Enhancing Marketing Decision Making With Automated Research
How BMO implemented custom, repeatable research methods to democratize data and share insights across the organization.
Our Challenge
BMO is one of the top banks in North America, and this means they run a lot of campaigns at a fast pace. Their marketing team places a strong focus on being customer advocates and in-tune with customer needs and preferences. And with that, they recognize the importance of maintaining objective, customer-centric thinking in marketing decisions. However, they were seeing some inefficiencies in their research approach, with some teams unaware of what tools were available, when to use them or how to use them. BMO needed a solution that would standardize the research approach across teams, with common/repeatable tests readily available for quick and efficient use. They also needed to make sure there was cross-team transparency, so every marketer knew when and how to use the tools available to them.
Our Solution
We took BMO through our onboarding process, which began with BMO conducting an internal audit to uncover what research their teams use, how often, and at what points teams wished they had more data to support their decisions.
From there, BMO worked with Methodify to determine the key opportunities for automated research and standard approaches (aligned to specific stages of the campaign development process). These turn-key repeatable methods were implemented on the Methodify platform for use at those critical points in the campaign development process.
Preparing these research tests in isolation wasn’t going to fully solve the problem. We also partnered closely with BMO to put together comprehensive training that was delivered across marketing, to ensure everyone was aware of and understood the tools available to them.
The Result
3 BMO-specific automated methods were rolled out on Methodify, covering approximately 80% of the team’s research needs for campaign development. For the other 20%, we continue to work with BMO to design custom methods as new needs arise. This two-prong approach assisted in democratizing access to the means of testing throughout the process to all marketing team members – over 60 of which have been onboarded and trained. Each team member is now able to set-up their own tests and get results back in a matter of days instead of weeks. Methodify continues to onboard new marketing team members as they join, and will be continue to integrate new technologies for them to use.
Methodify’s standardized reporting has enabled the data used for marketing decisions to be easier to share and understand across different groups in the organization. BMO marketers now have easy-to-use and efficient research tools at their fingertips, ensuring they can continue to keep up with their business, their market and, most importantly, their customers.