What’s NEXT 2023 Conference: How marketing leaders take a 360º-journey to grow their customers

Gaining more customers is an everyday challenge not only for salespeople but for marketers as well — but what if there are more ways than one to take on this challenge?

In MARKETECH APAC’s recently conducted conference, ‘What’s NEXT 2023: Marketing in Asia Pacific’, marketing leaders Anna Henwood, CEO of insights platform Stickybeak, and Nancy Almasco, marketing director of retail company FlowerStore.ph enumerated some of the strategies marketers can take to create a 360º-journey in growing their customers this 2023 and beyond. 

The panel discussion was moderated by Kaspersky’s Communications Planning Partner for APAC and META, Mark Opao, which provided the audience with insights on how to boost brands’ knowledge of their target markets for regional expansion in 2023. The speakers also discussed how to leverage consumer data in marketing strategies and how to future-proof one’s brand amidst the competitive industry. 

Ready: Where to start when making a 360-degree consumer journey

“For you to commit to that 360 consumer journey, you have to make sure that everyone is onboarded,” said Almasco on defining what a 360-degree consumer journey is. According to her, the ideal 360º-journey is not only a marketing effort but a company-wide one — including the sales, customer support, operations, and business development teams, amongst others. 

Meanwhile, Henwood highlighted that a 360-degree journey must always start with the customer. She also added that customers will tend to have different journeys, so marketers should first gather everything they have, including data, focus groups, and research, in order to understand where the gaps are. 

However, Henwood advised to not let the pile of data paralyse their brand. She furthered, “As soon as you can, start visualising the information that you’ve got… Just start getting up what you know, so you can see where you’ve got information and where you haven’t.”

Set: How to set up your brand for expansion

In the next segment, Almasco and Henwood also shared their views on brand expansion. To this, Almasco emphasised that companies should first set their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to know if there is a need for recalibrating the brand’s strategies. On making a ‘stop’ when analysing data, however, Almasco highlighted that it should be a continuous effort. 

“It’s a continuous effort. Week on week, month on month, you do an analysis, you review your data, you review performance, you measure your success or the numbers that you have versus the KPIs,” she explained. 

On the other hand, Henwood stressed the importance of being clear about your hypotheses and objectives. She said, “What I would really encourage you to look at is ways that you can get a more agile or modern research that helps you quickly test that hypothesis that you’ve got. There’s plenty of tools and digital platforms out there that can help you do that.”

Moreover, she also said that before brands should start thinking about expansion, they should first really understand their core brand strategy and messaging. “Having a really good understanding of your core brand strategy and your pillars, and understanding how you can tailor that to each market, I think is really important when you’re setting up brand expansion,” she explained. 

Go: Ways to future-proof your brand

Finally, Henwood said that while consumer data can be quite overwhelming, brands should be clear on the answers they are looking for. “Don’t go in there just looking at your data to try and find something out. Go in there with a question… You’ll be there forever, and you’ll never get out,” she concluded. 

On dealing with competitors, Almasco also highlighted that brands should go above and beyond them by understanding all their strategies and making them better whilst still keeping their brand identity. “But you have to ensure that in terms of brand identity, you keep it. Because you cannot promise on something that you cannot deliver,” said Almasco.

Opao concluded the conversation by rounding up the speakers’ points: don’t let overwhelming consumer data paralyse your brand and always know what you can deliver whilst also going beyond to stand out in the market.

‘What’s NEXT 2023: Marketing in Asia Pacific’ is MARKETECH APAC’s inaugural two-day hybrid conference, which tackled various topics in the marketing space targeted at future-proofing the industry, including growth marketing, influencer marketing, and retail media, amongst others. The conference was attended by over 200 in-person attendees and more than 100 virtual participants from various brands and industries in and out of the country.

Stickybeak, one of the panellists in the discussion, is a proud Silver Sponsor of What’s NEXT 2023: Marketing in Asia Pacific. Stickybeak is a testing and insights platform that delivers fast, cost-effective, and valuable customer insights through social media-powered targeting.