Guest blog: Key takeaways from Insider digital retail day

In this guest blog, Bartlomiej Twardosz shares highlights from Insider Digital Retail Day

As W.KRUK, we’ve been working with Insider for more than 6 months and we were able to pinpoint specific areas of our digital business where there was room for improvement and optimization. Being invited to Insider Digital Retail Day was rousing for us in terms of getting together with other retailers, industry experts and digital marketing consultants. eCommerce ecosystem is highly competitive in Europe, well in every other place as well. But, what’s valuable about competition is that you constantly learn from your market. The fiercer the competition gets, the more you learn.

Bringing fellow marketers from multiple verticals, Insider Digital Retail Day was personally fruitful for me. I was introduced to some significant challenges and solutions of digital retail businesses across verticals like Amrest, a leading food retail chain or Yves Rocher, the french cosmetics giant. It was really amazing to see what ideas marketers are coming up with to overcome industry-specific challenges of eCommerce.

Personalization is more meaningful for as long as it’s unified

All digital retailers struggle to achieve one common goal: Delivering each visitor a unique experience that answers their needs. One of the biggest challenges of marketers is managing data silos. Kubilay Sengun, Insider’s Managing Director in Europe, talked about how to achieve this goal through creating 360º visitor profiles. Kubilay pointed out that, while piecemeal solutions help with short term conversion goals, providing each visitor with the ultimate personalized experience requires the practical use of data collected, mined and unified across platforms.

Use your omnichannel capabilities wisely

Tomasz Lis from PwC introduced all attendees to a highly realistic portrayal of today’s customer expectations and marketing realities. Although omnichannel is the new buzzword and all marketers claim to be using it, Tomasz talked about reaching out to audiences in the most optimal way, meaning that at the right time, with highly relevant messages delivered through the right channel. Most omni-channel moves marketers make go unnoticed and ineffective in reaching the purpose, as they’re not optimized to match unique customer behaviour. Leveraging behavioral data is necessary to provide each and every visitor with the most optimal experience.

Start seeing customer needs and demands as a whole

One of the best insights I got from Insider’s Digital Retail Day was that customer need is not that complicated. Karol Bzymek, Yves Rocher Polska’s Digital and IT Manager, fleshed out what customers need throughout their journey on online and offline channels. Having gained extensive experience in omni-channel marketing, Karol outlined all elements of a retail customer’s ideal journey, which includes personalized offers and the need to physically see and touch a product. Seeing every piece of the customer experience puzzle fleshed out, explained and itemized was of great use for me.

Insider Digital Retail Day was half a day spent learning, sharing and networking with industry experts from various verticals. Not only did I learn about the challenges of digitization in current retail market, but also about new technologies fellow marketers are putting into daily use. Thank you, Insider for feeling the pulse of overall market and bringing us together.

Discover more insights learned from experience, across industries on Insider Blog.