You still need a strategy: Tuesday’s Daily Brief

Good morning, Marketers, it’s all about finding the right balance.

Marketers have more tools than ever to choose from, but they don’t have unlimited budgets. The customers you’re trying to reach also don’t have unlimited attention.

That’s why the new tool or digital channel you’ve added isn’t a complete solution. You still need a strategy. And the endgame to this strategy should always include your customers and how they perceive and interact with your particular brand.

As this week’s Marketoon (and updates from Adobe Workfront) reminds us, balance is also important with workplace collaboration tools. If you’re finding it difficult to stay on task with a new chorus of work notifications, imagine how your customers feel if they get bombarded with too many messages when they sign up with your brand.

Chris Wood,

Editor

UX strategy, not just design  

Your users’ preferences and expectations are constantly changing, so if your brand’s digital experience isn’t changing as well, customers will find your offerings less relevant.

Many companies have tried to fix this problem by investing heavily in updating the aesthetics of their digital properties. But this is just one part of user experience as a whole.

“UX is more than just designing a modern website; UX really is a strategy,” said Kelly Gustainis, Lead UX Researcher at Pantheon, in her recent MarTech session. “It affects more than just your design team. It affects more than just your product team. It is a way of thinking and approaching problems.”

She added, “When I say ‘strategy,’ I just mean it’s an ongoing process. It’s going to be iterative and it keeps your roadmap relevant to your user needs over time.”

Here are four steps Gustainis recommends taking to implement an effective UX strategy.

Read more here.

Adobe Workfront beefs up collaboration features

Today, Adobe announced new features and capabilities that are rolling out on Adobe Workfront, forecasting the next phase of integrations that follow Adobe’s acquisition of the work management platform in late 2020.

Many of the new features are aimed at dynamic collaboration, enabling creative and marketing teams to work together on campaigns and related projects.

For instance, there is an Adobe Experience Manager Assets integration, now available, that serves enterprises, enabling them to orchestrate campaigns and deliver content to publishers seamlessly, while also managing approvals and other necessary steps in the creative process.

There are also Adobe Photoshop and Adobe XD plugins that allow users to stay in those environments while collaborating with internal and external stakeholders and viewing updated tasks, issues and documents throughout the process.

For B2B customers, the Adobe Marketo Engage Connector is now available through Adobe Workfront Fusion.

Why we care. Workfront was a bold $1.5 billion investment made by Adobe, and we can now begin to see how it will be used not only to improve the productivity of creative teams, but to also build out capabilities for marketers, especially enterprises and B2B Marketo customers.

Clearly, Adobe is leveraging its Workfront acquisition to create a collaboration infrastructure that is more connected to its own ecosystem than, say, a competing collaboration platform.

Read more here.

CPGs should consolidate their data  

Consumer packaged goods brands should consolidate their data to deliver more personalized campaigns. This was the conclusion made by Tristan Silhol, Senior Manager, Consulting for Artefact US, part of the global data services company, at the recent MarTech conference.

CPG brands have unique challenges in meeting consumer demands for personalization, according to Silhol. Because of the nature of their business, their audience is broad, which requires a particularly robust data strategy.

“[They] have to be able to go from broad-brush mass-market targeting to targeting the right consumers at the right time with the right message,” he stated.

“In typical strategic marketing, teams are focused on assumption-based marketing, said Silhol. “So essentially, they’re building media campaigns and personalization based on external factors such as consumer surveys, brand knowledge, national demographic data, statistical data and, of course, consumption data.”

He added, “And it’s great to build broad campaigns, such as TV campaigns, but it might not be sufficient when current customers expect a lot of personalization and a certain level of relationship with the brands today.” 

Read more here.