RESEARCH TRIANGLE REGION, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Netsertive, a digital marketing intelligence company that enables brands and their local channel partners with turnkey, co-op compliant digital marketing capabilities, today released its “Omnichannel’s Missing Link” report. Created in partnership with the CMO Council, the report includes insights gathered from 180 brand marketers on the key challenges they face in delivering seamless customer experiences, both online and at the store around the corner. While an overwhelming majority of brand marketers (94 percent) feel that an omnichannel strategy is critical to their success, few are able to extend that strategy beyond digital channels to impact customers’ experiences at retail. In fact, nearly half of brand marketers (42 percent) still struggle to measure the impact of digital efforts on in-store sales, a troubling metric when considering that more than 92 percent of sales still occur in local stores.
“The emergence of omnichannel marketing has shined a spotlight on the growing gap that exists between brands and their local retail partners,” said Brendan Morrissey, CEO and co-founder of Netsertive. “Not only are brand marketers concerned with retailers’ ability to extend their marketing efforts to local customers, many have taken steps to cut retailers out of the equation or have overlooked them entirely in their efforts to control the customer experience. Unfortunately, it’s the customer who suffers in this scenario, as missed connections lead to missed opportunities to meet their expectations.”
Key survey findings include:
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Disconnects Between Brands and Local Retailers Lead to Disjointed
Customer Experiences
Even the best omnichannel strategies are falling down at the local level, where they are most crucial to driving sales. Nearly half of brand marketers (48 percent) feel their alignment with local retailers is “hit or miss,” while only seven percent feel as though they are fully aligned with local retailers. Most marketers believe that technology is to blame for this disconnect, pointing to a lack of marketing education, tools and resources as core challenges local retailers face.
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Brand Marketers Want Control, Even at the Expense of Customer
Preferences
There is an obvious gap between what’s important to customers and what marketers can easily control. While local brick-and-mortar retail remains customers’ “channel” of choice when it comes to making a purchase, only 22 percent of brand marketers consider local retail partners as critical to achieving business outcomes. This could be because nearly half (42 percent) admit that they are still unable to measure the impact of their digital efforts on in-store outcomes. This is surprising, when considering that nearly half of marketers today are spending 30 percent of their marketing budgets to drive local engagements, and one-third are hinging future investments into local marketing on the results of current efforts.
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Marketers Have a Narrow Definition of “Omnichannel”
A majority of brand marketers are viewing omnichannel narrowly, focusing on digital channels such as digital advertising (60 percent), corporate websites (56 percent), mobile, including mobile web, search and messaging (54 percent), social media (51 percent) and email (47 percent) as the most critical customer touchpoints. Far fewer give credence to how those channels are driving customers into physical retail locations – or the role of more traditional strategies such as local promotions (40 percent), live events (25 percent) and partner marketing (22 percent). This could be because brand marketers lack confidence in local retailers’ ability to execute digital strategies across modern channels – only three percent of marketers believe local retailers are prepared to target their mobile customers, for example.
As major ecommerce players launch brick-and-mortar strategies to extend their reach into local markets, it has never been more crucial for brands and their local partners to rally around their customers and present a unified front. A study conducted in late 2015 in partnership with Borrell Associates revealed that misalignment between brands and retailers contributes to nearly $14 billion in cooperative marketing funds being left on the table each year. These lost funds translate to lost opportunities for both brands and retailers to meet customers where their digital and physical worlds collide – their local store.
To download the full report, please visit: https://www.netsertive.com/cmo-council-research-report/ or register for the Netsertive and CMO Council webinar on December 8th at 2:00 PM EST.
About Netsertive
Netsertive’s digital marketing intelligence
platform empowers brands and local businesses to work together to win
local customers. The company’s two complementary solutions, MarketWise™
for Brands and StreetWise™ for Local Businesses, enable cooperative
marketing and resource sharing between brands and their local business
partners. Both are powered by Netsertive's proprietary learning engine,
which combines the company's deep industry experience with the
collective intelligence of its extensive network of automotive, IT
technology, major appliance, furniture, consumer electronics and
healthcare clients to deliver unprecedented campaign speed, performance
and value. An award-winning marketing technology company and Google
Premier Partner, Netsertive drives local marketing success from campaign
enablement through scaled, local execution. Additionally, Netsertive
helps brands automate their co-op marketing to ensure localized brand
compliance, seamless campaign execution and reimbursement tracking for
local partners.
Founded in 2009 and based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, the company has a history of rapid growth, a world-class team and the strength of venture capital funding from top firms RRE Ventures, Harbert Venture Partners, River Cities Capital Funds and Greycroft Partners. Netsertive was named in 2016 for the fourth consecutive year to Inc. Magazine’s 5000 fastest-growing private companies, ranked 128 on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500™, named for the fourth time to the 2016 Triangle Business Journal’s list of Fast 50 companies, named for the fourth time in the 2016 Triangle Business Journal’s Best Places to Work awards, named the 2014 Software Company of the Year by the North Carolina Technology Association, named a gold winner by the Golden Bridge Awards and named a silver winner by the Stevie American Business Awards. Additional information about Netsertive is available at www.netsertive.com.
About The CMO Council
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
Council is the only global network of executives specifically dedicated
to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal
relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand
decision-makers across a wide range of global industries. The CMO
Council's 10,500-plus members control approximately $500 billion in
aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed
marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and
its strategic interest communities include more than 65,000 global
executives in more than 110 countries covering multiple industries,
segments and markets. Regional chapters and advisory boards are active
in the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, India and Africa.
The council's strategic interest groups include the Coalition to
Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE), Mobile Relationship
Marketing (MRM) Strategies, LoyaltyLeaders.org, CMOCIOAlign.org,
Marketing Supply Chain Institute, Customer Experience Board, Digital
Marketing Performance Institute, GeoBranding Center and the Forum to
Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME). More information on the CMO
Council is available at www.cmocouncil.org.
