I recently had the privilege to work with Charlene Li, one of our industry's thought leaders, on a Webinar that SAS sponsored and the American Marketing Association produced, titled "Drive Marketing Relevance in Today's Digital World." The SAS host and architect of the discussion's content was Jonathan Hornby, one of our in-house thought leaders.

The discussion centered on the idea that consumers have never had more ways in which to interact with businesses, noting that at any given time, customers are:

• On your website, finding out more about your products and services,
• Reading customer reviews to better inform the same buying decisions you are executing campaigns to influence,
• In your store, using a mobile device to ensure they aren’t overpaying for things,
• Telling their friends on social media what they think about your brand,

Since today's world is a digital realm, customer behaviors and expectations are changing profoundly and quickly. Our customers expect a near instant ability to find relevant information about the products and services they need. And they are now within a click of either buying from you or your competitor.

At the same time, there is an opportunity to influence purchases, but for marketers to do that, they have to fit the puzzle pieces left behind by customers in each channel. So, customer centricity has never been more critical to business strategy. Without the view that the customer experiences your brand on all these different channels, you're not likely to be relevant to them in your marketing.

There were so many good points made in the webinar, I am going to pick a few of my favorites:

• A good strategic view of marketing is to think of it in terms of connecting to the revenue it drives. It's far more than campaign management, clicks & conversion or social media.
• Some of the biggest obstacles to marketing in today's world are organizational - think siloes of data and separate departments that don't necessarily talk to one another. Do each of those departments interact with the customer? How do they work together? How does that impact the customer's regard for your brand as a result?
• We need to really re-think how we interact with our customers so that we're matching their new expectations. For example, retailers usually don't recognize a loyal customer until the end of the interaction (like swiping their affinity card at the register). How does that apply to your business? Imagine the potential of partnering a platform like Foursquare with analytics - you'll not only know who your best customers are, but you'll know HOW good they are the minute they walk through the door. That's not just relevance - it's real-time relevance.
• To measure success, start by asking what kind of relationship you want with the customer and describe it in words. The answer will tell you what you need to be measuring. Often companies see their customers in terms of a transaction. My thought on that is this - that may very well be good enough for some companies, as long as the customer also sees it that way. And even then, you've commoditized your value proposition and your future value is only as reliable as your next transaction. That's not thinking strategically and it's not good business.
• One of the audience polls revealed that just over 60% polled were not entirely confident in how well they understand their customer behavior and experience. Charlene commented that confidence could be achieved by structuring the approach to data gathering and knowing what the parameters were for "good enough" in terms of accuracy.
• When asked where she saw this convergence of techologies going, she said the real opportunity is cross-channel and that marketing activities should not be limited to the marketing department. Every employee is a potential brand ambassador, and the results can be amazing if they are empowered and trusted to serve the customer.

  This Webinar is available on demand at this Link. Tune in at your convenience to hear this engaging interaction between Jonathan and Charlene. It is first in the three-part Customers Valued and Valuable Webinar series, accessible at the series landing page, www.sas.com/relevance. I learned a lot from the discussion and I hope you can, too.