Webinar: Driving Customer Engagement in a Distracted World

MarTech Web Sesh: Driving Customer Engagement in a Distracted World

There are more companies than ever vying for your customers’ attention. Within our always-on world of social media, streaming platforms, and mobile devices your customers are rarely more than 3 feet away from another message or another distraction.

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Speakers:

Welcome and Introduction

Carlos Doughty: Hello and welcome everybody joining us today! I can see lots of people bouncing into the session as we speak. Really looking forward to this one. This is going to be a particularly fun session. We are going to be talking about the latest in driving customer engagement in a distracted world. I think we've all noticed just how much of a challenge it is to get people's time and attention, and this session is going to touch on exactly that.

Before we jump in, I do want to say a big thank you to Blueshift for making this possible. Joining me today is the VP of EMEA Blueshift, that is Stuart Gordon. Stuart leads the company's growth within the region and has spent the last 10 years working within MarTech to solve problems for his clients and partners.

We are also going to be joined by Frederik Salzedo, Director of Retention and CRM at Discovery+ EMEA. Frederik has implemented an AI-based marketing automation environment in order to improve the customer journey, experience, and retention.

Today, Frederik and Stuart are going to be chatting through:

Just before I hand over to Stuart and Frederik, a note to say, please add your questions on the way. Don't wait until the end. Start firing over your questions. We have got 15 minutes dedicated at the end to answer your questions.

Blueshift and Discovery+ Overview

Stuart Gordon: Thank you very much, Carlos, for that introduction. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm sure everybody knows who Discovery+ are. Very quickly, Blueshift is a smart hub CDP, which means we:

In this session, we're going to be speaking to Frederik about how he has evolved throughout his journey at Discovery+, specifically in the marketing automation area.

Poll Question: How much time per week do you spend watching TV and streaming services (excluding social media)?

Stuart Gordon: We have the results. Nobody has no time, which is amazing. And there are some people with a small amount, 6%, with over 20 hours. So I'm going to ask you then, Frederik, if you have any insight into the changes in screen time across the user base over lockdown. Have you seen a change over lockdown with your figures?

Frederik Salzedo: Well, absolutely. We've seen a very big increase in the consumption on the service. The fact that you have some countries in Europe that had a lockdown while countries haven't had the same way. So we've seen a very much a big trend seeing that people being locked at home having not so much to do.

Customer Engagement and Personalization at Discovery+

Stuart Gordon: Capturing and keeping customer attention is increasingly challenging. How do you approach customer engagement? And how have your strategies evolved?

Frederik Salzedo: Personalization is really where it comes to be able to identify the different type of cohorts of users that we have. We want to be so personalized that we can be down on a one-to-one level to expose shows that we think you might like.

If we looked at the control group, about 32% of people watched the episode within a three-day window. While those exposed to this automation, 92% had watched the episode within a few days window. This is, of course, three times more watch time.

Stuart Gordon: What would you recommend for those people starting out? What are the first things to consider?

Frederik Salzedo: Step one is: if your multi-channel platform can be omnichannel and do the orchestration that a marketing automation tool can do, okay, then you need to make sure you gather everything you need for that platform.

Understanding Multichannel vs. Omnichannel: A Maturity Audit

Carlos Doughty: I would say, first of all, that the terminology is interchanged at times without appreciating the distinction. You start to think in levels of maturity. Understanding the need to take action if you don't really appreciate that using lots of channels isn't the angle. Ultimately, you're trying to achieve a seamless connected experience.

Q&A Session: Direct Mail and Streaming Ads

Carlos Doughty: Let's jump in. Thomas asks, "How do you think direct mail will fit into your strategy moving forwards?

Frederik Salzedo: In terms of current customers, this is not for the near future. We don't have our customers' home addresses. That makes direct postal marketing really hard.

Stuart Gordon: It depends on the sector. The likes of streaming or digital-only businesses may not see it fit into their strategy as effectively as e-learning and finance companies.

Carlos Doughty: I think there's one use case where I’m seeing direct mail quite a lot more on the B2B side of things.

Frederik Salzedo: If you ask me, no, no, no for streaming services. We have a version where you have the ad-like package, where you see fewer ads for a cheaper amount of money.

Stuart Gordon: I think it's interesting that companies are still exploring different strategies to incorporate direct mail into their marketing.

Carlos Doughty: It's been a great session! Thank you to Frederik and Stuart for joining us today.