A dutch perspective on contextual marketing

Beyond personalisation: A Dutch perspective on contextual marketing Dutch CMOs are beginning to use contextual data but find it challenging to identify relevant contexts and produce me

Beyond personalisation:

A Dutch perspective on contextual marketing

Dutch CMOs are beginning to use contextual data but

find it challenging to identify relevant contexts and

produce messages effectively in particular contexts—and

thereby to fully embrace contextual marketing

As the ability to capture information about customers and prospects increases, marketers are learning

to deal with the subtleties of the data they collect and use them to communicate their brand message

effectively Contextual marketing—the use of data such as a customer’s or prospect’s location,

the activity they are currently involved in or their buying intentions—presents marketers with an

opportunity to take their marketing to the next level

Marketers in the Netherlands understand the power that data give them to deliver customised

experiences across marketing channels Yet many still struggle to define contextual marketing and

move beyond personalisation to find ways to provide even deeper value to customers

“We don’t use the term contextual marketing,” says Alex Bloemendal, manager e-commerce at online

retailer Wehkamp.nl “What we do is brand marketing and performance-based marketing, using data

sets to be as relevant in context as we can for our customers If contextual marketing means individual

data from the customer for personalisation, then it is core It is one of the foundations any retailer

should work on for the customer, now and in the future.”

A survey of marketing executives conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit on behalf of SAP

examined the state of contextual marketing in five west European markets, including the Netherlands,

where the survey identified the top two strategic marketing priorities: improving awareness and

perception of the brand and improving customer loyalty

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About the survey

This article draws on a survey of 165 chief marketing officers conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit in the summer

of 2015 In addition to 33 marketing executives from the Netherlands, the survey includes respondents from France, Italy, the UK and the Nordics (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) One-half of respondents represent organisations in the retail sector, with the remainder drawn from a range of industries Of these, just under one-half (47%) represent companies with US$100m-500m in annual revenue, the remainder companies with US$500m and above

When considering strategic marketing priorities in the European market and the role of contextual marketing, MSD Netherlands (Merck & Co in the US and Canada) is in a unique position As a healthcare company, MSD is not allowed direct access to consumers So any contextual marketing has to be conducted via healthcare providers, who help to communicate the company’s message to patients

“In healthcare, contextual marketing can be difficult,” says Joppe Jansen, European franchise director

at MSD “The information we collect is about patient populations, not individuals We are not using patient population data a lot right now, but we do want to use it in the future We want to map the patient journey from when they first decide to see a physician.”

In the Netherlands, marketers harvest relevant data to understand how customers and prospects interact with the company on social media and to identify customer satisfaction Yet marketers know that all data elements are not created equal The information most frequently collected by Dutch marketers consists of location data (91% of respondents) and data about the customer’s current offline behaviour (88%) Most marketers use location data for marketing (55%), although some (36%) collect these data but are not yet able to use them

Online behaviour is important too Four out of ten Dutch companies collect data relating to their customers’ online activity Like their counterparts in other west European countries, one-third

Improving awareness/perception of brand(s)

Improving customer loyalty

Understanding customers better

Increasing customer engagement

Improving the customer experience

Ensuring marketing staff has right skills

Improving ROI of marketikng activities

Becoming more cost effective

Other

48

58 45

37

42 40 42 41 33

28 27 30 27 30 27 30 3

1

Netherlands Europe (% respondents)

Which of the following are currently your top strategic marketing priorities? Select up to three

Although the best marketing channel to use may vary by category or customer, the survey reveals

that a brand’s website remains critical to the successful collection of contextual information about

customers and prospects Social media is critical for collecting data too, coming fourth on the list after

website, email and in-store personnel

MSD finds that this is a very useful channel, given that the company is prohibited from collecting

information about individuals Social media allows MSD to collect contextual data on a population

level, such as tracking the words people use when discussing healthcare issues

The company has also created its own channel for collecting information To help improve adherence to

a drug regimen, it has created a new way to track one of their injectable drugs to ensure that patients

are storing it at the right temperature A chip added to each injector sends real-time data to the

customer’s pharmacy Data such as these are invaluable to MSD in understanding patients’ behaviour

and will enable the company to market more accurately to patients in the future

When thinking about marketing practices, Dutch marketers prefer to use contextual marketing to

communicate with and identify prospective customers (70% and 67% of respondents, respectively),

issue special offers (67%), and communicate with existing customers (64%)

Wehkamp.nl, for example, is putting some thought into how contextual marketing can make a

difference in communicating offers to customers The company is investigating targeting offers based

Communicating with prospective customers

Issuing special offers

Identifying prospective customers

Communicating with existing customers

Building brand recognition

Alerting customers to new products/services

Building customer loyalty

Other

70 66 67 56

67 59

64 58

55 50 55 52 52 51 3

1

(% respondents)

Which of the following practices at your organisation current incorporates contextual information?

Netherlands Europe

on the device a customer is using “Something we’re looking at is if you are logged on through your app, can we give you other offers or discounts versus if you are logged on via the website.”

Although most companies in the Netherlands do not currently use contextual marketing to alert customers to new products and services, marketers know that this kind of communication could be improved with the use of contextual information

Almost all Dutch companies surveyed believe that their customers are willing to share information with them, depending on the circumstances Marketers believe that almost half would be happy to share some types of data without getting anything in return, such as location data, information about what they are currently doing offline or online, how they are currently feeling, and what they are planning to

do When it comes to sharing personal interests or friends, however, marketers believe that customers are less willing to part with that information: 39% of respondents believe that customers would be willing to share personal interests, and 42% think that information on friends would primarily be shared only in return for discounts and special offers

Despite the advances in collecting and analysing the data, the greatest challenges in contextual marketing in the Netherlands are identifying the relevant contexts to target customers and producing messages that are effective in particular contexts

For MSD’s Mr Jansen, the biggest challenge with contextual marketing is connecting the dots “First

Identifying relevant contexts in which to target customers

Hiring creative skills required for contextual marketing

Producing messages effective in particular contexts

Hiring technical skills required for contextual marketing

Encouring customers/prospects to share contextual data

Respecing customer privacy

Measuring success of contextual marketing campaigns

Adapting marketing/campaign processes to contextual marketing

Other

52 46

48 45 48 50 45

46 42

50 30

34 24

15 6

9 3

2

(% respondents)

Which of the following, if any, do you consider to be the greatest challenges to contextual marketing? Select up to three

Netherlands Europe

Dealing as it does with customer information, contextual marketing can present risks Dutch marketers

are most concerned about collecting incorrect or misleading contextual information about customers

or prospects or damaging the brand by making customers feel uncomfortable

“There are some fears,” says Mr Bloemendal of Wehkamp.nl “First, do we have enough relevant, valid

data available in time to set up these kinds of campaigns? And second is looking at privacy—more

people opting out of cookies means that we have less information.”

When it comes to contextual marketing, Dutch marketers are generally in line with their European

counterparts in how they collect data and look for ways to use them better and more efficiently while at

the time meeting the needs of their customers

Contextual marketing is about understanding a customer’s behaviour at a more granular level than

ever before Given companies’ ever-growing ability to collect and analyse data, it is arguably the next

logical step after personalisation And Dutch marketers, like their counterparts in other west European

markets, are beginning to use contextual data to improve the relevance of the messages they share

with customers, thus making their marketing more effective Whatever they may be calling it just now,

there is no questioning that these data—despite the challenges and risks connected to their use—are

seen as key to providing customers with more value