2023 Power to the Marketer Festival: Omnichannel Masterclass recap

Emarsys’s Power to the Marketer Festival kicked off with its live Omnichannel Masterclass digital event. Top brands including Estée Lauder, Hobbii, Brandsdal Group, BrandAlley and Ochsner Sport shared how they blend the art and science of marketing to drive true loyalty.

It was two days of world-class marketers and technology experts sharing amazing insights, tips, and strategies.

If you missed the event and are suddenly feeling a wave of FOMO — good news! Not only can the entire Omnichannel Masterclass event be accessed on-demand for free, but this recap provides a day-by-day walk-through of everything covered.

If you’re just now discovering this festival, here’s a quick overview of what it’s all about:

The Power to the Marketer Festival was created to celebrate marketers and the impact they make every day. This year, Emarsys chose the theme of “Elevating the Art and Science of Marketing,” which focuses on how marketers successfully merge art and science to deliver omnichannel experiences their customers love, and deliver results their businesses need.

The first event, the Omnichannel Masterclass, was a live two-day digital event, split into the following:

• Day 1: The Art of Marketing
• Day 2: The Science of Marketing

Day 1: The art of marketing

SAP Emarsys CMO Sara Richter started the day with an overview of what is meant by the art and science of marketing. It’s the tightrope that many of today’s marketers must walk to satisfy both customer needs and business objectives.

Although this balancing act can seem intimidating and difficult, Sara provided assurance. Marketers able to master the art and science of marketing reap the rewards in the form of true customer loyalty, which leads to happier customers and a happier business.

Session 1: Product strategy, roadmap, and innovations

After Sara’s introduction, the first session of Day 1 got underway. During this illuminating discussion, we heard from key SAP Emarsys visionaries and technology experts, including:

• Kelsey Jones, Global Head of Product Marketing, SAP Emarsys
• Anthony Sciortino, VP Engineering North America / Platform Cloud, SAP Emarsys
• Nick Odom, Senior Solutions Consultant, SAP Emarsys

Kelsey started the session off giving some insight into how the Emarsys Customer Engagement Solution is purpose-built to help marketers solve their most unique and pressing challenges. We learned how, with Emarsys, marketers and their teams are more empowered to build, launch, and scale personalized cross-channel campaigns that drive business outcomes.

Next, Anthony dove into some of the exciting advancements and features added to the Emarsys platform based on feedback received from customers. In the past year and half, Emarsys has added more than 75 features, including these three most requested features:

• Web Hook Node in Automations
• SAP Customer Data Realtime Connector
• Self-Service Value Measurement

Unveiling Mobile Wallet

One of the most exciting moments of the session was when Kelsey announced that SAP Emarsys launched a new channel: Mobile Wallet.

The launch of Mobile Wallet expands the suite of Emarsys’s mobile capabilities and will help marketers enhance their omnichannel mix. Using Mobile Wallet, Emarsys users can natively launch personalized campaigns with mobile wallet passes such as digital vouchers, coupons, tickets, and loyalty cards.

Senior Solutions Consultant Nick Odom gave an in-depth walkthrough of the product to show us how this channel works within the Emarsys platform.

Session 2: Perfecting the art of loyalty to drive retention and revenue

Session 2 rolled right into topics that are top of mind for today’s marketers: Customer loyalty, retention, and revenue.

During this session, Sara Richter moderated a panel featuring these marketing experts:

• Gareth Hughes, Technology Director, Estée Lauder
• Taylor Donnell, VP, Content & Partner Marketing, Jebbit
• Marianne Colding Oxholm, Head of CRM & Retail Marketing, Hobbii

Here are some panel highlights:

• Taylor Donnell talked about the need to go beyond traditional personalization tactics in order to build stronger customer relationships. He mentioned how when Jebbit works with clients, they encourage deep, relevant personalization at every phase of the customer lifecycle.
• Gareth Hughes discussed how customer centricity drives business outcomes, and how customer-obsessed organizations like Estée Lauder must have the ability to offer whatever experience customers want, on any channel. Ultimately, brands must deliver consistency across channels and use data-driven personalization to ensure that consistency.
• Marianne Colding Oxholm shared the importance of community for fostering customer loyalty. She went into detail on how Hobbii nurtures their thriving community of dedicated knitters, crocheters, and hobbyists, and as a result, has seen a surge in customer engagement.

Session 3: It’s raining revenue! How movable ink built a revenue waterfall for Brandsdal

There’s absolutely an art to creating highly personalized experiences. That was illustrated in this session about how e-commerce leader Brandsdal Group works with Movable Ink, one of Emarsys’s technology partners, to deliver 1:1 experiences that provide a consistent revenue stream… or in some cases, a revenue waterfall. 

During the session, we heard from:

• Maria Ferreira, Client Experience Manager, Movable Ink
• Amalie Nilsen, Digital Marketer, Brandsdal Group
• Lee Jones-Abrahamsen, Graphic Designer, Brandsdal Group

Here are some highlights:

• Lee Jones-Abrahamsen explored the challenges Brandsdal Group faces in providing customers with real-time pricing information on products. Price is very important to customers, and with the help of Movable Ink, Brandsdal Group’s team is able to incorporate dynamic content into their marketing materials so that customers receive real-time product and price information.
• Amalie Nilsen revealed one of Brandsdal Group’s revenue-generating, evergreen “Super Waterfall” — a dynamic, personalized content block they add to marketing materials like emails or newsletters to get more personalized content and recommendations in front of customers. This evergreen block generated nearly 10% of all the sales from the newsletters where it was included.

Session 4: Mastering the art of conversational commerce – Spoonflower’s secret to 22x ROI

If you read 22X ROI and thought it was a typo, think again. Those are the actual results fabric and home decor company Spoonflower achieved using what may perhaps be “the future of marketing” (according to one of the panelists).

In this session, we learned about the power of conversational commerce and the major ROI that comes from using an AI-powered two-way conversational platform (from Emarsys’s partner Attentive) called Concierge.

Speakers included:

• Yahiri Rodriguez, Senior Client Strategy Manager, Attentive
• Jess Wells, Client Strategy Manager, Concierge, Attentive
• Suz Pozzo, Director of Email Marketing, Spoonflower

Here are a few stand-out highlights:

• Jess Wells discussed the “why” behind Attentive’s Concierge, and how it was launched specifically with customers in mind to help bring back that personal experience customers might lose out on when shopping online, versus shopping in-store.
• Sue Pozzo talked about the value of conversational marketing, and how Spoonflower uses conversational commerce to better understand their customers and form more meaningful relationships. With results like a 22-to-1 return, not to mention a 38% lift in average order value, it’s clear Spoonflower has seen stellar results from incorporating Attentive’s Concierge into their strategy.

Day 2: The science of marketing

Day 1 was all about the art of marketing, with a primary focus on things like content, channels, creativity, connection. In contrast, Day 2 was all about the “science” of marketing, think data, revenue impact, and IT and technology.

Session 1: Ochsner Sport’s Personalization Journey: Bridging Creativity and Conversion

Marketers love using their creativity to deliver compelling content that resonates with their audiences. But as satisfying as it is to flex some creative muscle, it’s also crucial to focus on the nitty gritty detail that helps drive conversions and deliver business outcomes.

This first session gave us a firsthand look at how Ochsner Sport, the largest sporting goods retailer in Switzerland, bridges the gap between the online experience, incorporating both creativity and conversion through collaboration with Emarsys’s partner Dynamic Yield, experts in personalization.

In this session, we heard from:

• Jan Cahlik, Team Lead, Online Shop Management, Ochsner Sport
• Emma Furlong, Director of Product Marketing, Dynamic Yield.

Key highlights include:

• Emma Furlong referenced the tension that marketers feel between the online and offline experience, and identified the three main “gaps” that need to be bridged in order to deliver more unified experiences. Namely, the gap between management and conversion, creative vision and conversion goals, and management’s vision and the customer’s needs.
• If you’re a marketer, surely at some point in your career you’ve struggled to get management to buy in on a campaign or strategy you’re sure will yield results. If so, you’ll appreciate this session when Jan Cahlik goes into detail about his clever approach of implementing a sneaky quick-win campaign to generate the immediate uplift that would whet management’s appetite and secure their buy-in for bigger, more sophisticated campaigns.

Session 2: The new change agents: How top IT and marketing teams drive CX innovation

IT and marketing don’t always see eye to eye, and often seem aligned to their own disparate goals and agendas. But the truth is, when these two teams align and work together toward a solitary vision, they can cohesively create the kind of innovative customer experiences that today’s shoppers want (and that businesses want to deliver).

Getting IT and marketing to align, however, is easier said than done.

Fortunately, in one of the most insightful sessions of the entire two-day event, we had five retail and e-commerce experts join us to shed light on how brands can align IT and Marketing to drive CX innovation.

In this session, we heard from:

• Alicia Esposito, VP of Content, Retail TouchPoints
• Cristian Serrano, eCommerce & Omnichannel Regional Director, Tekmovil
• Linh Calhoun, Chief Marketing Officer, Replacements, Ltd.
• Aaron Bradley, Vice President, Technology & GTM Innovation, Wella Company
• Jens Hård, Associate Director, Marketing & Retail Lead, Accenture

These are some highlights from the session (which you can watch in full on-demand):

• Linh Calhoun discussed the importance of listening to customers — and using data like survey information, Net Promoter Scores, and more — to ensure Replacements, Ltd delivers on their mission to always be customer-focused and keep the customer as their guiding North Star.
• Aaron Bradley explained Walla’s approach of taking the organization’s data across all different experiences and consolidating it into one location. This allows the brand to build stronger customer profiles and better leverage data to create the best experiences for their customers.
• Cristian Serrano revealed how Tekmovil achieves better alignment between marketing and IT teams by inviting IT to the marketing brainstorm sessions, bringing them into projects early, so they can understand marketing’s objectives — which also gives marketing more clarity on any potential IT or data limitations.

Session 3: How BrandAlley leveraged advocacy data to supercharge growth

Marketers can promote their brands all day long, hoping to convince a prospect why their brand is the best choice. But when it comes to convincing a new prospect to check out your brand, nothing is as powerful as a referral from someone they trust.

In this session, we learned how BrandAlley leverages that all-powerful brand advocacy and turns it into major growth for their brand. We heard from:

• Kat Wray, Director of Strategic Partnerships, MentionMe
• Michelle Hurney, Head of Marketing, BrandAlley

Session highlights include:

• Kat Wray gave us a great breakdown of the three key challenges that today’s brands face when looking to drive customer advocacy. She also explained the integral role that referral data plays in a brand’s advocacy strategy, and addressed the challenges of properly tracking referrals.
• Michelle Hurney revealed how BrandAlley is able to use specially-built referral based tactics in the Emarsys platform to increase customer acquisition and customer engagement — all of which drives conversions and revenue for the brand.

Session 4: The science of building stronger customer relationships through conversations

Whether it’s personal or professional, romantic or platonic, communication is the key to any successful relationship. So it makes sense that communication is also the key to success for brands looking to build stronger relationships with customers. That’s exactly what Sinch taught us in this inspiring session with Sinch that looks at the science of building stronger customer relationships.

In this session, we heard from:

• Anna Jäger, VP International Marketing, Sinch
• Susan Stjernberger, Senior Account Manager & New Sales, Sinch

Here are some stand-out moments:

• In addition to sharing her own personal wisdom and insight, Anna Jäger also shared some intriguing survey results and stats. Some stats that were particularly interesting, and are relevant to today’s marketers, is that only 28% of customers will remember a positive experience for more than a year, whereas 43% of customers will remember a negative experience.
• Susan Stjernberger shared some of the great success that French grocer Intermarché experienced working with Sinch on their mobile messaging campaigns, and leveraging the power of chatbots to provide customers with a fun, engaging, and conversational experience.

Session 5: Grow your business with a customer-centric data strategy

Data was a major theme throughout the entire Omnichannel Masterclass, especially on Day 2. So it was only fitting that the final session of the event doubled down on this critical topic, and revealed some of the challenges today’s brands face when it comes to viewing, organizing, and consolidating data to attain the greatly desired 360-degree customer view.

In this session, led by Chris O’Hara, Head of Global Product Marketing and Solutions, SAP, we learned:

• Why many brands struggle to unify their data and achieve a holistic customer view
• Which data sets are integral for telling a complete story of the customer
• The best way to calculate true customer lifetime value

Power to the Marketer: On-demand, marketer-led

The Omnichannel Masterclass event, part of Emarsys’s year-long Power to the Marketer Festival, featured so many great speakers and so many great insights that this blog can only scratch the surface.

So if you like what you’ve read about the event so far, register for on-demand access to the entire event. It’s free, plus you’ll get access to other great resources and content to supplement everything you will learn.

Here are some helpful links to get you started:

• Learn more about the Power to the Marketer Festival here.
• Get free on-demand access to all the Omnichannel Masterclass sessions here.