An Exclusive Sneak Peek at The Digital Seeker<\/h3>\n
Bloomreach CEO and co-founder, Raj De Datta, knows the digital commerce<\/a> sphere well. He’s spent 10+ years seeing what winning brands do (or don’t do) to set themselves apart, and Raj has taken this wealth of experience and written his first book, The Digital Seeker: A Guide for Digital Teams to Build Winning Experiences<\/a> . <\/p>\n \u201cThere have been plenty of books around digital transformation and the like, but this is really a book for the digital team . This book is all about the understanding that digital is a team sport and how much it’s changed in 2021. And it offers fundamental insights around the idea of \u200b\u200bthe seeker . \u201d<\/p>\n The concept of the \u201cdigital seeker\u201d boils down to this: businesses that want to thrive need to transition from the concept of customers to seekers. That’s not to say that approaching problems through a customer-centric lens is bad business – it just doesn’t present a fundamental question that’s key to success, ” why does a customer want my product?” Learn more about understanding buyers’ true motivations, and more about catering to digital seekers, in Raj De Datta’s book, out June 1, 2021<\/a> .<\/p>\n Sucharita Kodali<\/a> , VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, presented findings from the soon-to-be-released The State of Commerce Experience ’21<\/a> , a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Bloomreach. This study was conducted across both B2B \/ B2C customers and business decision-makers, in the US, UK, and Germany – with the goal of understanding consumer expectations versus the reality of what businesses plan to offer and how the COVID-19 pandemic may have also shifted these expectations.<\/p>\n Our summit attendees were quick to point out their favorite (and most surprising for some) data point, B2B and B2C buyers are prioritizing the same three variables of digital experience<\/a><\/strong>. Buyers, regardless of if their shopping is for business or personal purposes are looking for these things when making a decision:<\/p>\n With this and so many other great data points, Sucharita recommends that commerce businesses take the time to audit themselves, and once armed with a list of what\u2019s working\/ what\u2019s not, invest in tech that will help improve key experience areas like search-synchronization across touchpoints, and more. And ultimately, the best thing a business can do in 2021 and beyond is to completely own their customer list<\/strong> \u2014 reduce dependency on third-party vendors and build your own database to make your marketing as frictionless as possible.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Each day of the Commerce Experience Summit, we set aside time for attendees to relax and learn something (non-work related) new! Our favorite activity had to be making latte art with the award-winning barista, Agnieszka Rojewska<\/a>! <\/p>\n While we can\u2019t say that our lattes turned out nearly as beautiful as Agnieszka\u2019s, we had fun trying. If you tried your hand at being a foam-art Picasso, we\u2019d love to see what you came up with, tag us @bloomreach on LinkedIn, @bloomreach_tm on Twitter, or @lifeatbloomreach on Instagram.<\/p>\n Piggy-backing off the findings from our State of Commerce Experience \u201821 study, this session briefed eager commerce professionals on how they can best navigate our truly digital-first world. We were joined by an impressive panel of experts: Carrie Tharp<\/a>, VP of Retail and Consumer at Google Cloud, Steve Soechtig<\/a>, Global CEO at Ogilvy Experience, and our very own Brian Walker<\/a>, CSO at Bloomreach.<\/p>\n One of the most well-intentioned pitfalls commerce and marketing folks can fall into is being over aspirational. Reaching for the stars and pushing boundaries is never a bad move in our book, but it\u2019s really common to forgo investing time and energy into the fundamentals of your business when you\u2019re always in a battle to one-up yourself. So, what can businesses do to ensure they\u2019re nurturing the core of their business? <\/p>\n There are two approaches that we advise our clients to embrace. The first is to build, maintain, and continuously grow a connection with their customers. They need to solicit feedback both explicitly and implicitly. Explicitly ask what your customers found to be seamless, convenient, and engaging. Your implied feedback will come from your data. We couldn\u2019t agree more that data collection is key \u2014 but do it properly and privately. Both data from your customers and performance data from across your organization will make it clear what\u2019s inspiring your customers and what will grow your business.\u201d <\/em> – Steve Soechtig, Global CEO at Ogilvy Experience.<\/strong><\/p>\n To close out the Customer Experience Summit \u201821, we turned our sights towards the future \u2014 and more specifically, a future without cookies. Peter Irikovsky<\/a>, EVP of Bloomreach, was joined by Jamie Evawin<\/a>, Sr. Optimization & Analytics Lead at musicMagpie<\/a>, and Jason Peters<\/a>, Sr. CRM Manager at musicMagpie<\/a>, to get their thoughts on what commerce professionals can do to prepare for this monumental shift in how we communicate with customers.<\/p>\n Must-Haves When Selecting a CDP<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n A few big browsers, such as Safari and Firefox, have already deprecated cookies and Google\u2019s sunsetting of third-party cookies is looming (ETA: Jan 1, 2022). And yet, many businesses are choosing to ignore this shift and carry on until official changes are made \u2014 a critical mistake. Cookies impact nearly all of your marketing tools, from analytics to ads and personalization.<\/p>\n Luckily, the future post-cookie doesn\u2019t have to be scary. In fact, your personalization across the customer journey can still thrive. The answer lies within zero-party and first-party data. And you\u2019ll need a solution, like a Customer Data Platform<\/a>, to collect, unify, and leverage that data to its fullest, and contextualize it against your product data, to form a holistic view of your customers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re on a digital transformation journey that centers around customers and data. We’re experiencing an ongoing evolution across people, platforms, and processes – with the platform piece really being about Exponea and Bloomreach. We strongly see the value in breaking down our merchandising and marketing silos internally, so we can make our offering more relevant to each individual customer using data that’s gained [from across the customer journey]. \u201d – Jason Peters, Sr. CRM Manager, musicMagpie<\/a><\/p>\n The last-ditch advice from our panelists? Don’t ignore the problem of disappearing cookies, but rather, be proactive and invest in technology that enables you to personalize well, using zero-party and first-party data.<\/p>\nA Deep Dive into the State of Commerce Experience with Forrester<\/h3>\n
\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bloomreach.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/content-1-at-2x.png\")
<\/p>\nCreativity and Coffee: Taking a Break with Latte Art<\/h3>\n
Strategic Imperatives to Winning and Focusing on Customer Wants<\/h3>\n
How to Prepare for Cookieless Commerce <\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bloomreach.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/content-2-at-2x.png\")
<\/p>\n