Imagine if Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa in just three days. Instead of capturing the enigmatic look, his masterpiece of subtle composition and atmospheric background likely would appear flat and simplistic. The centuries-old conversation that society has had with the famous portrait wouldn’t exist.
But da Vinci was a master of art AND science – combining ingenuity, brilliance and emotional appeal with dimension, data and scale. He could have been a modern marketer of our time, pioneering the Era of Engagement through the right mix of content, creativity, mechanics and automation. If you’ve ever seen the Mona Lisa up close and personal, you feel as if she’s looking just at you.
Mona Lisa, meet machine learning
Jump forward a few centuries. Now imagine if da Vinci had today’s tools at his fingertips. What if Mona Lisa met machine learning?
Machine learning is becoming more mainstream – not just in planes, trains and automobiles – but in marketing the majority of the world’s products, services, brands and masterpieces. As marketing automation platforms become more intelligent, marketers need to adjust their strategy to keep up. Consumers are taking an active role in purchasing decisions and want to connect with the brands they choose to support.
Machine learning has transformed marketing from campaigns to conversations. But how is it possible to have a dialogue with all of your customers? How can you establish and maintain conversations with millions (even billions) of customers, that feel real, authentic and personal to them?
It takes a combination of art and science to capture the hearts and minds of audiences you (and your competitors) are trying to reach. The art? Impactful storytelling and creative content that establish meaningful connections. The science? Leveraging rich data, prescriptive analytics and automated tools to reach the right customers, with the right content, at the right time, on the right channels and devices.
How? By integrating three important practices, and leveraging them at scale:
Synchronization – from in-product notifications to augmented reality, technology tools are accelerating the points of contact with customers on a minute-by-minute basis. Effective 1:1 relationship marketing means all of these automated systems work in lock-step with each other. This requires platforms and tools customized to suit your company’s unique needs, and synchronizing them across all of your customer touch points.
Orchestration – meaning that the IT team needs to talk to the marketing team, and the marketing team needs to talk to the data team (and the sales team). Using clean, scored data across well-synchronized tools with a customer journey-focused marketing strategy in place sets the stage for execution of automated but meaningful conversations with consumers.
Execution – the most well-orchestrated strategies using beautifully synchronized tools mean nothing if the execution of those strategies falls flat. Execution involves a cycle of proven processes that are constantly refined and tested. It also requires talented marketing automation professionals who understand the tools, and bullet-proof reporting and analytics to help the marketing team refine and re-frame content and tactics.
By executing synchronized, multi-channel tools and well-orchestrated campaigns, you can paint a rich, complete picture of your customer – then automate and connect in ways that make them feel that your brand exists uniquely for them.
Da Vinci would be so proud.
This week, at the Seattle Interactive Conference, Centric and Microsoft are delivering two master classes on the Art and Science of Lifestyle Marketing, and Marketing Automation Done Right. If you’re at SIC, come join us. If not, you can access details here.
