86% of CMOs Expect to Seize the Customer Experience by 2020

As marketing leaders shift their focus to the buyer’s journey, recent findings indicate that they expect to master their view of their customers in the coming years. The “Path to 2020” report from Marketo and The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) found that 86 percent of CMOs believe they will own the end-to-end customer experience by 2020.

Improving brand perception and increasing customer loyalty were named the top two goals of CMOs focusing on the customer experience.

In addition to highlighting the growing confidence of CMOs, the report also looked into how they view the evolution of marketing channels in the coming years. By 2020, about 63 percent said that they expect social media to be the leading channel through which customers will experience marketing efforts, followed by the Web (53 percent). Mobile apps (47 percent) and the mobile Web (46 percent) were also predicted to be dominant channels by 2020.

In terms of technology, the majority of respondents (59 percent) believe that mobile devices and networks will have the biggest impact on marketing by 2020. This was followed by personalization technologies (45 percent), the Internet of Things (39 percent) and predictive analytics (38 percent).

“Technology’s rapid evolution allows customers to engage with brands across myriad new channels in real time, translating to billions of marketing-driven touch points,” said Sanjay Dholakia, chief marketing officer, Marketo. “With 86 percent of CMOs and other marketing leaders of the mind that they will own the customer experience by 2020, it is essential that organizations maintain a singular, comprehensive view of their customers. This is the key to building enduring customer relationships and ultimately successful brands.”

Existing Issues Surrounding Customer Personalization

Although marketers are striving to create an ideal view of their customers to generate positive experiences, research shows that they are facing hurdles. The “2016 Digital Marketer Report” published by Experian found that 81 percent name creating a single customer view their top challenge.

About 54 percent claim that they lack the technology to integrate customer data in real-time, preventing them from getting a better overall view of the ideal client. Forty-nine percent said that they were currently unable to integrate multiple data sources and technologies into their efforts of generating a single customer view.