Marketers have more data at their disposal than ever. But it still feel’s like a giant game of “Where’s Waldo” in determining where customers are in the customer journey. And deciding what messages to share at any point in time.
In many ways, we currently have the worst of both worlds. Customers know (and in some cases resent) that their behavior and online signals are being tracked so closely. And at the same time, they’re regularly served irrelevant offers and messaging by the same companies that are tracking them.
Being stalked by retargeting ads for a product you’ve already purchased is intrusive and annoying at the same time. Bad personalization is worse than no personalization at all.
We’re still in the awkward adolescent stage of digital marketing. Marketers have increasingly more powerful tools and customer expectations have never been higher. But it’s still really hard to get right. Factoring in multiple channels, devices, and functional areas at a company can make the customer journey picture murky.
And marketers still need to evolve the common marketing mindset from optimizing one touchpoint at a time to thinking about the customer journey as a whole.
I liked this related HBR article from a few years ago about the whole customer experience:
“Companies have long emphasized touchpoints—the many critical moments when customers interact with the organization and its offerings on their way to purchase and after. But the narrow focus on maximizing satisfaction at those moments can create a distorted picture, suggesting that customers are happier with the company than they actually are. It also diverts attention from the bigger—and more important—picture: the customer’s end-to-end journey.”
In the near term, marketers will continue to play “Where’s Waldo” with the customer’s end-to-end journey. There’s a real opportunity for brands that can get this right.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Matthew Grant says
September 19, 2016 at 7:30 amHey, Tom. Long time no talk!
I have to give a talk at MarketingProfs B2B Forum on this exact topic, so it’s kind of timely.
One question is: To what extent is it even possible to know where someone is in the customer journey?
There are so many types of journey – some deliberate, some deferred, some coincidental – that it would be more true to say “a” customer journey, rather than “the.”
Also, the customers themselves don’t think of this as a journey, so probably couldn’t even themselves say where they are in it (or even whether they are in it).
Finally, a sales guy the other day spoke to me of “customer entitlement.” It’s the complement to customer empowerment today. Customer’s have ever higher expectations of how they will be treated by companies, even those that they do not do business with. Are these expectations really justified?
Thanks for the cartoon.
Tim Mace says
September 19, 2016 at 9:46 amYep, nobody likes being stalked online! I suspect this is why P&G have backed off using the existing “bad personalisation” tools for now.
Tate says
September 19, 2016 at 1:29 pmI recommend checking out a technology called Consensus (formerly DemoChimp). It lets users engage with video to choose the messages that are most important to them.
Daniel says
September 19, 2016 at 1:52 pmHello Tom,
I made an essay in my university last year for a coffee brand in portugal. My approach was based on the 6 buyer readiness stages: http://www.mbaskool.com/business-concepts/marketing-and-strategy-terms/2027-buyer-readiness-stages.html
Just thought it could be useful to remind us as customer experience professionals to ask the right questions in order to understand in what part of the journey people really are.
Best
Subhash says
September 19, 2016 at 11:02 pmThe reality is that no one, including the consumer, knows where in the buying process is they are.
The world where the stages of the journey was clearly demarcated is over. Everything – becoming aware about the brand/product, processing the information, evaluating options, actual act of purchasing – happens at the same place – the display screen.
Consumers and brands had an unwritten understanding that the TV ads (or other advertisements) are a medium to make them aware of a product. There isn’t an equivalent in the digital world. YouTube / FB are trying to fill that gap. But even these are clearly seen as a distraction.
There used to be a significant “cost” for the consumer to walk out of a store empty handed. That has all but gone. So, in-store, point-of-sale convincing is less effective. More so, because the format of communication is not different from regular online ads.
Personalization when ubiquitous doesn’t seem so personalized. There isn’t a feeling of being coveted. It is perceived as stalking.
Moreover, personalization being used to hard sell is a put-off. Even when successful, it may lead to a bad after-taste. Not unlike the street hawker chasing after you as you walk away, till you shell out the money.
Marketing used to help get your product on to the limited retail shelf-space. Which helped push out other brands. This role is again meaningless in the unlimited-store-shelf world.
Btw, all this is also a reflection of the limited differentiation among products. If all branded products are the same, then they are commodity and will be treated as such by the consumer. As well resign to the fact that the store private-brands will be the ultimate winners.
This leads to my last point that digital marketing has become less about marketing and more about direct sale. All the measures of success are associated with a transaction. Every screen is a store, so every ad has become a PoS communication. Intending to trigger an immediate action. After all, the incentives for the marketeers are aligned to the action.
We are not unlike the rebellious teenager, who disregards all that his parents believe in or do. The tomes of marketing and consumer behaviour knowledge has not gracefully transitioned to the digital era.
There is an urgent need to separate marketing (the inspiring, the convincing, the aspirational) from sales (point of sale incentives, promotions).
Consumer expectations have indeed changed. They demand more from the brands and brand-communication. However, it can change again. If only we tried.
Vibs says
September 20, 2016 at 3:48 pmSuperb article and great cartoon as always. Customer behavior has always been tough and tricky, but then that’s the fun doing it. And this is exactly the reason why we need more technology than ever to decipher it.
Machine-learning routines should get sophisticated enough to learn in real-time from input data and continuously deliver more meaningful behavior patterns and customer interactions. But before that happens, event today a smart marketer who is willing to put in time can do a lot of optimization by simple tweaks in frequency-caps and more granular database segmentation. All it needs is a little-bit more connect with the customer.