We’re still coming down off the high of Accelerate earlier this week, our first Customer Marketing Summit and a tremendous opportunity for us to give back to our awesome customers that are doing such great work every day. We had a fantastic turnout of highly engaged attendees, along with an incredibly talented speaker lineup that made you never want to budge from your seat.
Here’s a quick recap of all the main sessions, ranging from solo speakers sharing their unique insight to groups of industry veterans discussing how to send better, more personalized messaging campaigns.
Keynote: Horst Schulze on Generating Extraordinary Customer Loyalty
Horst kicked off the afternoon with his own unique brand of insight gleamed from his decades of experience as the co-founder of Ritz-Carlton Hotels, and as a legend in the world of customer experience. Led by his innovative ideas on how to treat customers, Ritz-Carlton was one of the first U.S. companies to fully embrace brand loyalty as a stated goal to strive for, and their actions as a company reflected that.
It was incredible to listen to Horst share so many insightful thoughts on how to treat customers, and how to hire in a way that ensures you have the right people in place to execute your plan.
“Excellence is never an accident. It’s always the result of high intent and great vision.” – @horstschulze #MGAccelerate
— MessageGears (@MessageGears) September 15, 2020
State of the Industry: Why Now is the Time to Accelerate
MessageGears CEO Roger Barnette gave an inspiring talk about why Super Senders need to accelerate their digital transformations now in order to find better, more efficient ways to reach their customers with tailored messages that will surprise and delight.
Roger shared a ton of interesting perspectives on where the cross-channel messaging industry stands today, and how MessageGears has positioned itself to be at the forefront of a move toward more of a focus on the customer.
“We have one level of service that we give our customers. Because we only work with big brands, we’re able to give the service you deserve: white-glove, high-touch service.” – Roger Barnette (CEO, MessageGears)
Data-Driven Tactics that Strengthen Customer Loyalty
This was an interesting talk that really sparked an intriguing discussion between Liz Haferkorn (Assistant Marketing Manager – Social and Digital, Culver’s), Alison Lindland (SVP Strategy, Movable Ink), Natalie Johnson (Vice President of Global Sales, Phrasee) centering around how to use customer data to develop programs that strengthen customer loyalty.
“More than ever, brands need to be driving that loyalty. How they respond in this climate is going to be a huge indicator of that.” – @phrasee_nat #MGAccelerate
— MessageGears (@MessageGears) September 15, 2020
Achieving and Activating a 360-Degree Customer View
Our second panel of the day provided a technical look at the 360-degree customer view, how to get there, and how to make it work for you with Himanshu Sinha (VP, Media and Performance Marketing, Blue Nile), Natasha Gandotra (Head of CRM, Stylist Group), and Dave Smith (Practice Area Lead, Slalom Consulting).
So much great information came out of this, especially around how focusing intensely on the customer rather than worrying about moving from channel to channel will help you take the next step with your marketing strategy.
“Your customers aren’t siloed. They see your departments as one entity. What’s changed for us is going from being very channel-centric to being very customer-centric.” – Himanshu Sinha (VP, Media and Performance Marketing, Blue Nile)
Fireside Chat: Mark Stange-Tregear from Rakuten Rewards
Mark Stange-Tregear (VP, Analytics, Rakuten Rewards) and the Rakuten Rewards team are as innovative and forward-thinking as any of our customers. In this chat, Mark discussed some of the ways they’re using MessageGears to take their messaging strategy to the next level.
It was really interesting to hear how so much changed about the way they work after switching to MessageGears, and how refreshing it is for his team to have the technology allows them to do their jobs without obstacles.
“I can have as many people using that centralized data store to do whatever we want. ‘What do you do with the data?’ becomes a meaningful question. Now, the technology just gets out of the way.” – Mark Stange-Tregear (VP, Analytics, Rakuten Rewards)
A Frictionless Future: MessageGears Product Roadmap
In the Accelerate finale, Roger was joined by Dan Roy (CPO, MessageGears) and Nick Ziech-Lopez (Director, Product Strategy, MessageGears) to provide a look behind the curtain at what MessageGears is planning for the next 6-12 months when it comes to product direction.
It was so exciting to hear the experts discuss the new ways MessageGears is going to continue to help customers do more with their data, and deliver personalized messages at scale no matter what the channel is that you want to use.