Key take-aways:

Here is what customers want from any brand or company they do business with, and what customer obsessed businesses can do give it to them:

To belong – Initiate a sense of belonging, such as utilizing a “Welcome” program

To be known – Treat customers as individuals by employing personalization methods

To feel special – Reward customers for their loyalty and continued engagement with your brand

To be treated well – Offer assistance through customer service, such as sending out “Thank you” emails

Dana knows what she likes, but warned marketers that they’d have to work very hard to earn her brand loyalty.

View the Dana video here.

Dana is Experian Marketing Services’ representation of today’s empowered consumers. She expects and demands that her favorite brands deliver a seamless experience that is coordinated throughout her busy day.

Matt Seeley, President of Experian Marketing Services, advised the audience to keep Dana, and others like her, at the center of everything they do. He stated that marketers must “adopt a focus on having all marketing channels work together – across email, mobile, direct and social….. Dana’s not just a data-point, she’s an individual who wants to be treated special by having us respect her preferences and her interests.”

We’re sure to be seeing a lot more of Dana in the future.

Stay tuned!

Such advice came from Charles Duhigg, The New York Times investigative reporter, who gave a talk from his latest book, The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and business. Looking very much like a professor, Duhigg recounted the considerable time and millions of dollars that consumer products giant, Proctor and Gamble spent to develop their billion dollar product line, Febreeze.

The story involves a scientist who discovered an odor killing chemical and the P&G marketers who tried, and nearly failed, to turn that innovation into a successful home cleaning product. It turns out you can’t sell stuff to people by telling them their houses stink! P&G’s fortunes turned, as Duhigg illustrated with both scientific rigor and humorous anecdotes, on the fact that we have formed habits controlling nearly half of our daily actions and that Febreeze was a perfect reward for people who take great satisfaction in cleaning.

The habit loop, as Duhigg described it – Cue, Routine, Reward – is a simple yet powerful reminder to marketers that we need to plug into consumers’ existing rituals in order to create experiences that will surprise and delight…the keys to customer obsession. And as Duhigg’s examples illustrate, the consumer insight necessary to understand those habits is derived from careful consideration of consumer attitudes and behaviors.

86% of U.S. online adults are taking part in at least some form of social interaction

None of the marketers in the room were surprised to hear Rob say that social media has become increasingly mainstream, though it was interesting to learn that according to Forrester, 86% of U.S. online adults are taking part in at least some form of social interaction.

This was good news for the marketers in attendance, many of whom are in the retail and travel industries, and all of whom are increasingly turning to social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to promote their brands.

Also not surprising was Rob’s breakdown of challenges that marketers face, the biggest of which is creating a single view of customers across channels – picked by 50% of respondents in a recent Forrester survey. Not surprisingly, according to Rob, organizational silos contribute heavily to creating this challenge.

Measuring results was chosen by 45% of respondents, 39% cited improving expertise in new channels (i.e., social and mobile), 37% picked capturing customer insight to drive decision-making and 33% said managing data quality.

Smart cross-channel campaign management is critical to solving all of the above challenges and Rob had these thoughts on the topic:

• Campaign management applications are needed to enable more customer-centric approaches, but core CCCM capabilities are now quite mature
• Integrations, customizations and licenses are expensive and this sometimes prevent firms from incorporating campaign management applications
• Marketers need more support in social, mobile and local, but often native social listening, mobile push notifications and location-based communications are poorly supported or absent from the mix
• Marketers are asking for more help from their vendors as they often have the right vision and an interesting perspective. The vendors’ biggest challenge is simply a matter of moving fast enough to satisfy clients’ needs

Ultimately, Rob’s advice to marketers for getting to optimized cross-channel campaign management was this:

• Map your customer’s journey across key touch points
• Look for opportunities to integrate data and automate operations
• Create a 3-5 year technology strategy and implementation roadmap
• Prove ROI in high-value interactions – quick wins make it easier to get funding

Experian Marketing Services is hosting its annual Digital Summit (today through Friday) at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.

This premier digital marketing event, with the theme, “Customer Obsession: Empowering Meaningful Relationships,” features highly engaging and inspiring learning sessions, providing marketers with key insights and best practices for keeping their customers at the heart and center of everything they do.

Attendees are learning from marketing experts about the latest trends in digital marketing across email, mobile, social, search and display. In addition, content from the event delves deep into understanding the new American consumer and the latest in cross-channel marketing.

And here are some of our favorite tweets:

Learn more about the 2012 Digital Summit and follow along on twitter #CMSummit
and view photos on our Pinterest board. View this blog tomorrow for updates.