To be honest there are more than just operational challenges. It’s a combination of operational and strategic challenges while the operational ones takes most time.

Strategic challenges requires time, time to establish a change mindset. It takes time to mature in peoples mind. However the most work time is required for operational challenges.

• Change mindset
• Change business models which are aligned on customer needs
• Build new team structures and build a combined approach
• Break down vision and strategy into operational goals, projects and responsibilities
• Thinking about the hype-cycle model… leaving out to peak of the hype, implement quickly the right things and bring them into productivity

This are important success factors to reach the right conversion, but the most work starts now. We need to roll up your sleeves and work in these areas:

• Build up trust and an interaction with our customer
  • Listen
  • Understand
  • Learn
  • Predict
  • Start a shared journey

• Data
  • Identify data which are needed
  • Identify data which are available and which ones are needed to generate
  • Harmonize data and bring them together
    • Structured vs. unstructured data
    • Raw data vs. aggregated data

• Systems / Marketing Cloud
  • CRM
  • Data-Hub with user profiles
  • Content-Hub
  • Analytics-Hub with BI and Predictive-Analytics
  • Advertising-Hub

• Communication & interaction strategy
  • One word through marketing, product management, customer service, pr, etc.
  • Build up content which needs to be interactive and flexible

• Advertising
  • Technical set-up which allows not just to place real-time ads, it needs to collect data to build up learnings and predict things
  • Goals to reach
    • VEA – Value, Emotion, Adventure (see: Customer Experience and the VEA Principle)
    • Branding
    • Performance Marketing
      • Set-up the right performance goals… short mid and long term
      • Build up a trusted publisher network
        

• Commerce
  • Build a shopping experience which is based on
    • Value
    • Membership (e.g. being part of the club of iPhone user)
  • Grow customers by thinking in milestones (not just steps) in two directions
    • Value of each customer
    • Number of customers

The data challenge is, from my point of view, the biggest one. It is a technical and legal challenge which is most to steer our marketing activities.

Performance Marketing and E-Commerce can go hand in hand but we should make sure, that performance marketing is much more than just E-Commerce. We can build typical performance goals like lead and order, but also brand performance goals as well as customer goals.

Don’t think any longer in marketing channels, think in goals (corporate and customer) and define big milestones to measure and make the customer journey visible. This will grow your relation and business.