The time of “fluffy” marketing creatives is over, says HR Owen marketing chief ahead of personalisation drive
Marketers can no longer afford to rely on being the “fluffy” creatives they may have been in the past, but must get to grips with data, automated marketing systems and targeting to stay ahead, according to luxury car brand owner HR Owen’s marketing and customer director Chris Harris.
Speaking to The Drum at Dreamforce in San Francisco, Harris said today’s marketers are being presented with “enormous” opportunities but must ensure they arm themselves with the right set of skills to be able to take full advantage.
“Marketers have enormous opportunities but bloody hell they have to be sharp – the way I was trained 15 years ago when I was at Procter&Gamble (P&G) has changed significantly – now you have to know data, be comfortable with systems and able to look into marketing automation, it’s a big learning curve.
"They mustn’t be afraid to fail and be comfortable with numbers and data. The day when you could be the fluffy creative is over – being creative is part of the job but being creative while translating that into targeting, data or numbers, or a customer journey through a marketing automation system is just as important – it’s a whole new skills set,” he said.
Harris, who was previously global brand and marketing strategy director at Nokia, and prior to that held senior roles at Thomas Cook and P&G, said he has made it a priority to better understand data since joining HR Owen, and has since led an initiative to “clean up” its data sets to provide a better view of its customers.
He said HR Owen has had to “up its game” to match the continuously shifting purchase habits of consumers, the majority of which do all their research before visiting the dealer showrooms.
These changing behaviours, along with a lack of centralisation between its dealers meant its view of its customers was clouded, making it harder to retain loyalty and engagement. “Before each dealership was operating as its own fiefdom, but now we can sell more effectively as we have better access to better data,” he said.
The brand is now planning a major CRM overhaul next year as it pushes to achieve a more personalised marketing approach, according to Harris.
“Over the next 12 months I’m really excited about where we can take the data. I don’t think we have used it in anger yet, and with the data really clean and us having Salesforce as a backbone and marquetto coming online, next year is when we will show what’s possible with CRM.
“We have shown a bit of what is possible but nothing like what I think the possibilities are. We will have an aggressive sales target for the year,” he said.
“It’s all about personalisation, but you can only personalise when you have confidence in your data.
“Writing to someone and getting their name wrong or misrecognising the kind of car they own just makes you look stupid. So we haven’t actually done any particularly personal marketing yet as we have been getting our data aligned – but that is where we’ll break through next year.
“There is pretty strong evidence to show that the more personalised the marketing the greater the return. We will measure that return via web visits, leads and sales opportunities that are opened and closed, as a direct result,” he added.
HR Owen also has big plans for social media, SEO and PPC, and mobile next year, with a third of its overall traffic coming via mobile devices and outstripping its desktop growth, according to Harris, who added that a third of all its calls come via Google Places.