SAN MATEO, CA: Consumers are increasingly ignoring the efforts of marketers who fail to tailor communications to them personally a new study has shown.
Marketo, a marketing automation and software business, polled more than 2,200 consumers across the US, UK, France, Germany and Australia, and found that almost two thirds (63%) of respondents were annoyed at how brands continued to rely on a strategy of blasting generic advertising messages repeatedly.
"[Marketers] are talking at us rather than engaging with us, and we, as consumers are beginning to tune them out," Chandar Pattabhiram, group vice president of product and corporate marketing, told MediaPost.
"We demand a level of personalisation across our journey," he added. "As consumers, we're more and more attuned to brands talking to us personally."
Marketo suggested that one way brands could achieve this was to make content more relevant based on consumer behaviour across other channels and interactions.
Its survey showed that more than three quarters (78.6%) of consumers claimed to be more likely to work with a brand's offers if these were directly related to previously interactions with the brand.
"People engage with the brand, and [the marketers] don't connect your engagement history with the brand with all the messages they're sending," Pattabhiram said.
In part that's a consequence of campaigns being designed in silos. "They need to adopt a consistent way of communicating with customers across interaction points based on who they are and what they do – and they need to do it across every step of the journey," Pattabhiram stated.
But achieving that will require some significant changes in how businesses operate. "A lot of marketers still have the mindset of building brand awareness," Pattabhiram explained.
"Organizationally, they have not been [structured] to have a one-to-one experience with customers."
Marketo, a marketing automation and software business, polled more than 2,200 consumers across the US, UK, France, Germany and Australia, and found that almost two thirds (63%) of respondents were annoyed at how brands continued to rely on a strategy of blasting generic advertising messages repeatedly.
"[Marketers] are talking at us rather than engaging with us, and we, as consumers are beginning to tune them out," Chandar Pattabhiram, group vice president of product and corporate marketing, told MediaPost.
"We demand a level of personalisation across our journey," he added. "As consumers, we're more and more attuned to brands talking to us personally."
Marketo suggested that one way brands could achieve this was to make content more relevant based on consumer behaviour across other channels and interactions.
Its survey showed that more than three quarters (78.6%) of consumers claimed to be more likely to work with a brand's offers if these were directly related to previously interactions with the brand.
"People engage with the brand, and [the marketers] don't connect your engagement history with the brand with all the messages they're sending," Pattabhiram said.
In part that's a consequence of campaigns being designed in silos. "They need to adopt a consistent way of communicating with customers across interaction points based on who they are and what they do – and they need to do it across every step of the journey," Pattabhiram stated.
But achieving that will require some significant changes in how businesses operate. "A lot of marketers still have the mindset of building brand awareness," Pattabhiram explained.
"Organizationally, they have not been [structured] to have a one-to-one experience with customers."
Data sourced from PR Newswire, MediaPost; additional content by Warc staff
