The Customer: How top media, retail, and tech companies engage their audiences

For most companies, growth depends on the ability to collect, unify, and apply data about their customers. That data is critical to predicting customer needs and delivering relevant experiences across a multitude of channels.

Easier said than done.

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That’s why “the Customer” is a key theme at GrowthBeat next week in San Francisco, August 17-18.

In related sessions, attendees will hear from companies that have mapped customer touch-points, collected relevant data, and are delivering great customer experiences.

One of these breakout sessions will take place on Aug 17, from 11 a.m.-12 p.m., and includes panelists from Discovery Digital Networks, Restoration Hardware, IBM, and Scripps Networks (think HGTV, Food Network, Travel Channel, and more).

Each panelist will talk about their higher-level strategic approach, as well as some more tactical examples.

Jen Corbett of Discovery Digital Networks will share her thoughts about video consumption, placement, targeting, and distribution, including comparisons between YouTube and Facebook. She can offer data about engagement, history, and social data, as well as explaining what that data serves and how it can be optimized.

Restoration Hardware’s Eoin Harrington will be able to talk about the longer buying cycle in high-end furniture sales, and about maintaining a presence in customers’ lives over an extended period of time. Restoration Hardware is working to collect data from more channels and tie it together to get better pictures of who its customers are. And because 80 percent of sales come from the top 20 percent of customers, it’s important to stay especially relevant to the target group. The company just did a cross-reference on its top 10,000 customers to see how many have Pinterest pages, for example, and see what type of content they have there.

Josh Rochlin from IBM will be speaking about the challenge of the multichannel customer. People don’t operate in silos and they often do a lot of research online before they ever hit an ecommerce site or store. He’ll talk about putting together an individual customer profile that is both relevant and timely, as well as discussing the more forward-looking topics around “Internet of Things” — as more devices connect us, what does the future look like?

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Liesel Kipp of Scripps Networks will also join the panel. Kipp will be able to provide additional perspective about understanding and engaging with the massive audiences of HGTV, Food Network, The Travel Channel, and the other subsidiaries of Scripps Networks.

Breakout Session – Aug 17, from 11 a.m.-12 p.m.

Moderator: Andrew Jones, Analyst, VentureBeat

Panelists:

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• Josh Rochlin, Global Business Leader, IBM Mobile Customer Engagement
• Jen Corbett, VP of Audience Development and Marketing, Discovery Digital Networks
• Eoin Harrington, SVP Innovation & Quality, Restoration Hardware
• Liesel Kipp, Vice President, Product Management, Scripps Networks Interactive