Here’s a short mad lib for you, so feel free to fill in the blanks: “2020 was a year in which brands had to become a lot more ____ and put more emphasis on ____”.
The way you answer it can tell us a lot about what your role is. For us at Optimove, and I’m sure it comes as no surprise, the words we’d use to complete that sentence would be something like “sensitive” or “supportive” for the first blank and “customer relationships” for the second.
But the truth is that you don’t have to be in CRM like us to realize that for brands worldwide, 2020 was mostly about building and strengthening meaningful relationships with customers.
With all its disasters and crises, social and political unrest, we saw brands stepping up and taking better care of their customers this past year. Putting their impact and reach, resources and capabilities, into use – for the good of the public.
This is why it’s felt like perfect timing for us to introduce Optimove’s inaugural Heptagon Awards – where we celebrate CRM excellence.
https://youtu.be/VGgH9ZC1dws
R is for Relationships
Yes, CRM is about segmentation and personalization. About reducing churn and increasing customer loyalty. About approaching each marketing campaign as an experiment. About preventing first-timers from becoming one-timers and turning them into returning customers. All these things that are about customers and marketing. You know, the “C” and the “M” of CRM.
But all of this is meaningless without that “R” right there in the middle. The capital R relationship that ties it all together.
The best kind of CRMers are marketers that understand their audience on a human, personal level. That care for their clientele’s best interests and experience from A to Z. From personalization to promotions, from responsible gaming to customer feedback – the best CRM teams look at their Single Customer View data sheets and see the people behind them.
That’s the best kind of marketing we know. That’s the kind of marketing customers needed in 2020. And that’s why we’re going to put the best of the best on a pedestal now and celebrate great Customer Relationships.
9 Awards, 3 Categories, 1 Beautiful Trophy
And so, next month, we will be awarding nine trophies in three categories – for best campaigns, best teams, and best individual marketers.
In Campaigns, we focused on uplift and incremental value and the sophisticated execution it requires. In the Team awards, we celebrate the fact no one person can build a Rocketship that would reach the moon. And in the Individual ones, we accept that while there’s no “I” in “team,” there is in “win.”
Weeks of accumulating data and feedback went into compiling these lists, and we are very proud of the results and the work done by so many fantastic marketers out there. Many of them did not make the cut this time around.
You can find the shortlisted nominees below – or click here, where you could also subscribe for updates. And generally, just watch this space (or follow us on social media) not to miss the nine winners' announcements. Maybe it will be someone you have a relationship with.
