Forrester Introduces New Marketing Models To Help Companies “ADAPT” To The Next Digital Decade

As marketers prepare to address the “next digital decade,” many are finding themselves lacking when it comes to strategies, tools and tactics to connect with customers across emerging mediums such as social media and mobile. This skills and strategy gap was explored in several sessions at the 2011 Forrester Marketing Forum in San Francisco.

Illustrating this gap, Forrester Research recently found that:

  • 84% of CMOs say they have inadequate budgets for experimentation;
  • 74% said they inadequate executive support and
  • 67% pointed to inadequate marketing technology.

 “CMOs are in a crisis of confidence,” pointed out Chris Stutzman, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research.

To help companies better prepare for the next digital decade and develop strategies to connect with customers across social, mobile and other emerging mediums, Forrester introduced two new acronyms and models for marketing. In a presentation titled, ADAPT to the CORE, Stutzman and Forrester Principal Analyst Research Director Emily Riley provided a blueprint for driving both innovation and integration throughout interactive marketing.

First, the ADAPT model is based on the following principles:

A—Accept Change (eliminate complacency)

D—Dare the Status Quo (move beyond conformity)

A—Act Continuously (avoid analysis paralysis)

P—Participate Personally (adopt hands-on management)

T—Tear down boundaries (eliminate silos of knowledge)

Stutzman pointed to companies such as Ford who have embraced adaptive marketing strategies and have embraced innovation from the top down. Stutzman noted that Ford’s head of social media, Scott Monty, maintains a blog and regularly communicates with consumers via Twitter.

In addition to providing examples of adaptive marketing and innovation, the Forrester event also offered models on how companies can take a holistic and integrated approach to interactive marketing.

Realizing that many companies are still struggling to serve interactive customers, Riley pointed out that isolated strategies across digital and branded teams are often the hurdle to building a cohesive strategy that resonates with connected consumers.

“We still hear from a lot of executives who feel they lack the tools to distill information into actionable recommendations. The reality is separate budgets and disparate strategies, often isolate digital marketing from the rest of marketing,” Riley said.

Illustrating this point, Riley shared new Forrester data, which found:

  • 10% of marketers have automated multi-channel campaign execution
  • 17% of companies have an interactive marketing team that “pushes the agenda” at the company

Forrester introduced a four part marketing mission, labeled CORE, which built around the following concepts:

C—Customize your marketing experiences

O—Optimize your decisions and processes

R—Respond to your customers

E—Empower your staff and customers

Riley found FedEx to be one of the leading brands that have built a holistic strategy, and cited the company’s adoption of a centralized marketing intelligence and decision-making hub as a potential model for other brands. Under the centralized model, she said FedEx now has the ability to connect various channels such as social media, email, web analytics, SEO and display advertising into integrated strategy, process and analysis.

As first steps to realizing the CORE Mission, Riley recommended companies “create a map of key cross channel pathways” taken by your customers and “disseminate all customer feedback across the entire organization.”

Tagged under