The recent Digital Content Summit focused on the strong need to understand and measure multi-channel customer engagement: Why? Content creators, owners, distributor, broadcast channel, advertiser or platform, have witnessed a radical shift in media ecosystems – The growth of opportunities for consumers to view new content, new distribution platforms across multiple screens has generated a proliferation of information about the consumer of the content and an ability to respond to the consumer in real-time.
The sheer number of digital channels now available means the distribution and access to content has become more fragmented, there is a lot more noise on consumer behaviour, and the amount of user data generated has become exponential. There is a strong need to understand and measure multi-channel customer engagement in a way that cuts through the noise and allows brand owners to respond quickly and effectively to consumer demand. The challenge is how to use sometimes overwhelming levels of information and data available on the customer to get a useful and actionable measure of customer engagement which is easily accessible to marketing and senior executives who are tasked with making daily decisions on the impact of their brand or content on changing consumer dynamics.
The future of digital content is video
There was a consensus at the summit that digital content is fast moving towards video (if it isn’t already) and mobile will be the central driver of consumers’ access to content. There is now an opportunity to move out of the traditional research and measurement models and create more efficient measurement metrics for digital content. Traditionally measuring how customers consume and interact with content was an inexact science. This new multi-faceted media ecosystem delivers the ability to retain direct information on customer behaviour and engagement and unlock a deeper understanding of how consumers engage with content – tracking, measuring and forecasting the relevant value drivers. Being able to create a common ecosystem to unlock an efficient measure of customer engagement is key. There is currently no single, industry-wide format or solution to measuring engagement and each business has its own priorities.
Budgets need to be refocused
A key barrier to ensuring existing customers are truly engaged with digital content is the focus of marketing budgets. At the event, the point was raised that too much marketing budget is still focused on winning new customers – there are many stats around about the cost of acquiring new customers being much higher than the cost of retaining customers, but this doesn’t seem to have changed the focus of many organisations. Companies are missing out on growth opportunities by not optimising the value of their existing customers.
Instead, up to 75 per cent of budgets should be geared towards making your existing client base ‘sticky’ – to paraphrase the BBC’s charter, you need to connect, educate and entertain existing customers/users. However, many organisations are unsure about how to do this and the first step is to be clear about the questions you need to ask and the value each customer has. You will gain a good idea of this from the data that is coming back to you.
Effective data management
Today the key is being able to effectively manage and use that data to drive crucial insights about the way individuals are consuming media. Effective data management enables better processing and analysis of the success of digital content than ever before. This means that the media industry is able to plan content strategies more effectively as a result of this new data.
The first step for any company is to assess the maturity of its existing data infrastructure. An immature infrastructure will rely on manual processes and be unable to make connections between the various data streams. It is important to build an infrastructure which allows for the transformation of complex data streams into a cohesive, accessible and flexible source of insight, delivered in a way that can be easily understood and used.
Overcoming challenges
Putting the Digital Content Summit aside, organisations in the media industry must focus on transforming complex data streams into a cohesive and accessible source of insight, delivered in a way that they can easily understand, with a strong emphasis on innovative, flexible frameworks and visuals. By working with data experts, media businesses across the sector can realise creative, tailored and practical solutions to help them access and visualise customer and audience engagement and value across the whole ecosystem. The key is harnessing multiple streams of business intelligence and translating this into relevant and accessible metrics that allow businesses to make the decisions needed to stay ahead of the competition and grow customer value.
By Paul Collins, Head of Media, IMGROUP and Nathalie Lethbridge, Media Sector Advisor, IMGROUP.
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