Unpredictions: Why Marketers Need More than Annual Predictions | Meghann York & Paul Lewis

Paul Lewis:
Hello and welcome to the Retail Rundown podcast. I’m your host, Paul Lewis. Joining the show today is Meghann York. Meghann is the global head of product marketing and marketing solutions at a Emarsys, an SAP company. Meghann is a dynamic marketing leader who specializes in sales and strategy development, organization design, resourcing, and market development. As a thought leader in her field, Meghann applies creative thinking to solve big marketing challenges. Welcome to the show, Mehgann.

Meghann York:
Hey Paul, thanks so much for having me.

Paul Lewis:
So we are still in the beginning of the year where brands and analysts and even media companies like RETHINK Retail roll out their big predictions for the year. These predictions are often drivers of anything from investments into new technologies, to entire marketing strategies. But Meghann, you have a different take on annual predictions. And earlier this month, SAP’s Emarsys released a new report titled Unpredictions, Commerce Marketing Priorities Powering 2022. Let’s start there. Why Unpredictions?

Meghann York:
Yeah. So unpredictions is our tongue in cheek way of looking at, like you said, this big wave of predictions that come out every year. We work with marketers every day and we understand marketers and retail marketers, they’re stressed right now. There are a lot of factors at play from reduced budgets and staffing and changing customer behaviors and all the things going on with our cooking list world and privacy. So we think nobody has time to think what could I do or put the finger up in the air and say, what way is the wind blowing? We think marketers need not predictions, but actual strategies and insight and advice on what they should be doing this year and the things that should be in their marketing plans. So yes, I heard you laugh a little bit. That’s our way of saying let’s not predict what might happen. Let’s tell you based on everything that we’re seeing, what you should be doing this year.

Paul Lewis:
Well, that makes a lot of sense. And I agree that marketers are definitely stressed right now. There are a lot of things that are hard to predict from what’s going to happen in retail from a variety of factors. So giving marketers practical advice of real insights about what’s happening, I think is really valuable to our audience. As I look through the report, I noticed a third of the marketers you spoke to say the inability to scale content is holding back personalization for their brand. Is personalization still a major key to growth though?

Meghann York:
Absolutely. So customers have been saying for a long time that they want brands to understand their preferences, understand the things that they like, that they don’t like, how they want to be communicated with, and that they will prefer brands who honor all of those preferences. And so, we’ve been talking about personalization for a very long time, but the power of it, is absolutely still there. And then making sure that personalization is injected into all the channels, whether it’s the website or email or a push notification with all the places that you’re interacting with your customers. And its impossible really to be able to, without technology, observe all those customer moments, trigger all of those messages in real time so that you get that person at their moment of consideration and their moment when they’re ready to purchase, assess and analyze all of the possible content combinations that maybe tailored to sometimes millions of customers at one time.

Meghann York:
So yes, marketers need to be continuing to think about personalization. They need to be thinking about how they can use artificial intelligence and technology to be able to deliver on the premise of personalization, which is really meeting customers in the channel that they want with the content that they want.

Paul Lewis:
And I think a lot of marketers are just overwhelmed at the number of permutations that can happen with personalization and how do I make sure that I’m coming up with the right combinations for the right situations? And when you have a small target group that you’re trying to reach, that you, as a human being, understand really well, it is possible to do that. But how much of a difference does it make to be able to scale that to your entire market segment, like you said, potentially millions of prospects of customers.

Meghann York:
Yeah. You have to. And like you said, there’s only so much we, as humans can do that. We can do a lot of data analysis and look at things that happened in the past and try to understand our customers that way, but it’s impossible really for us to predict what’s going be happening in the future. And that’s the beauty of using machine learning and using artificial intelligence and making sure that AI is baked into the campaign management and marketing platforms that you’re using. So you really can, as you said, put together all of those different permutations of product recommendations and content recommendations and content based on geography, all of these things that machine learning in the background can help you do this, nearly impossible for humans to be able to do.

Paul Lewis:
And I know this is an area that you help your clients with. Can you give us a tangible example of how you do that for a client?

Meghann York:
Sure. So there’s the personalization piece, there’s also the data piece that I think is important to talk about in this conversation. As we talked about earlier on, data privacy is so important right now. And so what you find in the report is that marketers really need to be focused on how they can augment their first party data in interactive and fun ways that make it enjoyable for the customer to give their data, but then use that data for personalization. So we have a customer called SportsDirect. And I love what they do, because they have an Emarsys-powered online stylist, where the person can go in and they can answer questions about their personal style and their activity level and loads of different questions about their preferences. And the AI stylist then goes into the catalog and makes recommendations on what that person should buy. So it’s very, very valuable to the customer.

Meghann York:
We talk about value exchange, the customer’s getting something out of that experience, but in the background, that’s helping them build a profile of that customer and match that data that’s given with what’s been purchased in the past or what they’ve been browsing on the website and then use all of that to make future recommendations on the website or email about things that they might be interested in. So I just think that’s a really great example, especially as we said, marketers are coming up against privacy regulations getting more and more stringent. It’s really a way to be able to build that profile of the customer, do that at scale, do it in a fun and interactive way for the customer, but then have that information you need to be able to personalize future interactions with them.

Paul Lewis:
Yeah. I completely agree. I think that it’s all a balance of the value that you provide, right? So for me, having different organizations know things about me makes my life more convenient, what products they might recommend, what information they’re going to send me. I think that as long as that balance is maintained, I think consumers actually appreciate the value add that’s being added, hopefully. So it’s just important that there is that commensurate value that’s being created.

Meghann York:
Yeah. I think you’re exactly right. I’ve been working in the AI and marketing field for a really long time. And I have been asked the question, how do you know when it’s too much? And I have always said, customers will tell us when it’s too much product recommendations or content recommendations, like we were talking about. Like you said, making people’s lives more convenient. People appreciate that. And it shows in their spending behavior, they’re buying those product recommendations or exploring that content that you’ve recommended to them.

Meghann York:
I think back to just what’s going on right now with the push in consumer privacy, I mean, that is coming from consumers themselves. So I think they have expressed that some of these tactics that what we’ve been employing as marketers are too much and it’s time to pull back and it’s time to really honor consent and honor privacy and honor how customers are telling you, they want to communicate with you. So it’s a very interesting shift that’s going on right now and it’s going to be very fascinating to watch how retailers respond to that. But I mean, obviously, it’s what our product does, but we really believe that using all of that first party data to personalize your email or all of your own channels that you have as a marketer is really the way to offer that convenience, offer that value and build a relationship.

Paul Lewis:
Yeah, absolutely. I think I, at least as a consumer have not been concerned too much about first party data. And in fact, I generally think of it as an asset that helps me have more meaningful and faster, more efficient transactions with the companies that I do business with. It’s when that data starts to become third party data, that it needs to have regulations. Even then third party data has lots of value, but it does need to have rules of the road to make sure that it’s being shared in an ethical manner.

Paul Lewis:
Just changing gears for a little bit, AI obviously is one of the key focuses in your unpredictions guide. What’s happening in that field? What are some of the game changing things that are allowing AI to make advanced customer segmentation, for example?

Meghann York:
Yeah, I mean, it is back to what we were talking about, from segmentation purpose. Well, here’s something we’re seeing going out of the market right now and why I think it’s a really, really interesting time to be talking about AI. Again, I keep dating myself and talking about how long I’ve been doing this. But one of the things that people have always been worried about with artificial intelligence is, is this going to replace my job? Are the machines going to take the place of humans? And it was something, the dawn of it that people were really worried about. We just had a customer meeting a few months ago and we brought everybody in the room and the intention was to get product feedback from them. But before we started actually getting feedback on the product, I said, “Product aside, tell me, when you’re waking up at three o’clock in the morning and you’re stressed out about work, what’s the thing that’s stressing you out?”

Meghann York:
And every single person in the room said staffing and resourcing and onboarding people quick enough and retaining. The employment market is just, especially for marketers right now is a really, really fascinating place to be. A great place to be if you’re in the market for a job, a stressful place to be if you’re trying to retain your teams. But I think, we don’t need to anymore worry about AI taking over our jobs. We need to be thinking about it as another member of our team, so we can do all the data processing. And it can… I mean, obviously, we’ll talk about this in a minute, how it makes us smarter across the board and then we’re able to segment it and target people with the information that they want.

Meghann York:
But then on the other hand, just from a team perspective, it takes marketers out of doing more rote data entry or data analysis or things like that in order to get smarter and raise them up to do more of the creative work and maybe some of the reason we all got into marketing in the first place, and also augments our teams that that is the top of mind for marketers right now. But back to your point about segmentation, it’s just not enough to look always at past behavior and make decisions about it. We can’t always say that it’s like driving forward, but looking in the rear view mirror, it’s not safe and it doesn’t help you very much. AI is able to come in and help marketers understand what are customers likely to do next, who’s likely to churn, who’s likely to make a purchase, who’s our most loyal customers and then be able to, so then the marketers can go in with their creativity and stand up really thoughtful campaigns that get at the customer’s intention or where the customer is in their life cycle with you.

Meghann York:
So, back to your question, it not only augments our team and frees marketers up to do the creative fun things that we want to do, but it also helps us engage our customers in the way that they want to be engaged with or will find the most valuable.

Paul Lewis:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Dating myself off a little bit, I remember back on my agency side days, where we would design one ad that then would have 50 plus permutations of different formats and sizes for different purposes. And then someone would say, “Oh yeah, we’re going to do a lot of AB testing.” Not even close to multivariate testing at that point. And the designers in the room would just roll their eyes. Oh my gosh, I’m now going to have to cut another 50 different, little designs of everything to do the second test. And so, I think it’s exactly right. What this enables is it frees up your team to do the creative things. The things that human beings not only are better at, but that is more enjoyable work.

Paul Lewis:
And it allows the mundane, more routine things and also provides the insight into the data, right? It’s actually looking at lots of data in ways that human beings aren’t able to stare into the matrix and see shapes and things in it and carve that and go, “Oh, this actually would be a very smart segment for you or this offer might perform better.” It allows us to see those and then talk about that again, bring it back into the human world, where we talk about it and say, what campaign can we do around that that makes sense? So I think it’s exactly right that it allows people to do more enjoyable, more meaningful work.

Meghann York:
Exactly.

Paul Lewis:
Another question I wanted to ask, Net Zero retailing is definitely a growing focus and rich turns are obviously a big factor. How can tech help with that?

Meghann York:
Yeah, it’s a great question. And sustainability is something or building sustainable enterprises is something that really is a hallmark of SAP and how SAP helps businesses do that. Even outside of marketing, but marketing is definitely a piece of that. What I would say is returns are going to happen, but I think what we need to do, because it is beneficial to our environment, but also beneficial to our bottom line, we need to make sure that our customers are happy with their purchases from us. And a lot of that comes with helping them discover things that they are going to be happy with or making sure when they do purchase something, that they understand how to use it and you know how to incorporate it into their lives. And a lot of that can come back to marketing.

Meghann York:
I mean, we’ve been talking about personalization, how do we understand our customers better so that the products or things that they might be in interested in are surfaced. And then after they purchase, how do we make them successful using that product? Obviously, hopefully to have them come back and buy even more, but also to avoid that return and the return cycle. So I think personalization still is one of an important piece of that, but personalization, as it relates to customers getting value in keeping the things that they buy from us.

Paul Lewis:
I think those are all valid pool points. Yeah. I know that the more that I understand and have products that… It’s not just that the product was a better choice for me, it’s that I understand that it was a better choice. It makes me more likely to want to keep the product, to use the product and to know how to take advantage of the features of the product, because that’s been exposed in that cycle beforehand. So I think that that’s a really valid point to make. I’ve enjoyed talking with you today and I know that here we are at the start of 2022. So I won’t ask for a prediction since this is an unpredictions episode. But I will ask you, what’s something you’re looking forward to, either personally or professionally, or you see for the industry in this year?

Meghann York:
I am really excited just about the evolution of marketing. The tagline of Emarsys is power to the marketer. And what we are really passionate about is… We started the podcast talking about how stressed marketers are. I’m really looking forward to, one, building products and putting thought leadership out there and partnering with our customers so that marketers feel empowered, not just to how do we get product out the door, but actually, how do they feel empowered and how do they understand that just like the conversation we had around sustainability, that, things that we’re doing day in and day out do make a difference in our consumers lives. And we do have the opportunity to make such an impact, and we just need to feel empowered to do that. So that’s what I’m looking forward to this year. We have a lot of really cool stuff going on that’s, like we said is about empowerment, and making marketers heroes and I’m really excited to work on that this year.

Paul Lewis:
Oh, that’s great. Yeah. I couldn’t agree with you more on that as well. I think that obviously things with the pandemic, there’s certainly a lot of challenges and tragedy that goes with that, but at the same time, I’ve seen so much people open to change and so much opportunity. I think it’s a very exciting year in terms of new capabilities, new ways of working, new ways of thinking about old problems. So I’m very excited to see where this year will take us.

Meghann York:
Yes. It’s only going up, right?

Paul Lewis:
That’s right. That’s right. It has to go up from here. Absolutely.

Paul Lewis:
Well, it was wonderful having you on the show, Meghann. Thank you so much for joining.

Meghann York:
Thanks for having me.