Older bosses ‘don’t get it’: Lee Hayhurst reports on slow take-up of personalised marketing and other topics at the Bright On Travel 2014 conference
Take-up of new marketing technologies that offer a more personalised customer experience will gather pace only with a generational change of senior bosses.
Asked why the sector is not at the forefront of adopting many of the latest data-driven technologies, speakers at the Bright On Travel 2014 conference suggested the age of key decision-makers could be the issue.
“Leaders in the industry tend to be older; they don’t get it; and it takes a while for younger people to demonstrate what it can do,” said Steve Endacott, industry entrepreneur and investor in CWT Digital, the travel technology firm behind Bright On Travel.
Dean Harvey, digital development director at Designate, said another problem was that digital marketers had become used to measurable techniques, such as pay-per-click, that provided a distinct return on investment for every pound spent.
“That’s a symptom of why it’s not happened,” Harvey added.
Matt Eames, sales director at Feefo, said too many firms were just pursuing strategies in areas such as reviews or social media without properly investing in it to make it work or just because everyone else was doing it.
“Put someone in there to make sure you can manage, resource and check it,” he said. “You need to be able to say ‘we started there and we’ve finished there’.”
Harvey said resources were important, but that the challenge was organisational, with firms having to restructure to counter the disruption that is happening in the sector due to advances in technology.
Bruce Martin, founder of social media and content agency Ginger Juice, said a number of smaller firms had dipped a toe in areas such as social media but had taken a listless approach and not found the return on investment they had expected.
He said: “Some companies are now thinking how can we make something of this, because it’s not going away?
“Strategy is key. What’s the point of doing this? What does success look like? Is it increased leads or increased sales, or is it value of brand?
“It’s getting people to come to you instead of having to pay Google to get them to come to you.”
Simon Powell, founder of e-commerce software firm Eysys, said the rising cost of customer acquisition was driving innovation in this area and the millions of pounds spent by the big players in new systems was starting to trickle down.
“Search has definitely changed, as has the volume of data we have, so we have to personalise because there’s just too much data,” he added.
Ryan Kliszat, founder of mobile marketing platform Verticly, said a year ago even the big media agencies were not aware of what was going on in this area.
“Now everyone wants to speak to us about data and personalisation – the latest buzzword – online and offline but they haven’t got a clue what it actually does. They are just desperate to do something,” he said.
“You will probably see a lot more of it now because they are putting money behind it. You will probably see a six-month lag, but all the big boys are definitely pushing this now.”
Bright On Travel is an annual conference held in Brighton to coincide with the month-long Brighton Digital Festival held ever September. About 150 delegates attended the free event, which was organised in association with Travel Weekly sister publication Travolution.