Inc.

The biggest and most successful companies across the globe are successful because they develop products and solutions that solve a real problem. With few exceptions, even the best marketers in the world can’t create sustained success for products that are searching for that problem.

For Advanced Drainage Systems (ADS), that began 55 years ago when the company introduced a new and innovative solution to manage agriculture stormwater runoff: the plastic pipe, which could replace cracked ceramic drainage tile.

Today, the ADS tagline – Our Reason is Water – encompasses a larger ideal and marketplace, allowing us to meet many more customers with solutions to their problems. Because it’s not just farmers, but municipalities, departments of transportation, residential and commercial developers, who have problems with water they need solved. However, simply because they have these problems doesn’t mean our company knows what they are, what new problems may develop or even the solutions they will need.

Like all companies then, ADS must find new and innovative ways to keep a finger on the pulse of the market, listen to and engage with customers. This must happen well beyond sales interactions, and through technology platforms and digital communications channels. Fortunately, today’s marketing technology stack mean it is more and more possible to meet those customers where and how they prefer to be engaged. And it’s also more critical than ever to ensure you find the very problems they need solved.

For example, website traffic analysis tools give companies a new ability to literally watch in real-time how visitors and customers interact with a web page. Whether selling t-shirts and shoes, Teslas or plastic LAST WORD pipe, marketers can now learn what information customers find most compelling, what they are looking for, and the most effective location on a site to put that information for maximum engagement. Meanwhile, Google Analytics and digital advertising platforms capture insights ROI for advertising effectiveness, where we can quickly learn what messages, graphics, videos and other advertising content is effectively targeting interested customers.

 What advanced marketing analytics and automation solutions ensure is that whenever and wherever there is a digital touchpoint with a customer, that can be captured, logged, and turned into knowledge to improve the customer experience 

Once those potential customers are engaged, marketing automation and CRM solutions such as Pardot automate engagement opportunities – from follow-up emails and meeting scheduling, to product promotions and tailored content delivery – helping to nurture, engage and grow customer relationships through the sales cycle and beyond.

Finally, following the age of COVID-19, Teams and Zoom calls that have become everyday drudgery for so many office workers now give companies the capacity to capture even more breakthrough insights through focus groups. You are now able to replicate those expensive, in-person live meetings with customers across the country, capturing a broader swath of respondents. It also allows internal stakeholders from marketing and engineering, to business development and product managers, to learn firsthand what customers are saying about products and unmet needs. It’s become an advantage to get these unvarnished opinions directly into the hands of those creating your products.

Those focus groups and one-to-one sales relationships admittedly reinforce that real-world interactions with customers are still incredibly important, even in a pandemic world. What advanced marketing analytics and automation solutions ensure is that whenever and wherever there is a digital touchpoint with a customer, that can be captured, logged, and turned into knowledge to improve the customer experience.

More critically, that knowledge can point companies to the new problems customers are dealing with, and allow for the development of solutions that solve those problems, and ensure long-term business growth and success.