MMO 10: The importance of experience

Ultimately, the purpose of modernising marketing operations is to improve customer experience. If we look back at the four forces of marketing operations and technology, everything is considered in the context of customer experience.

We centralise and automate to make the customer experience more consistent and efficient—and decentralise and humanise to make it more personal and provide a faster response to customer needs. The whole process of marketing operations is about finding the balance between those four forces to provide the best possible customer experience.

There is no question that marketing and other technology will have a big impact on customer experience, especially in the B2B sector. Using technology improves ability to build relationships with customers, both before and after purchases, because it enables businesses to reach more people. It is also supporting the growth of experiential marketing — a term used to describe marketing focusing on experiences. This is not so much ‘the experience of being a customer’, but about giving potential customers experiences that will bring them to the company. We might consider it as starting the ‘customer experience’ at an earlier point.

Experiential marketing focuses on creating an impression of your brand among your target customers. This can start conversations, and help to build relationships—and it also means that your brand will be associated with certain ideas in your customers’ minds.

Customers expect personalised interactions and experiences. To deliver this, marketers have to place them front and centre. That is the bottom line of modern marketing operations.