The blog

Some men love cars, some men love football. Others like watches or whiskey. But my passion lies somewhere else: I’m a guitar guy. Writing to you is Dries, Innovation Manager at The House of Marketing and the brains behind Know Your Vintage Guitars.

“If we have 4.5m customers, we shouldn’t have one store. We should have 4.5m stores.” This quote from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says it all.

People from all over the globe have gathered again at the holy grounds of Tomorrowland. This unforgettable experience can be considered as a corporate religion, with few chosen ones. To stay in this spiritual mindset, I will summarize the important marketing lessons of this spectacular event in the form of 10 commandments. For eons the 10 commandments have been an important source of inspiration for believers and even for non-believers… so why not use this to show you the way for all your marketing initiatives?

I’m Stephanie, senior innovation consultant at The House of Marketing and a third culture kid. Put simply, I am a Belgian-born Hong Kongese. I don’t fully belong in either culture even if I wanted to. In Europe, my Asian looks can’t go unnoticed and as soon as I start speaking Cantonese in Hong Kong, people hear my accent. Or if you find this reference more eloquent: I am a ‘banana’. Yellow on the outside, white on the inside. And although I’m proud of who I am today, I disliked being different as a child, especially in primary school. I didn’t think it was flattering to look like Mulan. I wanted to be Cinderella, just like anyone else.

The end goal of any Customer Experience program is on the one hand to create business value through acquiring, retaining and growing profitable customers and on the other hand to achieve your business results (either revenues for a company or number of users for a nonprofit organization, for example). In other words, a Customer Experience program is successful if you have created and captured value. Companies need to keep in mind that their Customer Experience efforts have an impact on their business objectives. These objectives need to be linked to marketing objectives as it is important for marketers to measure what matters both for marketing and the business to improve their Customer Experience. In the end, companies that want to grow further into Customer Experience and deliver high quality personalization need to start measuring their Customer Experience efforts.

The end goals of any Customer Experience (CX) program are on the one hand to create business value through acquiring, retaining and growing profitable customers and on the other hand to achieve your business results. If you want to enhance your customer experience and be more personal, you need to create relevant and individual messages that catch the attention of your consumers across different channels. These kinds of message on social media, via ads or an email campaign yield a much higher ROI. 

The long-term output of any Customer Experience (CX) program is to create business value through acquiring, retaining and growing profitable customers.   Improving your Customer Experience is not always linked to AI and huge investments. It is already a step forward when you start communicating about Customer Experience within your company and celebrate the quick wins that you achieve in this domain. For example, when you visit The House of Marketing’s website for the first time, you will see a standard homepage. Once you have downloaded some content from the website, the content on the homepage will change according to your interests. This example shows that content can differ depending on the user without using AI. It is a functionality in Hubspot, the Content Management System (CMS) we are using. Companies need to start improving their Customer Experience before they can go one step further into the personalization of those experiences. 

Only 12% of F500 have ​remained since 1955​. 40% of F500 will disappear ​in 10 years. Why? For years, companies have been competing on product and price because customers were looking for the best product at the best price. But the rules of the game have changed, especially since we entered the fourth industrial revolution. Building upon the digital revolution, the fourth industrial revolution is characterized by a fusion of technologies that blurs the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. This new era comes with a hyper-competitive marketplace where customers are in the driver’s seat. As we are accustomed to having all the information we want within seconds and switching brands is a near-frictionless experience, customer expectations have risen higher than ever before. We are no longer satisfied with quality, a good price, good customer service etc. Customers don’t care if you claim you offer them a smooth omnichannel experience, they only care about connecting with you, the way they want and when they want. Only companies that succeed in engaging with their customers on a one-to-one basis, responding to their needs and (exceeding) expectations, have a chance to grow long-term loyalty. 

THoMer Lucas attended The Next Web, one of Europe's most renowned tech conferences in Amsterdam. He brought home insights that demonstrate how the world of marketing never ceases to evolve.

THoMer Dennis caught up with Femke De Roo (BASE) and Gertjan Dewaele (Ingenico) over coffee, to look back on their joint project: a telecom chatbot with integrated payment in Messenger, a first in Belgium.