If one were to judge solely on the results of this survey, understanding customer (consumer and business buyers) behaviour is by far the most critical task Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) and Executive Marketing Officers are facing today and in the near future. A staggering 40% of the respondents believe that understanding customer behaviour is critical in order to meet 2007 and 2008 objectives.

For you to achieve your 2007/2008 marketing objectives, how do you rate the importance of the following statements:

1. Achieving better Return on Marketing Investment from your website(s)

3. Utilizing your offline direct marketing efforts to attract new customers

5. Understand customer behaviour (online as well as offline)

7. Improve the alignment between sales and marketing

11. Increase the Return on Investment from your LRM (Lead Relationship Management) investments in general

13. Utilize video presentations online and offline wherever relevant in order to increase the efficiency of your marketing efforts

Comments by Michael Leander Nielsen
In my opinion it is evident, that in order for CMO’s to be able to increase the overall customer experience, improve customer retention, increase Return on Marketing Investment and decrease churn, it is necessary to posses a much greater insight into the “minds” of the people they are targeting. For far too long, marketers have ignored the individual in the (customer) relationship, and focused the majority of their resources on mass marketing communication. Strange but true.

Alignment of sales and marketing is critical
According to the survey results, the alignment of sales and marketing is perceived to be the second most critical issue. 33% of the respondents answered that this issue is critical in order to meet objectives in this and the next fiscal year. Aligning sales and marketing has literally been an on-going discussion for decades. In many businesses this issue has yet to be fixed. More often than not, the marketing and sales units respectively each are masters of their own silo, often incapable of finding common grounds for the benefit of the company’s objectives as a whole.Luckily, it seems, CMO’s are now focused on fixing that issue.

Customer experience is important. Customers no longer judge companies or suppliers solely based on fragments of the overall experience, but by the overall experience itself. The experience across channels, departments, products etc.

Delivering great customer experiences necessitates that all aspects (the entire ecosystem) of the business is aligned, uniformed and that that the value proposition is well planned, understood by all concerned and “seamlessly” implemented across all channels and interaction points. Once applied marketers will enjoy increased customer value, growth, decrease in churn, increase in referral and an overall more effective execution of all activities relating to the marketing and sales. This in turn, of course, will increase ROMI.