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Salmat White Paper: Omnichannel Marketing made simple 1 Overview If you have ever watched the TV show Mad Men, you would know that the heady days of marketing and advertising being an all-powerful source of consumer manipulation are all but over. Today, by comparison, consumers are more switched on, more connected, more time sensitive and more empowered. As a result, customers are more cynical, and their acceptance to company issued statements, lower than ever. Technology is the driving force of this change, as we have the ability to buy from anywhere in the world almost as quickly as we can from our own locality. Compounding this, consumers demand not only exemplary products, but a product and brand experience that meets not only their rational desires, but which taps into their emotive mind set too. Today, consumers want to be the centre of the universe, and it is up to us as marketers to make them feel that they are. Understanding this challenge however, and solving it are two separate things. This paper will provide you with not only the understanding of how to change the way you think about your marketing strategies, but provide you with the working knowledge and tools to make this change a reality. 2 Realising Customers are the centre of the universe To borrow a common phrase from the English language, today’s customers are literally Judge, jury and executioner. Consider the following. Customer as Judge – Every day your brand is being evaluated by customers and prospective customers. Every day these very people are making decisions about your brand. It may be a positive evaluation resulting in a positive comment on social media and a purchase, or perhaps it is negative; with the user deciding you are not worth their time and your products not worth their money. Customer as Jury – The power of social media is undisputed. It has almost single handily revolutionised the way in which people communicate with each other, and has changed the way we review and look for reviews about services and products. Social media allows consumers the ability to get in touch with a community of enthusiastic customer “Judges” who can sway opinions in just moments; either to your brand or away from it. Customers as executioners – Given the above, it follows that customers are potential executioners of your brand. Get it wrong and your brand will be crucified. Social media has the power to take the message further than many would ever have anticipated. Community networks are growing and their influence is expanding too. Between 2005 and 2012, Facebook grew from 6 million users to 1 billion Bain & Company. Other networks have similarly grown, giving consumers greater potential to share their thoughts and learn from others 3 Always remember, Social media can put people in places they are not, using nothing more than 140 characters and a link, or a single photo, which speaks a thousand words If you have done the right thing you are more likely to have kept enough “Customer Judges” happy. These multiple judges/jury members are likely to spread word of your brand. However, if you anger them, or change the customer experience to something they find less than satisfactory, it will take almost a complete rehabilitation program to stay the inevitable execution of your brand. Knowing this, what does it mean for you and your brand? Simply put, your customers (existing or potential) need to be the centre of your universe. Everything you do in communicating to them must be predicated on a deep understanding of what they want and how they want to be told about what you have to offer. It requires dedication to understanding them through data analysis, listening to feedback and only then, the development of a lifecycle strategy which seeks to evolve your market from awareness to your brand to being advocates of it via targeted communications. 4 Customer Centricity – The concept of Lifecycle Management Having read the above and the requirement to put your customers at the centre of all you do, you could perhaps be forgiven for assuming that we are referring to customer relationship management (CRM). In fact, we are referring to something richer and more evolved than CRM, and as a result, much more valuable – Customer Lifecycle Management (CLM). The principle underlying CLM is a company-wide approach to creating powerful customer interaction strategies that drive significant business growth and profitability. As the name suggests, it is about engagement with a customer for what can be termed ‘their life with the brand’, with the goal to transition customers from having simple awareness, to being customers and then ultimately to being fully fledged advocates; selling your products for you. Other differentiators between CLM and CRM, include: Customer Lifecycle Management Customer Relationship Management Must be undertaken by the company as Can be undertaken by departments in a whole. Every touch point must seek isolation to the rest of the company to engage and further the customer’s evolution with the brand Is linear and responsive, working to Exists to trap information at a point in time implement predefined strategies in and to categorise it response to certain customer stimulus and the revolution of their needs Seeks to tailor communications to Seeks to tailor communications to groups/ individuals relative to their lifecycle stage personas Must be integrated with all customer No requirement to integrate with other facing systems and platforms to work. systems, although will benefit from EG call centres, websites, bricks and integration mortar programs Seeks to evolve the relationship, growing Seeks to engage the customer, but not the value of the customer evolve them per se Concentrates on the journey Concentrates on the journey 5 Lifecycle Management Defined Any interaction your customers have with your brand can be seen as either adding to, or detracting from their overall lifetime value to your organisation. This is the concept of customer lifetime value – an important figure, especially in the process of customer lifecycle management. If customers have a good first experience, they are more inclined to buy from you again, effectively increasing their lifetime value. If they continue to have positive experiences with your brand, not only from the perspective of how good the product is, but how well you support them, inform them of promotions, or reward them, then they may end up promoting your brand and creating new business, effectively increasing their value to your business. Over time, this value can be calculated and a value ascribed to it. Conversely, if a customer has a poor first experience or a bad experience at any number of different points in their journey with your brand, they could be said to have a much lower life time value as they are less likely to repeat purchase, let alone recommend you. Customer-centric firms are focused on increasing the value of each customer over their life with your brand. However, the concept of consumption is linear. An individual’s needs today are going to evolve and be different tomorrow. Consequently how you address these needs will also evolve over time to maximise the lifetime value of the customer. In line with this, the way you interact with them and the way you nurture them to ensure added value needs to be mapped, so that you can understand the best way to communicate with them at all times. This is where customer lifecycle management plays a pivotal role. In essence, life cycle management is a continuous feedback loop which aims to grow a customer’s lifetime value by recognising that their needs will change as more time passes in the relationship between themselves and your brand. 6 The lifecycle itself has 6 distinct stages: 1. Brand awareness Brand Awareness Advocacy Leverage loyal customers to generate new business. Inform and build trust in a category and brand. Win repeat business. Engagement Solicit and measure brand interactions. Conversion Transition consumers from awareness to reg/purchase. L lty ya o L Customer Lifecycle y alt oy Retention n itio uis cq A lty ya o L Product Awareness Inform and build trust in a product or service. Role in Life cycle – Before customers actually become clients, they are simply prospects who may or may not be aware of your brand, content or products. At this stage it is important to build trust, to educate, and to understand the value drivers customers use to evaluate your brand and offers to become engaged. Achieved through – Research, advertising, reporting and attribution, SEO, lead generation, ad tracking Key Tip – It is important to remember that you may be required to not only build trust in your brand, but in your overall category. Being seen as thought leaders in your industry will raise awareness and make you the “go-to” within the industry. 7 2. Conversion Role in Life cycle – Once your customers start to consider you as a viable alternative, utilise your various platforms to make a good impression. Engage them with content that provides more information and which facilitates an easier transaction with you. The way you interact with them now will establish the platform for the future by which you encourage customers to return, interact, and engage for a long time to come. Achieved through – Abandoned ecommerce cart follow engagement, web testing, email marketing, content marketing, attribution modelling. Key Tip – Use clever content to show your potential customer how you add value above and beyond the item they are purchasing. Appeal to their emotive brain to develop emotional affinity whilst talking about the rational aspects of your brand. 3. Product Awareness Role in Life cycle – To reduce abandonment, an automated sequence of follow up messages will remind customers about their unfinished requests. Be sure to test different offers or incentives to help optimise, motivate and entice people to engage. Achieved through – On-boarding programs (email welcome programs), reactivation, reviews Key Tip – Multivariate testing is key at this stage. Work out what works best so that you can continue to improve the relationship. 4. Engagement Role in Life cycle – In contrast to models of yesteryear whereby little work was done to retain customers post purchase, this stage requires you to develop communications and programs which ensure your customers remain loyal to you, and your brand top of mind. This may include incentives, being made to feel important or showing that you have taken the time to personalise communications to them. Achieved through – Polls, voting, competitions, social media analysis, sentiment analysis, “thank you” communications. Key Tip – Solicit and measure brand engagement and ensure you tailor your messages to reflect your appreciation and specific knowledge of these customers. 8 5. Retention Role in Life cycle – Depending on your specific purchase cycle, customers may have little need to interact with your brand on a regular basis, or perhaps they see no need to. This is where your retention strategies are pivotal. Ensure that you stay top of mind with customers that may become less active with your brand for any number of reasons; maybe they have forgotten about you, been lured away by your competition, or simply need an incentive to reengage with you. Achieved through – Employ re-engagement messages. Cross-sell opportunities, rewards programs, gamification strategies, peer recommendations and rewards. An email that reaches out for example, to advise the recipient that their product licence is about to expire is an example of retention. Similarly, an email or communication piece that is sent out to remind a user that based on previous purchase behaviour they are due to make a new purchase is a good way to add value to your relationship. Key Tip – Make the messages you communicate work hard for you. It is easier and cheaper (in fact not only cheaper but more profitable) to retain business than it is to win new business. 6. Advocacy Role in Life cycle – If you can maintain a healthy and ongoing relationship with a customer, chances are they will speak more highly of your brand experience to others. In fact, these customers are the equivalent of VIP to your business as they are the most active ambassadors for your brand. By delivering specific campaigns inviting them to recommend your brand or products, you can acquire new prospects through your advocate, whilst reinforcing your connection with the key customer them self. This is where the value of a customer can really accelerate. Achieved through – Gifting, referral programs, social marketing, peer reviews, advocate ID Key Tip – As the expression says; it’s not what you know it’s who you know. Your customers have the ability to introduce your brand to their networks based on their positive interaction with your brand. The key is to ensure they stay happy with your brand. 9 Consider this: In 2012, Bain & Company found a positive trend for consumers to be defined by their personalised interests. As a case in point they identified that on the NetFlix website, movies selected via the recommendation engine have increased 15%.1 Bain and Company found that 54% of people like interacting with programs (polls, feedback). They want to be engaged.1 What are you doing to engage them? A recent study found that checking email first thing in the morning is still the common choice for 70% of consumers. In Australia, over 50% will do this via a mobile device.2 Australian’s using twitter are the social influencers of society.3 These people have the power to judge and condemn your brand. Keep them happy http://www.bain.com/about/press/press-releases/bain-study-identifies-five-trends-shaping-digital-innovations.aspx Strongmail website 3 http://www.bandt.com.au/news/digital/email-on-a-pc-still-king-to-target-consumers 1 2 10 Omnichannel Marketing Lifecycle marketing is all good and well, however, for all intents and purposes, as much as it works to evolve the customer relationship, by itself it will not give you the best competitive edge. Rather, your competitive edge will come from immersing your target market. This is achieved by putting them at the centre of your product design, the centre of how you compile data, making them the common thread between your various go-to-market channels, and by ensuring that all communication platforms you utilise are suitable for them; not because they suit your needs. And not just once, but through their lifetime interaction with your brand. Omnichannel marketing is a holistic, customer-centric approach to multichannel marketing. It is differentiated from channel marketing by virtue of the fact that it is customer centric, not channel centric This is where omnichannel marketing is key, as it works to not only manage your customer lifecycle, but to place each and every customer at the centre of everything you do. Simply put, omnichannel marketing is a holistic, customer-centric approach to multichannel marketing, though it is important to note; ominchannel marketing is not multichannel marketing, in fact, it is very different. An Omni-channel marketing approach works by closing the feedback loop across all communication streams and in matching real-time feedback with tailored responses, ensuring the best possible experience and results for your customers. This is different from a multi-channel approach which adopts a channel centric method; resulting in a broken customer experience due to siloed channel offers which lack integrated coordination. 11 Channel Centric vs Customer Centric SMS www. Channel centric ►► Siloed offers by channel ►► Limited coordination ►► Broken customer experiences SMS www. Customer centric ►► Offers shared across channels ►► Coordinated activity ►► Relevant messaging are driven by customer ►► System learns and takes best path 12 Omnichannel marketing, by virtue of the fact it is truly customer centric, puts you in the position to influence every potential touch point, at any point in the customer lifecycle. You become an almost omnipresent force, knowledgeable and connected in multiple ways with your audience. As such, omnichannel marketing becomes less of a marketing tool and more a marketing discipline. This is an important distinguishing feature. Omnichannel marketing is not a set and forget tool; it cannot work without being underpinned by strategic thought. Rather, it must focus on the customer experience from the beginning, ad infinitum. By default it must encompass every client-facing aspect of your business, from sales, through to customer support, to accounts and through to marketing. All communication channels must be inextricably linked to each other and all messaging tailored in real time, thereby engaging your audience in ways which make them not only feel that they are in charge, but which as importantly, makes them feel good about their purchase. w. ww SM S 13 Advantages of Omnichannel marketing An Omni-channel marketing approach keeps the customer as the focus of all marketing activity and interactions, resulting in a seamless, consistent experience with your brand. This is different from a multi-channel approach which adopts a channel centric method; resulting in a broken customer experience. Other advantages include: ►► Closed loop metrics. Omnichannel marketing captures rich user data from multiple touch points which can be stored and then analysed for the purposes of improving ongoing messaging ►► This allows you to understand media consumption better and will help identify potential behavioural patterns ►► The ability to segment individuals according to customer status, level of engagement, spending habits or length of time they’ve been a customer ►► The ability to tailor communication to an individual, based on both market intelligence and specific user data such as rewards cards ►► The ability to take this tailored communication and then select the most viable and appropriate platforms to deliver the content based on previous habits ►► Trigger based marketing automation can be applied to nurture the relationship. This is particularly advantageous as it allows key events in the lifecycle of the consumer to be identified and triggers set around them. 14 For example, if you know that someone who visits your site via a specific keyword search, who spends more than 3 minutes on your site and who has navigated through a set of key pages is more likely to convert if you show them Page A next rather than Page B, you can use automation to display page A, thus tailoring the experience. You can set up multiple triggers for multiple stages of the lifecycle and based on specific user data, allowing you to truly create a customised experience which creates a deeper rapport with your customer base. If correctly established, omnichannel marketing will monitor in real-time, the interactions of your customers with your brand and work to disseminate the data across all your touch points. Via marketing automation you can ensure that not only is the customer experience consistent, but that the customer journey is continued, even if – as is highly likely – the customer utilises a different channel for their next engagement with your brand. Successful implementation will ensure there are significant Return On Engagement (ROE) benefits for you, without the incremental labour and marketing costs. Building an Omnichannel Marketing Program The decision to build a customer focussed channel marketing program may or may not be one that is made easily. There must be consideration around whether your business has the resources to facilitate it, whether or not there will be value added to your organisation and determinations which need to be made about your target market. Once you have deemed that omnichannel is suitable for your brand, there are 5 key steps, which set the foundation for an effective and measurable omnichannel marketing program. 15 Define the stages of your customer’s lifecycle There are many different ways to define the customer lifecycle with your brand. However, the template provided earlier in this report should help get you started. At all times, ensure you know “What needs to happen at each stage to move the customer to the next stage, or keep them in a given stage?” Understand who your customer is Lifecycle marketing is based on knowing your customers and building around them. Identify key data source and database elements (Across all your touchpoints and channels) which indicate key customer behaviours and use these as the trigger points for sending automated messages. Plot your program Identify each touch point and how your customers interact. Then plot these against the customer lifecycle to understand what the key triggers are at various stages. Ensure you list all of your current marketing programs; and include the channels being utilized. This includes promotional, transactional and service-related messages. already have marketing programs in Modify and You place working to engage your audience. Sift optimise your through the data and identify what works the best, through what channels and at what marketing times. Determine which activities need more programs or less activity and curate your content. It is also important to set testing methodologies for moving forward and establish benchmark criteria. is the key to success. Identify key Measurement Feedback objectives such as increasing relevance, and increasing ROI, growing response rates, identify patterns and behaviour, retaining Monitoring customers interest or increasing spend per transaction. You may also want to assign a value to each interaction in order to measure “Return on Customer Engagement”. 16 The role of content in omnichannel marketing Content which is innately shareable is very powerful. Create content which can be shared and you make customer acquisition that much easier. Omnichannel marketing – by definition –requires you to deliver high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers at a specific point in time. Obviously this is no mean feat, as not only does it take extensive planning to map the various journey’s customers may undertake, it also requires you to curate an extensive array of content. You must have at your disposal varied and relevant material which can be served up simultaneously to people at different points of the customer lifecycle in a way which adds value to them and by association, your organisation. The key to creating this content is to map the lifecycle process and understand all scenarios you will need to create content for. As a starting point consider mapping and writing content based on the following: 1. Triggers –The initial triggers that lead to first point of contact 2. Research pathways – Knowledge of the processes that your potential customers undertake to search for viable options to meet their needs. For example, if you know your market reads reviews, industry reports, white papers, social media or views demonstrations, you should look to generate content of this type, ready for them to “stumble across” when the time is right. Whilst you should prepare information for them to digest in ways which are familiar, also consider providing secondary sources which may also resonate and provide the same level of detail. For example if they like whitepapers, consider providing video digests, access to analysts or experts (Email, appointment or webinars), offering events, tailoring call centre scripts, or sending more detailed emails. 17 3. Process pathways – Determine the number of steps between initial contact and the decision to make a purchase and create content for each individual stage. 4. Progression – There are multiple stages customers move through, so you will need content for each. These may include the onboarding process, the purchasing processes, implementation, customer support and reacquisition programs for customers who abandon. 5. Loyalty program management – Determine how you will continue to engage with your customers and how you continue to add value, post-purchase. This may include problem resolution, new product offers and community participation opportunities. 5 Lifestyle Programs to Consider Irrespective of the size or type of company you work for, chances are you have – to some extent – in place a number of programs which work to engage your audience and nurture them through to conversion. These programs may not be designed to span the entire customer lifecycle itself, but they do exist. If this is the case, rejoice! Many of these programs will in all likelihood, be relevant in some shape or form to one stage or another of the overall customer lifecycle. If repurposed correctly, they could become pivotal components of your overall omnichannel approach to marketing and could save you significant time in the development of your program. Whether or not you have a customer centric focus already, or if you are looking to implement one, chances are you have to some extent already developed elements which can be brought together to form significant elements of your overall omnichannel platform. Below are 5 examples of lifecycle programs which address specific stages in the overall customer lifecycle. 1. Welcome program: A welcome program is a series of coordinated trigger point messages which seek to remind recipients that your brand, product or program was worthy of them sharing their details with you. They are designed to introduce a new subscriber or customer to the brand, build trust, inform and drive the subscriber toward a first purchase or related conversion event. 18 1 2. Abandonment program: Recently, the Baymard Institute averaged out the figures compiled from 13 different studies into ecommerce cart abandonment. The figures are somewhat shocking. Despite initiating the purchase process, on average, 63.75% of shoppers will abandon during the process. Abandonment programs are designed to re-engage customers who abandon by offering them incentives to complete the process. 3. Post-Purchase program: Once a customer completes a transaction, the business needs to view them as a valuable asset. This program is designed to keep the customer engaged and to build upon the relationship, with the aim of turning a one-time visitor into a loyal repeat customer. 4. VIP or loyalty program: A successful post-purchase program will turn the customer into an advocate. At this stage it is important you are monitoring customer activity and rewarding them for their commitment to your brand. 5. Winback program: As the name would suggest, this program exists to reengage customers who have not visited you or engaged with a program within a designated timeframe. The aim of this program is to reintroduce the customer to your brand and to engage them so they transact with you again. 1 http://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate 19 Getting started It is no secret. Lifecycle programs are involved and complex. There are multiple stages which need to be addressed. Not only must you compile your data, determine the various components of the program – from the number of steps in the process, through to the content – and map your strategy, but there are 2 other major considerations to be considered: 1. Technology platforms; and 2. Determining whether to manage this internally or to partner with a 3rd party Considerations for a partner Having read the above technological components involved in a robust CLM, you could be forgiven for thinking that the enormity of it all is beyond you and your team. However, don’t be paralysed by the fear of it, nor lose faith in your ability to implement this for your organisation. As with most large scale projects, the key is to find a partner who is capable of helping you achieve your goals. After all, other business units call in specialists more often than you may think to help them with specific projects. Whether it is the IT department calling in the expertise of a specialist database architect, or the finance department outsourcing certain work to forensic accountants, strength for the organisation can be found through the correct partnership with a specialist provider. The key to finding the right provider is to ensure that: • They have access and skill in the use of the latest technologies • Their primary function exists to partner with companies looking to implement CLM and omnichannel marketing approaches • They are not technologists who will do an install and training, but rather are technology-savvy marketers who understand the science behind the platform. • You want a partner who is capable of using their experience in this field to make recommendations to you, to proactively make suggestions based on their inherent knowledge and who can add even more strength to the implementation of the program through their in depth insight 20 • They are conversant in all the multiple technologies relevant to the implementation of customer lifecycle marketing. This is important as this will allow them to critically understand the mechanics of the platform better and to ensure that the technology solutions being implemented are capable of the job, now and into the future. The technology platforms Lifecycle marketing represents a massive paradigm shift for many marketing departments. Not only does it require marketers to realise that they are no longer in total control, but it similarly requires massive changes to the capability set of the organisation. Where data could once reside in isolated data silo’s, a true omnichannel approach requires all platforms to be integrated and for the data to be actively pushed in real-time, to every other channel being utilised. Suddenly big-data comes into play. You have to be able to not only collate reams of new real-time information, but triggers need to be identified, data analysed and actions taken to ensure that the lifecycle is ever improving and that customers are being engaged the right way and in a timely fashion. To manage this effectively, you need a technology platform capable of all this and capable of growing with you. Salmat Influence (powered by Teradata Applications) is a prime example of how technology can be combined with preeminent strategic thinking to achieve your lifecycle marketing goals. 21 Sitting one level underneath the customer, Salmat Influence is an enterprise marketing solution that works to take real time market data and combine it with corporate thinking in such a way as to ensure that every communication piece is optimised to its full extent and that the customer’s requirements are always put first. With a platform such as this in place you have the ability to interpret everything from customer purchase history, mobile and social footprints, market influences and at what stage of the lifecycle a customer is at. Best of all, you can qualify what communications are best suited to maximise your chances of a conversion. Technological aspects to Omnichannel marketing ►► Big-data platform ►► Marketing automation suite capable of integrating with all systems and channels ►► Email delivery platform with robust metrics tool ►► Website metrics ►► Social Media and online tools capable of determining Share of Voice (SOV) and sentiment analysis ►► SMS generation tool ►► Call centre operations ►► Real-time monitoring 22 In Summary Here’s the thing. The customer is more empowered than ever before. They can find and disseminate information faster than ever and will use this information as the basis for many decisions. This puts them in control as the judge, jury and potentially, the executioner. Ironically however, in understanding that the customer is the centre of the equation and taking steps to implement a customer focussed lifecycle management program, you are putting yourself back in the driving seat. You can again be in greater control of your destiny. It takes sound strategic thinking, a thorough understanding of your customer base and subsequent mapping of the process behind sales conversion, but it can be done. The result is a omnichannel lifecycle marketing program that communicates on a one to one basis, tailoring communications that will not only help convert potential clients into customers, but which will work to re-engage lost customers, reward loyal ones and which will ideally turn existing customers into brand advocates. It is then these advocates who can and will become one of your greatest marketing assets, not only for the value you can place on them for their repeat business, but for the value of new business they help your business secure. The key is to put them at the centre of your universe and use them as the foundation upon which all your marketing efforts are focussed. Get this right, and you will reap the rewards! 23 About Salmat Our team of highly experienced digital marketing specialists will work with your business to: • understand key marketing objectives and your plans across digital and traditional marketing arenas • devise a suitable strategic road map for your campaigns to deliver against these objectives, including a blueprint of a single customer view • review and look at creative ways to improve on your key metrics Being relevant to your customers in every context improves brand recall, engagement with your messages and ultimately sales conversions. Contact us today! web: www.salmatdigital.com.au email: [email protected] phone: 1300 SALMAT 24