3 ways the programmatic industry can become customer-centric

As the CEO of a programmatic technology company, you know that the industry is constantly changing and the decisions you make must address that change. As a student in the Northwestern Medill Integrated Marketing Communications program, former strategic planner and former consultant to a programmatic company, I have found two articles which provide helpful insights on how your programmatic company can become customer-centric and help your team rise to the top.

This Mediapost article explains how the programmatic industry struggles to be customer-centric because of the lack of understanding of the technology itself – a knowledge gap, from an internal agency & advertiser stand point. It brings to the table, concerns of how the industry will carry on selling something when it is not completely understood. Another article from MarketingTech also touches upon how the lack of knowledge of the technology might result into lack of confidence in technology and mistrust over transparency from a customer’s perspective. Thus, the root problem for the industry still lies in the fact that there is a huge knowledge gap that needs to be corrected if the industry wants to achieve sustainable growth.

Based on the problems identified, the industry needs to focus on being customer-centric in order to bridge the knowledge gap and help the customer build more confidence in the technology itself. Through my experience at Northwestern University and IMC, I recommend these three tips to become customer-centric and bridge the knowledge gap for customers:

• Training programs for customers- Training programs will be a great medium to connect with customers; they will ensure that the company can have open conversations with your customers about the challenges they face with the technology. It will not just help educate but will also help the product team understand problems from the customer's perspective.
• Customers are experts- The idea is also to make customers feel like they are experts in order to make them even more confident about their investments in programmatic buying.
• Avoid jargon- It is essential that the content and collateral that the programmatic company produces, makes the complexities of the engineering technology simple. The tonality of the content should be simple and easy to understand for the customers.

Thus, if a programmatic company wants sustainable growth, the first thing it needs to do is become customer-centric and reduce the knowledge that exists internally and externally. Companies which can successfully reduce the knowledge gap, will be the ones who succeed and will gain customer's trust. 

Isha Deodhar is an experienced data-driven marketing and strategy professional with over three years of industry experience in Consumer Products & B2B Technology Strategy. She has a Master's in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern University as well as a Master's in Economics. You can follow her on @ishadeodhar on Twitter and Linkedin.

Agency Managers: Think Mobile First.

As agency managers, it is crucial for you to learn how to leverage mobile platform to engage with customers. Mobile traffic is set to overtake desktop in early 2014. In fact, another surprising data shows that more people these days own a mobile device than a toothbrush. As a graduate student in Northwestern University Medill's Integrated Marketing Communications Masters program, with a focus on media management and marketing analytics, I have discovered 2 articles on mobile trends in 2014 that are informative and relevant for marketers.

In Top 10 Trends for 2014 written by Ozoda Muinova, eMarketer estimates that retail sales via smartphones and tables have doubled in 2013. There is no doubt that mobile revenue is taking off because more and more customers are deserting desktops for tablets and smart phones. In the following future, mobile devices may not only surpass desktops in terms of traffic but also excel them in enabling people to interact anytime and anyplace. The article also talks about the importance of engaging customers through content creation on mobile devices. With the growth of Internet access, mobile marketing is increasingly seen by advertisers as they can deliver message to their target audiences whenever they want and possibly generate a direct response from the audiences.

Another article Mobile App Metrics: Why 2014 is the Year of Mobile Marketing, written by JonathanWolf, CBO of Criteo, put more emphasis on the importance of building consumer engagement when adapting the mobile marketing strategy. It's said that although there were 102 billion app store download in 2013 globally, many consumer companies are still losing faith in their apps because those apps are often followed by a lack of consumer engagement and a high percentage of inactive users.  The solution of the problem to both marketers and advertisers is to provide the relevant content to users and increase interaction with them in order to communicate with high lifetime value users.

After reviewing these two articles, three actions that agency managers can take away before implementing mobile strategy for clients:

1.     Make the phone an “anytime anywhere” ad medium: With consumer reliance on mobile devices showing no signs of slowing down, mobile apps or ads are exceptional ways for brands to reach key customers and deliver their messages.

2.     Design your adaptive content for mobile: Although you may have an awesome story of the brand, if the content doesn't look great on the mobile, it won't catch customer’s attention and will be ignored by them soon.

3.    Ask consumer to respond your ad: Mobile devices allows advertisers to generate direct behavioral response from consumers, making them easy to measure the effectiveness of the ad. For example, a coupon may be send to consumer via text message to encourage him to redeem it in the nearest store in a week. Then marketers can quickly measure the performance and try to engage more customers next time through content optimization.

With the increasing population of smartphone users, marketers and brands have realized that the future of advertising lies in mobile.  As agency managers in advertising industry, it might be important for you to learn how to interact with customers effectively and should always think mobile first. 

Kay Chung is now pursuing a Masters degree in Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) at Northwestern University with an emphasis on media management and marketing analytics. She previously worked in Neo@Ogilvy as a digital media planner. Follow her on Twitter @kaychung05 or Linkedin to continue this conversation.