SAS offers free digital tool for brands to assess their analytical marketing capabilities

SAS launches Marketing Confidence Quotient to help brands develop a game plan for creating enhanced real-time, personalized customer experiences 

2020 was a dizzying ride for marketers. The COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruption in how B2B and B2C customers want to engage, and brands had to adapt quickly to keep up – identify new ways to deliver services, meet demand from new audiences and connect on an emotional level with customers in an unprecedented way. For some this was harder than others, depending on their customer analytics capabilities and digital readiness. The pandemic forced all marketing activities to become more digital by default.

In response, SAS has launched the Marketing Confidence Quotient (MCQ) to help brands identify the maturity of their marketing and analytics capabilities across five competencies: strategy, organization and structure, technology, process and measurement, and developing a game plan for reimagined marketing.

“In today’s customer-first, interconnected and digitally enabled world, the way brands engage with their customer has irrevocably changed,” said Wilson Raj, Global Director of Customer Intelligence at SAS. “The MCQ addresses the center of that change. This assessment will help marketers develop a game plan for reimagined marketing –creating real-time, personalized customer experiences that increase business profitability, streamline operations and foster lasting brand loyalty.”

Unfortunately, many brands found they don’t have the necessary digital marketing skills and capabilities to quickly adapt and reimagine their marketing strategy. From the collection and analysis of diverse customer data to the technology available to act on it, the challenge and opportunity has never been greater.

The clash between heightened customer expectations and evolving marketing requirements has pushed marketing organizations from supporting traditional channel-driven capabilities to serving the full customer journey, creating more complexity across the entire stack.

Marketing Confidence Quotient assessment

At the end of the 10-minute MCQ assessment, respondents will receive a score for overall customer analytics maturity, individual competency scores for the main themes and how they rank compared to others in their industry and company size. This information will help respondents identify strengths and weaknesses in four key marketing areas:

Digital Customer. In 2020, the average consumer became more digitally adept; even the previously digitally shy boomer generation began to master the online world. Today’s customers expect “relevance as a service” in ways that are more personalized, immediate, engaging and authentic.

Digital Trust. While consumers are spending more time interacting with brands online out of necessity, they have still high expectations around data privacy. Protecting customer data is not only necessary, it’s a competitive edge. To build a truly trustworthy brand, tomorrow’s companies must rethink ways to be transparent, accountable and engaging.

Digital Loyalty. Brands that succeed in the coming decade will be those that transform themselves into loyalty companies. This entails providing personalized services, features and values across the whole customer journey. Smart brands will align content, tactics and engagement across the entire customer journey through shared goals – not just in a loyalty program.

Agility and Automation. To be competitive, businesses must embrace agility and use automation to address customer needs to speed decision, reduce risk and enable real-time customer engagements. Progressive brands are “industrializing” analytics and real-time decisioning with high levels of automation in model production and recalibration, and incorporating new technical innovations such as containers, microservice architectures and hybrid cloud services.

For more information, please visit the Marketing Confidence Quotient.