Introduction State of Marketing 6 Customer Experience Is the Brand Battlefield Last year’s “State of Marketing” research Marketers Compete Based on Customer Experience established customer experience as a significant marketing focus. It’s common for today’s marketers High-performing marketers are more likely to compete based on customer experience and to lead to look beyond the traditional marketing scope to those efforts across their company. understand and influence customers’ interactions with their company as a whole. Percentage of Marketing Leaders Who Strongly Agree High Performers vs. But beyond focusing on customer experience, or Agree with the Following Statements Underperformers marketing leaders are now battling over it. Customer experience is central to their go-to- 86% Marketing is increasingly competing 69% 2.0x market strategy, in how they aim to win new on the basis of customer experience 43% more likely customers, and in how they’re keeping current customers happy. Marketing is leading customer 89% experience initiatives across 66% 2.7x the business 33% more likely 68% of marketing leaders say their High performers Moderate performers Underperformers company is increasingly competing on the basis of customer experience. Although delivering a superior customer experience requires attention from every facet of the business, marketing leaders — particularly high performers — feel they’re leading the charge. Almost two-thirds of marketers say their team is leading customer experience initiatives across the business. Among top teams, that number rises to 89%.