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Thoughts from Neolane Evolution

Jul 6 2010

I recently attended the Neolane Evolution 2010 in wonderful Paris and I was impressed by the number of attendees. I had the opportunity to talk to a number of them about the challenges that they are facing in marketing today. It was also a great opportunity to hear from marketers about the interesting things and areas that they are exploring, as well as how they are leveraging Neolane.

Here are some of the broad themes that I heard at the conference:

Social media is becoming more popular and companies are actively pursuing this channel.

There is a lot of interest in leveraging social media in marketing and the key tactics involved. Having a presence in social media allows marketers to have 2-way conversations; more and more organizations are aspiring to this level of communication.

It is about "conversations" and not traditional push marketing.

In one of the sessions, Neolane's product manager discussed how previous limitations in technology enabled traditional push marketing but with new innovative technologies, 2-way effective and targeted conversations are possible.

The use of Avatars.

A Neolane customer presented a very interesting case study involving the use of Avatars to improve the customer experience. Avatars can serve as virtual assistants or advisors and by emplying Avatars, organizations can enable a "self-service" strategy. A customer of Neolane has implemented a "virtual relationship advisor" onsite to successfully and significantly increase subscription rates.

How to build and deliver a good customer experience.

All of the items discussed focused on a common theme: marketers want to have targeted 2-way conversations with their customers to enrich the customer experience. Ed Thompson from Gartner gave a keynote address on the importance of this concept and the challenges that organizations face in implementing customer experience management, along with some key recommendations and tactics.

I also heard attendees vocalize the need for measurement of their marketing programs and how marketers are increasingly focused on measurable impact - the ROI of their marketing programs. Attendees repeatedly expressed the need for marketing to become more results-focused and ROI driven. In today's challenging economy it's not surprising that marketers top concerns are related to driving value in both the short and long term. It will be interesting to evaluate the different approaches marketers take to achieve these goals. Will innovation provide the solution? Or is it about getting back to basics?

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Ram Krishnamurthy
Senior Manager, Professional Services

Ram brings over 10 years of consulting experience to Quaero's Marketing Services Group. His expertise includes database marketing, campaign management, marketing solutions technology, marketing analytics and data…