AWS CMO Rachel Thornton on the future of customer-obsessed marketing in 2022

Enterprise leaders world wide proceed to regulate to the continuing impression of the pandemic, whereas additionally attempting to maintain tempo with fast technological innovation. Advertising leaders and their groups are additionally adapting to the “new regular” of fast change and the impacts it continues to have on buyer experiences. 

Over the previous few months, I’ve had the chance to hitch discussions with a number of of my trade friends on this matter in quite a lot of engagements. In January, for instance, I joined Karen Walker, chief advertising and marketing officer of Intel, at her international advertising and marketing city corridor. We had been capable of report the dialogue and I’ve included snippets of our dialog on this put up.

Based mostly on these discussions, in addition to ones I’ve daily with our clients and companions, I stay optimistic about what’s forward for the intersection of promoting and know-how in 2022. Listed here are three issues I’ve discovered to be much more true over the previous two years and the way they form my planning for this yr:

• Buyer obsessed advertising and marketing requires experimenting and piloting new applied sciences 
• The hybrid occasion mannequin is right here to remain driving stickier engagement with clients and companions 
• Proceed to reimagine what works in your distant and in-person staff 

Buyer obsessed advertising and marketing: Experiment, study, scale 

The spine of Amazon Net Companies (AWS)’s advertising and marketing engine is information. It allows us to raised serve our clients, anticipate their altering wants and construct a sustainable enterprise for a greater tomorrow. Buyer obsession is core to AWS, and being data-driven in every thing we do is a part of how we stay centered on the client. On daily basis, my staff begins from the client (or associate) and works backward to deeply perceive their challenges and alternatives.

Then we invent on their behalf to develop advertising and marketing applications that educate and encourage clients about what is feasible with the cloud. Expertise investments in our mar-tech stack, lead administration engine and marketing campaign and occasion manufacturing have helped us construct the essential basis for creating extra focused applications, tighter buyer connections and simpler campaigns with higher engagement charges. Not every thing we pilot works, however failing quick and studying means we’re higher arrange for the following pilot and finally higher capable of shortly transfer our most profitable pilots to manufacturing. 

In keeping with the 2021 CXO Tech Agenda – The Publish-Covid Panorama by The Wall Avenue Journal (WSJ) and Barron’s Group Intelligence, “55% of respondents mentioned they goal to be thought-about a disruptive enterprise…” highlighting the necessity for organizations to spend money on know-how that may gasoline customer-centric innovation. Experimenting with know-how, resembling machine studying (ML) or synthetic intelligence (AI), in advertising and marketing will help unlock new alternatives for buyer experiences and probably drive better enterprise impression. 

We’re seeing our clients create higher engagement experiences for his or her clients by leveraging applied sciences like ML and AI to extend marketing campaign response charges or serve related content material quicker with clever search. An incredible instance of piloting a brand new know-how to create a extra participating buyer expertise is what the PGA TOUR has accomplished with Each Shot Stay, an over-the-top (OTT) streaming platform powered by AWS that offers PGA TOUR followers stay entry to each shot from each participant in a match.

Via using AWS know-how, the PGA TOUR was capable of quickly rework its content material and supply followers with richer particulars on their favourite golfers, the photographs and the scores. Followers love the flexibility to go deeper on which gamers and which photographs impression the leaderboard rankings. 

Within the 2021 CXO Tech Agenda research, by The WSJ | Barron’s Group Intelligence, “51% of respondents ranked new know-how piloting & adoption because the best transformation initiative for the years forward.”

One other instance nearer to house is how the AWS advertising and marketing staff has elevated our use of ML fashions to assist us:

• Design buyer experiences which might be extra intentional and tailor-made and lead to increased engagement charges

• Create extra subtle advertising and marketing engagement scoring fashions to measure program outcomes
• Shortly scale our technical documentation (consumer guides, tutorials, and many others.) globally with instruments like Amazon Translate

Growing our use of AI and ML companies has actually helped us throughout so many points of our advertising and marketing and based mostly on the outcomes we’ve got seen, I imagine ML will likely be some of the transformational applied sciences of the following few years. I encourage all entrepreneurs in 2022 to consider methods they will leverage it to create highly effective buyer experiences.

Adapting with clients: The hybrid occasion mannequin is right here to remain 

For nearly three years now, everybody has navigated some of the disruptive instances in trendy historical past attributable to COVID-19. So many issues have modified and from a advertising and marketing perspective, one of many largest modifications we’ve got seen is to stay occasions, which needed to be paused in 2020 after which utterly reimagined as digital experiences.

If there’s one factor we’ve taken away from the previous few years of experimenting, it’s that the necessity for a versatile, hybrid buyer/associate engagement technique is right here to remain. The pandemic has accelerated our considering round creating digital content material that may be on-demand or ‘all the time on,’ in addition to how we incorporate hands-on studying on digital platforms to maintain our clients engaged.

Whereas we had been all pressured to maneuver to a digital occasion mannequin, we discovered clients love the possibility to see know-how in motion, like with our digital Immersion Labs the place a buyer can spend just a few hours, just a few days every week, studying with an professional. These personalized and interactive periods permit our consultants to hone in on what the client must navigate their cloud journey. 

One of many largest challenges for my staff was recreating our annual in-person buyer convention, re:Invent, in a totally digital format. The primary yr of the pandemic, when all occasions moved to a digital format, we reimagined what a digital re:Invent can be. The staff checked out each side of our in-person re:Invent and found out the way to translate it to a digital expertise, all whereas retaining the bar excessive on our keynotes, breakout periods, labs and workshops.

We had been inspired by the outcomes. We had over 300,000 folks be a part of digital re:Invent and take part in all of the actions they’d have anticipated on the in-person occasion and we exceeded our general CSAT rating of 4.0 (out of 5). For 2021, we created a hybrid re:Invent expertise with 26,000 clients becoming a member of us in Las Vegas (with strict COVID-19 security protocols) and a whole bunch of hundreds of shoppers collaborating in our digital expertise. On-demand assets and recordings from the convention had been made obtainable, so the worth of attending just about or in particular person could possibly be leveraged wherever a buyer could be. 

With these pivots in digital engagement technique and by testing out new applications, we’ve been capable of have interaction extra clients and companions globally to create distinctive experiences that meet them the place they’re. We’ve additionally been capable of take key classes and apply them to optimize our engagement applications for the long run—even in a post-pandemic world.

Reimagine what works in your hybrid staff  

Lastly, one other key space my leaders and I are doubling down on in 2022 is continuous to foster a powerful collaborative surroundings throughout hybrid groups. In keeping with the 2021 CXO Tech Agenda research, “87% of respondents imagine that distant work is right here to remain,” additional reinforcing the necessity for continued and improved connectivity between groups. It’s critically vital that when my groups get collectively, they know why they’re assembly and what outcomes they need to obtain. Certainly one of my largest items of recommendation is to double down on the appropriate inside conferences, particularly as we proceed with hybrid work environments. Everyone seems to be busy and so having readability about assembly targets and targets respects everybody’s time and ensures everybody stays productive.

Together with productiveness, velocity issues in enterprise. Due to this fact, when high-velocity decision-making is required and you’re navigating a virtually-connected staff, one among our Management Rules – Have Spine; Disagree and Commit – turns into particularly invaluable. This Management Precept helps respectful, lively dialogue of differing opinions in order that, as soon as a call is made, all of us commit wholly and transfer ahead cohesively. In a hybrid work surroundings, this turns into basic and permits us to keep up our velocity when making strategic choices. 

As we proceed to navigate an more and more advanced but in addition thrilling world, we must always empower groups to be agile. We do that by retaining them knowledgeable to make constant, data-driven choices shortly. This then helps create higher applications for patrons. Remaining agile is essential for attracting and retaining expertise, in addition to serving to our clients and companions achieve success. I’m enthusiastic about the way forward for advertising and marketing as we navigate these instances of experimentation and scale and I imagine know-how will proceed to be a key enabler for entrepreneurs to work smarter, stay versatile and proceed to ship distinctive buyer experiences. 

Rachel Thornton is the vp and chief advertising and marketing officer of Amazon Net Companies