• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, June 18, 2018

Obsession can be a good thing — when applied to customers. Of 260 marketers surveyed by Forrester for Adobe, only 12% are truly obsessed about their customers, although 60% think they are.

Forrester defines customer obsession as “deliberately making your customer the center of your total operating model.”

It sounds so obvious. But there are gradations. For example, 21% consider themselves customer committed and 45% say they are customer aware. And 22% are customer native.

Obsession, of course, represents the highest level of maturity. And of those that in that category, 22% have exceeded their revenue goals for three years in a row or more, compared with 2% of those who are naïve.

In addition, 19% of those who are obsessed have exceeded their goals for the past two years. Finally, 38% exceeded their goals last year. And only 3% of the compulsives failed to meet their revenue goals last year, versus 45% of the naïve.

Forrester applied its Customer Obsession Assessment to the sample. This measures maturity across structure, technology processes metrics, talent and culture.

Where does email fit in?

“Forrester found that nearly 70% of respondents still rely on email for promotions,” Adobe writes.” Yet just 8% of consumers said they’re “very satisfied” with the promotional email they receive. And 60% of marketers believe their emails are interactive, whereas only 26% of consumers find brand emails to be interactive. Talk about a disconnect!”

Here’s what separates the obsessed from the naïve. Of the former, 82% see increasing customer satisfaction as their chief marketing goal, vs. only 40% of the latter. In addition, 50% of the customer driven say that increasing their customer satisfied is the top email marketing goal.

So what does Adobe counsel?

First, try to create an immersive email experience as opposed to merely trying to get people to click with low-value promotional emails, Kristin Naragon writes on the Adobe Blog. Go after your best customers.

And don’t limit yourself only to email. “Start tracing when email assists conversions in other channels and how it boosts lifetime value, customer satisfied and brand engagement.”

Forrester adds: “Email marketing can’t get you to customer obsession if you keep treating it in the same old way. Just 8% of consumers we surveyed are very satisfied with the promotional email they receive.”

It continues: “And while 60% of marketers claim their emails are interactive, only 26% of consumers agree. This disconnect is symptomatic of outmoded email marketing practices.”