PETRONAS' VP of marketing Syed Zainal on creating the 'Aha' moment with data

You and I are all customers. I am sure if I asked a man next to me what he wants from his favourite brand in a particular industry, he will give me a list of what the brand has done that has been good and what can be further improved. Being able to understand what customers want and how they interact throughout their journey with a brand’s touchpoints is key to a business.

In yesteryears, we were not able to even comprehend in exact detail of how to please our customers, each with their own preferences, likes and dislikes.  That is why marketing back then was a one-size-fits-all strategy. Today, things are different. With technology and digitalisation, it is now possible to tailormake marketing efforts to fit an individual’s whims and fancies. So how do we look through the customers’ lenses, cross-reference it to the various data sets that we have and give customers what they want?

Based on my own observations of the industry, more and more companies are utilising digital platforms in interesting ways to send their brand and product messages: from artificial intelligence to social media to interactive content. However, the various platforms on their own, don’t do much. The data behind the interactions and how we analyse and translate the data into actionable insights, if used correctly, is what makes a huge difference to the marketing efforts that we do.

By continuously analysing the customers’ journeys via the many data sources that we have, be it personal, demography, psychography or transactional, we know what appeals or displeases the customers throughout their interactions with us, and with these insights, we can make the necessary improvements.

Creating the “Aha! moment” is crucial in delighting them in every step of their journey with us. Once the basic fundamentals of the customer journey mapping are looked into, next comes the communication. I don’t know about you, but I get irritated with advertisements, especially when they have nothing to do with me. People have minimal attention spans and get served with so many ads on a daily basis. As such, retailers today need to balance their advertisement dollars between mass and targeted communication, depending on which point of the marketing funnel they are in.

I find it interesting when portals I visit contain advertisements on things I had browsed previously as the targeted marketing shows the brand knows exactly what I am searching for, and pushes it to me nearly every time I open up my favourite news portal. Advertisements have become more purposeful in nature, with a very specific goal in mind, and with mobile being one of the most used platforms of today. Based on Malaysia’s “2017 Individual and Household Survey Report” on ICT usage and access, smartphone usage for internet access has increased tremendously through the years with a well over 98% penetration in 2017. I wouldn’t be surprised if mobile ad platforms show major growth in 2019, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and others.

Consumers absorb information differently. Some tend to be more visual, and others prefer audio. Using data collected from the various sources, it is possible to study what platforms consumers tend to be more focused on, and what kind of messaging will trigger them to react better to advertisements. Constant A/B testing needs to be done to capture the kind of messaging and mediums that are more prone to actual action and conversion. These analytics are then used to personalise the ads which you and I receive on a day to day basis, resulting in captured attention, higher conversions and higher customer satisfaction.

We live in an exciting world, where digital plays a major role in everything that we do, especially marketing. It is how we utilise what we have that makes a difference – giving customers what they want, when they want it and how they want it.

The writer is Syed Zainal, VP of marketing, downstream business, PETRONAS. The article first appeared in A+M’s The Futurist print edition.