According to Google and YouTube data and research, ‘Consumer journeys are becoming increasingly complex’ is the No. 1 insight that they uncovered in the year 2019 and they expect it to continue into 2020.
Some of the key findings of this research include:
“Simple” + “ideas” mobile queries have grown by over
60% over the last two years [i.e., simple dinner ideas, simple costume ideas,
simple drawing ideas]
Mobile search for “personalized” have grown by over
60% in the past two years [e.g., personalized gifts, personalized stockings,
personalized blankets, personalized necklaces]
Mobile searches for “rewards app” have grown by over
90% in the past two years
83% of U.S. shoppers who visited a store say they used
online search before going into a store
45% of global shoppers buy online and then pick up
in-store, which offers them a more flexible way to purchase and receive their
items
More than 55% of shoppers say they used online video
while shopping in a store
What
do these things mean to a marketer?
Digital channels,
touchpoints and choices continue to expand – web, social, offline with shoppers
jumping between online and offline channels. Also, Omnichannel is gaining a lot
of traction. This results in complex customer journeys.
For marketers, making
sense of how to engage customers in their preferred channels has never been
trickier.
What
should marketers do to sail through this complexity?
Most marketers make
the mistake of looking at it from the operations perspective and not from the
business and customer perspective. They end up buying expensive technology that
can deliver all the channels. Let us assume that you have all the channels that
your customers would probably like, you still have to make sure that those
channels are serviced and make sure that it works for you.
Let us look at a
step-by-step approach of how your digital marketing can be structured keeping
in mind the evolving complexities of the customer journey.
Let us assume that
you know who your target customers are and the value of what you are selling
them. What you need to crack here is – how do you engage them and how do you
take their conversations to conversions. The key steps that marketing should
look at include:
Identify
your channels and equip yourself to serve!
Email, Web, Chat,
Voice, Video, Social and Offline are the possible channels and there are
subsets within them. On the social, you are looking at Facebook and Instagram
if your target customers are millennials and LinkedIn and Twitter if your
target customers are B2B.
Besides, you would
also have information related to how your website is being used, how your
social channels are used, how your customer service and customer support are
used. Based on this, you can make an informed decision to enable the channels
that your customers and prospects are most likely to use.
Once you have
identified the channel, you have to figure out a way by which you intelligently
route conversations and interactions to the right resources within your organization
in a real-time manner. Only then, it would provide the necessary experience.
Ensure that you have
the right technology to make this possible and ensure that you have the right
resources available to address the needs of your prospects and customers.
Keep
your website mobile-friendly
Mobile offers
ubiquitous-ness and immediacy to everything that the user does. Most searches
originate from a handheld or a mobile device. Any friction in that experience
will result in lost revenues.
Single
view of the customer
You need to have the
right technology to ensure that all the interactions and conversations of
customers and prospects are captured. This would allow your marketing message
owners and agents to provide the right information, upsell, cross-sell and
resolve issues – allowing your customers to experience your offerings
positively.
Personalize.
Personalize. Personalize.
You understand the
habits of your visitors to your website, eCommerce platform, social pages, and
chatbots among others.
Make sure that you
dynamically deliver what the user is most likely expecting to see. For
instance, if the user’s preference is all about expensive watches, ensure that
it is displayed as soon as the user logs in to your site.
Another example can
be, when you know that the user has surfed your banking site for business
loans, show them the offers on business loans when they login again. That makes
the experience worthwhile for the users and it makes business sense for you.
Have
a content plan
Content budget in
most organizations go up year-on-year. However, they don’t have a formal
content development or management plan.
Every content piece
that is created should have a purpose – target audience, expected results,
asset reuse in different channels, multimedia to go with the content like
images and video. There has to be a way to measure the results on how the
content is performing and that should be a part of the feedback loop on what
gets generated month-on-month.
In essence, marketers
need to look at their marketing holistically and it is cyclical as well as
structural in nature. The three key things to look at are:
Customer insights–track and
analyze customer behavior. Deliver insights regularly to the decision-makers
Customer experience – define and
design customer journeys based on insights. Integrate functions and features to
deliver a great experience
Measure effectiveness – continuously track and manage the programs and campaigns. Adapt based on the feedback. Customers are using possibly all the available channels to arrive at their purchasing decisions. As a marketer, use data to map customer needs, wants, and desires and use those insights to develop superior customer experience.
