Speaking at PEXA’s PropertyX conference, Stephen Scheeler, former managing director of Facebook in Australia and New Zealand and founder of The Digital CEO, said increasingly businesses need to enhance their appeal to clients by creating a personalised strategy.

“We’ve got to think about how we build trust into a product and our services in a way we can preserve them for the long run,” Mr Scheeler told the crowd.

“… Everything is turning personal now. It’s about personalising products, services and client experiences.

“I want relevant recommendations that I wouldn’t of thought of myself. I want you to help me on things I need help in.”

Mr Scheeler said it’s vital to share value “in a way that is meaningful”.

“I know a guy who flies on Qantas a lot. He’s a very successful businessman and you go to his office and you see all these bottles of Dom Perignon on the shelves and I asked him one day, ‘What’s the story there?’,” he said.

“He said every year Qantas send me a bottle of champagne but they don’t know one thing. I said, ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘I don’t drink’.

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“Another woman I know got an email from [a store] saying she needed to buy some products to get something free. She got a message saying, ‘Your time’s running out. If you buy something now you’ll get something else for free’. And so what did she do? She pops into the store and buys something.

“So it’s about knowing your client and knowing what they want and when they want it. Very simple stuff, especially now we have data to help us capture this.”

Further, Mr Scheeler advised attendees to “put personalisation” at the core of marketing one’s business.

“We need to get data, data and more data,” he recommended.

“Get a data strategy. Sit down and make two lists. On one of the lists put: ‘What don’t I know about my customers that I should know?’ That’s one list, that’s part A of your data strategy.

“Part B is: ‘What don’t I know about my customers that if I did know would be game-changing?’

“If you write both of those lists – ‘What should I know that I don’t know?’ and ‘What would be game-changing?’ – that’s your customer data strategy right there and then you figure out ‘How am I going to find that data?’ and ‘How am I going to use it?’”

At the PropertyX conference, Mr Scheeler also shed some light on how Australian companies continue to lag behind other countries in terms of digital adoption, offering tips on how to leverage data as a means to bolster business opportunities.

The event also heard from PEXA chief executive Marcus Price on the biggest opportunities and challenges set to impact Aussie businesses in light of advanced technology, and Fergus Hanson, head of the International Cyber Policy Centre, on how businesses can ensure they’re cyber resilient.

Further, attendees were treated to an appearance by Andrew McLeod, director, head of technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) research at Morgan Stanley, who spoke about the need for businesses to brace for a “second generation of technology” and how global tech investment and software development is furthering opportunities for local businesses.

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