, as I was saying, no matter how cool is the new tool you adopted, it’s all about the people. No matter the size of the company you are working with, collaborate with people around you. Marketing technologies and data do accelerate innovation, but it all gets most effective when collaborating. Think about Customer Data Platforms: the hype is waning because they should enable a connected experience across multiple touchpoints, but the way they are currently introduced creates a more siloed approach.

[Q] Do you have any recommendations for how to reduce the silos? Or what are the dangers you see in this siloed approach?

[A] The danger I see is simple. An experience which is not coherent across touchpoints could affect your users trust, especially after they have chosen to share personal information with you. The best in-store experiences are based on very accurate rituals and most of the time I don’t find the same level of accuracy in online experiences.

Recommendation remains the same: collaborate with other departments. Marketers themselves don’t have the skills to implement platforms that are truly omnichannel. Thanks to some emerging technologies, there’s an interesting hype around Composable Customer Data Platforms: I would look here rather than out-of-the-box solutions.

On the other hand, I often hear of IT departments that want to modernise and implement marketing-oriented solutions, however most of the time this happens without a cross-functional group of work, and there’s no chance for these projects to succeed.

[Q] Five years from now: as the world becomes more focused on privacy, what will the future of marketing look.

[A] Marketing techniques are now too aggressive. I feel like marketing will become more gentle. I don’t know what “gentle marketing” means exactly, but as I said, I feel people are getting tired of hyper-personalization. They may react negatively if they receive ads based too closely on purchase history or location data. 

The shift in public perception of data privacy that happened in these years because of multiple data breaches could be just the beginning now that Web3 is getting bigger. Did you know that only 20 minutes of a virtual experience generate almost 2 million pieces of data? Huge, isn’t it?

A few days before Premier Conte announced phase 2, Iconsulting asked me for a point of view on how MarTech could be an additional weapon against this emergency. Below is the complete translation of the interview.

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During the COVID-19 emergency, marketing and communication have cemented an important role in the global transformation of companies and organisations, which was made even faster and deeper by the emergence of completely new needs.

MarTech (Marketing Technologies) is perfect to carry out such a transformation. Combining marketing and technology, MarTech is a marketer’s best ally to achieve their goals – in the right activities and with the right tools, despite the new complexities of the moment.

In this interview, Daniele Sghedoni – Digital Technologies & Analytics Manager at Benetton Group – tells us how MarTech’s potential and the need to rethink the collaborative dynamics both inside and outside companies have clearly emerged in recent times. Where to start? From welcoming the opportunities offered by new forms of collaboration and an updated approach towards technology providers.

How did you face this period of emergency from a professional point of view?

I considered it a time of growth for me and my team. In the digital sector, we were already used to working remotely with tools such as Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc; the continuity of operations, therefore, was not affected, also because we are a well-knit group. This emergency, however, allowed us to grow in terms of relationships. No longer relying on the coffee break or on having lunch together, I am learning myself to use the telephone a little more than the chat so to ease the absence of in-person meetings. I am following with great interest what is happening after phase 2, which we can consider the moment of truth for home working. At this time, companies and managers must confirm their trust in practices which we were forced to use until recently. Now that we have found out that you can work remotely, will we continue to do so, – at least until some form of social distancing is required?

We left behind us a difficult period of isolation and emergency. How did it change your company? How did you respond to the new needs?

After an initial period of uncertainty due to the succession of new directions from the Government, the company reacted promptly. Indeed, I take this opportunity to thank them for not allowing us to return to the office when lockdown had not yet been announced and we were already missing daily life with colleagues.

Being a retail company, everything changed with the announcement of lockdown. The focus shifted to e-commerce. We tried to set up everything necessary to operate safely on the logistics side – where home working is non-existent – and adapt our strategies based on how individual countries reacted to the spread of this pandemic. We have adjusted online communication, focusing on those products intended for home consumption, shifting investments in advertising based on the virus’ development. On a daily basis, we also took care of keeping customers updated on possible delays of shipments or returns. By accelerating change, we inevitably accelerated some activities that we expected to carry out during the year.

How can MarTech technologies support the country system at this particular moment? What role do you entrust to them?

I have always believed that MarTech has a fundamental role in the transformation of a company, be it internal processes or the adaptation of the customer experience to emerging trends. The world of marketing technology offers the chance to experiment with new low-cost solutions, low project risks and with the great opportunity of making business users independent, offering no-code implementations.

Advertising & Promotion, Content & Experience, Social & Relationships, Commerce & Sales, but also Data and Management. To date, the Marketing Technology Landscape, a resource in the sector, has over 8000 technologies to support any company function and not only the marketing department, as the name might suggest. The result is a very fragmented world, which is why the focus in the adoption phase is mainly on the simplicity of integration with the rest of the solutions already in place.

If it’s true that this pandemic has offered everyone – companies and institutions – the opportunity to accelerate the transformation, MarTech is undoubtedly the right ally to carry it out in times that legacy infrastructures do not allow.

What do you think technology can do in avoiding the risk of “Business Interruption”?

Deliberately leaving out what concerns supply chains and production, which would require a more detailed study, the answer to the risk of business interruption is the Cloud. Platforms such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure offer the opportunity to build architectures that are difficult to replicate with an internal infrastructure.

Whether you look at it from a purely IT point of view (scalability, performance, security, SLA, etc) or from a business point of view (automation, AI, deployment speed, etc.), the impact that these platforms have in a process of transformation and, consequently, what they could offer to prevent threats such as a pandemic of this size is undeniable.

The switch from a legacy infrastructure to a Cloud infrastructure certainly cannot happen overnight, just as it is not easy to look beyond the enormous problems that the Coronavirus will cause in the near future, but the hope is that we will be able to see far.

If Google Cloud offers ready-to-use Machine Learning components intended to accelerate developers in integrating visual, linguistic, conversational and structured data skills into their applications, why not start experimenting now and be prepared for when AI will be an integral part of every company’s processes?

In your opinion, what would be the key tools to best face this unprecedented scenario?

Details differ greatly among realities, therefore I do not feel like recommending a set of key tools. On top of that, with over 8000 marketing technologies on the market, it is unlikely you believe that you have found the right solution for your needs. Also it is equally unlikely to evaluate the validity of a solution before its actual adoption.

Instead, I want to focus on the fact that technologies change the consumer journey almost frenetically, to the point that being present in every key point, be it B2B or B2C, is increasingly complicated. Unfortunately, organizations do not change as quickly. This is the reason why collaborative dynamics within companies need to be rethought. We need to open up to new engagement formulas for external collaborators and technology providers.

After MarTech and Cloud, I think Agile is the right word to complete the panel of keywords for an adaptive future. Agile development, agile contracts, agile organization, etc: the streams to which agile methodologies are applied are more and more numerous, therefore I invite everyone to experiment with them!

Can you tell us about the Vicinoesicuro initiative? From what premises was it born?

Vicinoesicuro is a non-profit project created to counter the Coronavirus emergency. It was developed with a group of friends and launched a few hours after lockdown was announced by the Prime Minister Conte on March 9, 2020.

It is an interactive map of all the activities that carry out home deliveries (shops, bars, restaurants, newsstands, laundries and more). Citizens can choose the activity they need, see information on methods and any costs, contact the owner directly.

Initially available only in the province of Reggio Emilia, the project grew rapidly throughout Italy. Given the requests received from other countries, we decided to “free” the code allowing it to be replicated locally in France, Germany and England. This was done also thanks to the collaboration of Google which, believing in the initiative, has provided us with free credits for using Maps.

If you are curious to read how the project has evolved day after day you will find a detailed history in my blog.

What are – if any – the experiences or new practices that we will “take home” after the emergency and that will leave a positive footprint in the future?

From a purely professional point of view, I hope that this new sensitivity towards smart working can change the labour market. I hope it favours remote recruitment as well as new benefits, which can radically change the supply and demand relationship. Joking about it, I wonder if the right opportunity has finally come to return to the recording world by working for some British label!

If I look at society instead, quoting the theatre writer Emanuele Aldrovandi, “when I read that we will come out better, or that it will be an opportunity to rethink this or that, there is always my doubting side that lights up like the red light of an engine failure.”

We forget things too often and too quickly. If this were to happen even when the Coronavirus emergency is over, it would be good on the one hand, as it would mean that we have definitively left it behind us. On the other, it would be bad as the emergency will not have led to permanent solutions and will have simply distracted us from the real problems of the 21st century, meaning climate change and social cohesion, which is increasingly disintegrating. In the good and the bad, sooner or later we will return to being what we were before.

You are the new father of little Giacomo, to whom one day you will talk about this difficult moment. If today you had to choose 3 words that you will use to describe it to him, which ones would you choose?

The first is “together“: it would be reckless to say that this pandemic will have aftermaths for months, leaving someone behind. Yet, to date, the community has taken steps to ensure that no one is left behind. I am thinking of the voluntary associations that have allowed small traders to deliver home to the elderly; artists who have encouraged fundraising for those behind the scenes; freelancers who have helped teachers and families with remote lessons without asking for compensation; to colleagues who donated holiday days to those who had no choice but redundancy.

The second is “quietly“: I really appreciated those who expressed their opinion without shouting, facing a situation that was new for everyone and therefore difficult to interpret. Be it politicians, local administrators or private entrepreneurs, I appreciated those who preferred facts to words, focusing their communication on what could be of real value for people, also in regards to the sudden change I mentioned above.

Finally, “speed“. Us working in innovation every day, we have a mantra to keep in mind: “People resist the change they don’t understand”, as Marco Calzolari says. In the company, as in society, change can take forever. Coronavirus didn’t give us time and things simply happened overnight: home delivery, home working; the new intensive care funded by the crowdfunding campaign of Chiara Ferragni and Fedez was built in just 8 days, the 35km of cycle paths in Milan, etc.

In my first blog post in Digital Update, I talked about how strategic the emerging figure of the Marketing Technologist was. What are, however, the fundamental ingredients to best approach a marketing automation project?

Technology

According to this infographic by ChiefMartec.com, in 2001 there were about 150 marketing tools, in 2016 they were just under 4000. If you have already found the definitive one, you are definitely better (or luckier) than most of your competitors.

Software selection is a fundamental component of a marketing technologist’s job. Are you able to assess the cost of technology in the light of the impact it will have on your business? Are you sure that your chosen technological tool is able to integrate with your website or your CRM? Activating a free trial is very different from integrating a tool into your technology stack. However, the cloud, APIs, communities, and monthly subscription plans have radically changed the scenario and the potential is enormous.

The data

It is not always true that a greater amount of data helps solving a greater amount of problems. Rather, the reality is that – almost three years after this Econsultancy research – one of the most complex challenges for marketers is still to translate data into concrete decisions and actions.

Set measurable objectives and essential reference KPIs (not too many!), but above all do not forget that, whatever the dimension of the context in which you will find yourself operating:

1. A digital marketing project cannot exclude a Google Analytics account;

2. There are dozens of tools that allow you to aggregate (TapAnalytics, Cyfe, Supermetrics) and view (Google Data Studio, PowerBI) data from the most diverse sources;

3. However, your best friend will remain Excel.

The customization

In the Always-On era, being able to automate the supervision of every point of the consumer journey is essential, as is the customisation of the message in relation to a specific context, to guarantee an optimal user experience and increase the possibility that this convert.

When faced with an analytical approach, however, make sure that this does not affect your creativity, because in all this there is an essential emotional component. In this regard, begin to familiarize yourself with A / B testing.

The mental approach

A marketing automation project is a process of continuous improvement.

Planning, execution, evaluation, improvement. Guaranteeing reliable data, optimizing messages, refining the integration between technologies. Forgetting to “switch on” a marketing automation project means waking up the next day with a line of customers at the door (I know, it’s silly but it’s always good to repeat it) . 

Alessandra herself, struggling with MailChimp’s automations, wrote something about it a few days ago, stressing that even though they are automatisms, they must be checked and “registered” on a regular basis.

We work in a world where everything changes at the speed of light. Be curious and don’t be afraid to make mistakes in experimenting.

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This post was published in preparation for the Marketing Automation course held on February 28, 2019 for Digital Update.

Marketing has seen an exponential growth of available technological tools – 3500 now versus 150 in 2011 (Chiefmartec.com). As a consequence, people working in the digital sector have learned to change rapidly and, sometimes, to feel lost in this ever-changing ecosystem.

As for me, it’s at 35 years old that I finally found a job title that fits me perfectly: Marketing Technologist. In this article, I’ll explain how and why this is the perfect job for me. 

In today’s modern world, people are either asleep or connected.

As this wonderful quote by Janice H. Reinold (The Boston Consulting Group) suggests, the consumer journey changes rapidly. Therefore, being present in every key point of it is increasingly complex. 

For this reason, a marketer’s goal is no longer just to place the ideal message at the right time, but also to know how to segment their users and, in a B2B context, to qualify leads to allow the sales department to act in a more focused way.

The human factor

Among inbound, profiling, segmentation, nurturing and who knows what other keywords destined to become the next marketing trend, extreme customisation seems to be the real trend of the moment.

Managing such an imposing amount of information, however, goes through an inevitable process of trials, errors and improvements. 

In the illuminating biography of Jeff Bezos, we can read, for example, that the founder of Amazon decided to block email marketing on sensitive categories after realizing that automatic emails were sent to users browsing the “Sexual well-being” department without buying.

There are risks, of course. But also opportunities that can generate amazing results and that can be halted only by your imagination. Watch the video that tells about “The Social Home Tour 2.0”, a brilliant idea created by a Brazilian real estate agency.

A life as the midfielder

You may have guessed that the line between marketing and IT is getting thinner, and this is where the marketing technologist comes into play. Marketing Technologists are strategic figures who are able to evaluate the technologies available on the market and facilitate their adoption in the company.

They’re so strategic that, while in 2012 Harvard Business Review claimed that the Data Scientist was the sexiest job of the century, in 2014 they spoke of the Marketing Technologist as a rapidly rising professional figure.

Digital products are one of the main drivers of organisational change for companies in Italy. Marketing Technologists are the ones who can guide this type of change from within the company. They’re not creatives who invent new games but rather those figures who are behind the scenes and favour the team’s game: a life as a midfielder, like Oriali sung by Ligabue.

A marketing automation process at (almost) zero cost

Do you have a very busy website that you can’t manage to monetize and on which you have the desire to enable a marketing automation process? 

If you work with WordPress (percentages on the use of CMS’ in the world say it’s likely you do), I recommend you install Gravity Forms, which costs just $ 39. Activate an account on Zapier, a tool that allows you to automate processes among all the most used cloud tools, – today it has more than 750 integrations.

• A newsletter subscription form integrated with MailChimp?
• A Google Sheets file updated in real time with all the leads who have filled out an involvement form?
• An automatism that publishes blog articles or news from your company on your social channels?

These are just a few ideas, – here Zapier describes 50 of them by interviewing some marketers around the world – that you can activate immediately. They will undoubtedly make your mouth water, already making you feel like a little Marketing Technologist!

In conclusion, a piece of advice. If research conducted by Econsultancy a few years ago said that “72% of marketers understand the importance of customisation but do not know how to do it”, there is only one password: just be scared a little, experiment a lot.

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This post was published in preparation for the Marketing Automation course held on May 31, 2018, for Digital Update.