The following article was written by Greg Kihlström for MarTech. You can view the full article here.

While “one-to-one” and “omnichannel” are the goals, you can start incrementally and work your way toward them.

As marketers, we must constantly balance the ideal with the practical and achievable. This comes amid a flood of competing priorities, including: 

• Demands for short-term financial results from shareholders.

• Leaders needing to achieve business objectives.

• Customers demanding the best possible experience.

• The competition catching up or pulling ahead. 

• All the chatter from our own community about the latest and greatest technology and how quickly every brand has to adopt the newest three-letter marketing acronym. 

Because of all this, it is easy to lose sight of the long-term goals that will help us achieve continued success and build loyal, lifetime customers.

I use the term “North Star” goals to mean those ideal points we should be navigating toward, even if they feel unreachable at the moment. Just like the North Star guided travelers throughout history, these marketing goals will guide today’s marketing leaders toward the optimal way of providing the customer experience of the future. 

As an advisor and consultant to marketing leaders at top brands, I have seen four overall trends that set category leaders apart from their peers. I took these four trends and turned them into a set of North Star goals that I also explore further in my latest book, “House of the Customer.“

This four-part article series will explore each of the trends and goals in depth, including what they are, how realistic the goals are for most brands and the first steps you can take to achieve them.

In this first article in the series, I will explore the first North Star goal — providing a one-to-one, omnichannel personalized experience.

Let’s explore this by breaking down each of the three parts of this goal and then we’ll tie it all together and explore just how realistic this is for most brands today.

This article was written by Greg Kihlström for MarTech. You can view the full article here.