WHY DON'T MARKETERS LISTEN - Anatomy of an Email Inbox 8-31-2017

I've been working on my next presentation for the Club Industry Show in Chicago in early October. This is the National conference for the Health Club industry.  Not one I have focused on before for emails, so have been hitting websites and seeing what is happening in this space.  
In my past blogs I have spoken much about the customer journey and the content needed throughout the funnel, but unfortunately, a large portion of marketers across many industries continue to use email to only deliver messaging at the end of the funnel.  Even if the funnel is short, there is opportunity to deliver more value and be less promotional.  This helps build trust and consideration early in the relationship and primes action later.  This is a long term strategy, not short term sales and ROI focused.

As part of my research, I signed up on a handful of fitness sites to see what they would do and how they would communicate with me.  Big surprise, they didn't try to "court" me, they went straight for the "marriage" trying to get me in their door with a free pass. And even when they sent me their "free pass" they didn't try to inform me.  This would have been a great opportunity to add some valuable content about health and fitness to reinforce why I should be going into their club. Instead, this was all about operations and getting "married" before I even am sure I like them!

Another thing I speak a lot about is customer centricity and the importance of listening to our customers.  That is how you win, both short and long term.

If there isn't enough evidence out there, here's a great statistic from an article this week in AdWeek.

40% of Consumers Want Emails From Brands to Be Less Promotional and More Informative

In spite of this, still 61% prefer email (as compared to other mediums such as direct mail) as their method for receiving promotions from brands.  But, can't we find a blend of both?

So why don't we listen?  Here's my thoughts.

1. Its Easier to create promotional messages and they can be directly tied to revenue.  Marketers still have to serve their finance and leadership masters.  Their job is to drive revenue and reduce costs/improve profits.  It takes enlightened leadership and progressive and sometimes brave marketers who can tell the story of why and how early journey content and emails drive success both long and short term.  Hopefully the above statistic can help tell that story.

2.  They don't know what content they need or don't have it. Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) may seem like an activity that isn't needed or too time consuming or difficult to do.  The reality is this is a strategic tool that will help you focus on what is important:  the right customers, their motivations and what they need to move into and through your funnel.  Don't short change your strategy and execution by missing this vital step.

3.  Email marketing isn't strategic enough.  Often these team members are technical, creative and executing members of the team. There isn't enough conversation about strategies around email marketing within the organization.  CMOs and marketing heads need to outline the overarching strategy for email and direct these team members to deliver more than just the same old promotional content. You need to provide resources and insist on CJMs for your core segments and content procurement that meets customers needs.

So the net is, we don't listen - SOUR because we are failing at:

- Being team leaders and visionaries

- Championing strategy and insights about the customers needs

- Being customer centric in all things

- LISTENING!

Want help with CJM, email strategy or more, contact me.  And, if you are in the health care industry, look for me Oct 6th in Chicago at the Club Industry Show where I will be speaking more about "Turning SOUR Email into Sweet Marketing Success."

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox 8-2-2017

Conference Speaking Gig

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak about CRM, email and marketing strategy at the Southeast Building Conference #SEBCVille last week at the beautiful Gaylord Palms Hotel near Disney World. My session was focused on customer centricity and how to be the driver rather than the passenger in the customer conversation.  If you would like a copy of my deck, please contact me.

While there, I was able to attend a couple of other sessions and it was good to hear others having the same conversation, even using similar analogies of cars.  I sat in on the session by Steve Coughran at Coltivar Group and I loved his description of how businesses continue to miss the opportunity to focus on customers. He called it the "Me Car."  In essence what he talked about is that in conversations, sales teams and even in marketing materials we tend to focus on the company rather than trying to listen to and understand the customers needs and presenting compelling content that they care about.  

As someone who started out my career on the market research side of marketing, I have always been a big proponent of using those tools to better understand prospects and customers.  Today we have even more! Here's some things to consider doing if you are not already.

Prospect surveys

Either on line or in person, don't let someone out of your sphere without trying to obtain some level of information and insight from them. People are usually happy to tell you things about themselves. Who doesn't like to talk about themselves?  You could do web based surveys to understand the things people like about your site, test different experiences and more.  See a few of these type tools here. Phone surveys are great for customer service insights.  How many times have you heard the message: "Please take a moment to answer a few questions about the call..?"

While at Centex Homes, I instituted a model center survey program that was part of the sign in process for visitors who came to the model homes.  At my session at SEBC, I talked about the insights we gained from this work.  Within only 18 months, across our Divisions we had over 8,000 completed surveys. We analyzed these to understand our segments needs in a home, their motivations for purchase, what influenced their visit and the features of the homes that were important to them.  These insights about the segments helped inform product design and features, sales team scripts, marketing activities and more.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Some think the concept of Net Promoter Score is dead, however, I disagree.  This metric is a good tracking tool over time to understand where you are and to benchmark your performance against industry norms and overall.  It helps you keep a pulse on the sentiment and combined with other survey insights can provide great content.  When I went to the Home Storage company I worked for several years ago, they had great creative and rudimentary understanding of their consumer targets, but hadn't done a deep dive or built a "culture of learning."  I started this CSAT study in my first 30 days and began a process that not only trended the company Net Promoter Score but provided insights that informed product, customer service and much more.  We disseminated the commentary from the surveys to the appropriate departments for continuous improvements in all these areas.  This led to the institution of additional insight collections specific to customer service, our business partner channels and other ad hoc insights that were needed to better understand our customers and prospects.

It was all about being customer centric and understanding the customer and making them core to the way we ran the business. Here's a slide I borrowed for my presentation that I think does a good job of describing at a high level what is needed to be customer centric.

Email Insights

This blog is about email, so I would be remiss in not mentioning how to use email to drive customer centricity.  Email communication should not be one way.  It is a great engagement tool and way to obtain insights in "sound bytes."  This can be helpful to continue learning throughout your relationship.  Also, while at Centex, we implemented a robust CRM communications program that was founded on the customer journey and the understanding that it was a long process.  Central to that was where our prospect was in the process.  We crafted unique communications flows based on this timing presenting content that was relevant for each phase.  We initially asked them where they were in their process and got them to tell us "how long until you plan to make a decision."  We continued to ask this question in every email communication, so if circumstances changed, they could let us know and we could move them to a different communications track.  We also used behavioral triggers to move people into different communications paths.  So for example, if someone asked a very specific question in response to an email, an online consultant was automatically notified and a personal phone call follow up was made.

Every touch point with your prospects and customers should be a learning opportunity.  Being open to the voice of the customer and building tools and processes to learn from those interactions will help you drive a business that matters and is responsive to the needs of your customers which naturally leads to profitability and success.

Your CRM then becomes the repository of this learning so that you maintain the "one truth" of the customer that provides you the insights and tools you need to grow a profitable business.

So, as I said in my presentation, here's the things that you need to drive the customer relationship and build your business:

- Customer focused leadership is key

- Build a learning culture and systems

- Focus on the entire journey, not just the end

- Tell stories and make emotional connections

- Measure and always be improving

Your Journey with the Customer Never Ends!