customer experience

September 30, 2019 Content Chat Recap: Put Your Ideal Customer At The Center Of Your Content Marketing Planning Process

October 15, 2019 by Alek Irvin Leave a Comment

Whether you’re B2B or B2C, your brand needs a customer-focused approach with your content. In this #ContentChat, we discuss the best strategies for putting your ideal customer at the center of your content marketing planning process, including a discussion of how to get executive buy-in on your approach, ways to actively and passively collect content ideas, and examples of brands that have taken risks that paid off because they know their audience.

Q1: Why should you put your customer—and not your brand—at the center of your #contentmarketing planning process? And how do you get your executive team onboard with that perspective?

Unfortunately, some companies take a brand-first approach with content (or in general), potentially due to internal pressure from execs or teammates that do not understand the value of customer-centric content. Regardless of the reason, we do not recommend this approach.

A1- I’m a newbie to #ContentChat -and excited to learn.
I’m confused about the question.
Are you saying that there are still #brand managers and executives who think that the brand comes first and customers second?
— Virginie Glaenzer (@VirginieG) September 30, 2019

Welcome to #ContentChat! And yes, unfortunately, there are still brands who put out content that may appease an internal request but certainly didn’t engage their community.
— Erika Heald | Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) September 30, 2019

Yep, it’s all about
Customer Needs.
As a for-profit entity, if you’re not solving customer needs you don’t have a reason to exist.
And you won’t for long. #ContentChat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) September 30, 2019

A1. Truly successful companies are not ego driven, they strive to fix a problem in the marketplace. Think about what your fans want to see, not what you want to project. If your executive doesn’t get that, you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle. #ContentChat https://t.co/ogFGRzwoNW
— GreenRope (@GreenRope) September 30, 2019

Content should be created with your customer needs in mind. Why? When you provide your customers with content that helps solve their problems and enables them to do their jobs better, you are more likely to earn their trust and loyalty.

A1: You want to make sure your content is speaking to the needs of your customers.
Think about what you can help them with and deliver the content they’re searching for. #ContentChat
— Express Writers | Your Content Writing Team (@ExpWriters) September 30, 2019

A1 I’ve always gone by one criteria for my online success. And that is, “My client’s success is a reflection of my success!”💛#Contentchat
— Debi Norton (@BRAVOMedia1) September 30, 2019

A1: If you were trying to get your brand to engage and convert, then putting that at the center would make sense. #ContentChat
— John Cloonan (@johncloonan) September 30, 2019

A1: Customers should always be front and center for your brand…if they are front and center you know who they are, you know what they want and you know the message that will help convert them. #ContentChat
— Bernie Fussenegger #Digital360Chat (@B2the7) September 30, 2019

A1.
“Put yourself in customers shoes”
To measure success and achieve goals as good firm.#ContentChat
— ⚡ Vraj Shah 📸 (@vrajshahspeaks) September 30, 2019

A1.
At the end of the day your customer is at the core of everything you do.
The livelihood of your business is in their hands so you have to ensure that your content is of value and of relevance to them! #ContentChat
— Bentley University (@bentleyu) September 30, 2019

If your content is not created with your customer needs in mind, then it’s not content marketing.

A1a: This gets to the heart of the difference between creating content and being engaged in content marketing. If it’s not created with your customer needs in mind, it’s not content marketing. #ContentChat https://t.co/eG4v0o1Mt2
— Erika Heald | Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) September 30, 2019

A1: Putting the brand first is advertising.
Putting the customer first is marketing. #ContentChat
— John Cloonan (@johncloonan) September 30, 2019

There are places for brand-centric content, including your company’s “About” page, press releases, case studies, and more. Even then, you’ll want to position your work as “here are the challenges we help you solve,” instead of “here are our great results and shiny new features, buy our product.”

A1b: There is a place for brand-centric content in your marketing mix, including your website’s About section and press releases. But you don’t start a relationship with a customer by bragging about how awesome you are. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) September 30, 2019

A1c: You have to demonstrate that you understand your customers’ challenges and are here to help solve them. Only then will the prospective customer be ready for and interested in your brand and product-centric content. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) September 30, 2019

Totally agree. Case studies are another place where brand-centric content is appropriate and useful. But even with that, is there a way to make THOSE even more customer-centric rather than just saying what YOU did for this ONE company? #contentchat
— MaDonna Flowers Sheehy (@madonnasheehy) September 30, 2019

Yes! I think that @SlackHQ does a good job with that in their case studies (disclosure: they’re a client and I wrote some of those case studies). After reading them, you are excited about thinking about another way to improve collaboration & process in your own org. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) September 30, 2019

I’m not sure good case studies are brand centric.
They should position the customer as having a problem and also being the hero that solves the problem.
The brand, while important, should be supporting cast. #ContentChat
— Tod Cordill (@todcordill) September 30, 2019

July 1, 2019 Content Chat Recap: The Modern Buyer’s Journey

July 8, 2019 by Alek Irvin Leave a Comment

In our data-driven age, companies can know more than they ever have about their customers. Marketers can create data-backed customer journey maps that identify the touchpoints at play in the buyer’s journey and the actions needed to effectively move customers down the funnel with unprecedented levels of efficiency.

Despite the potential of this bright, shiny and prosperous future, the reality of today’s customer journey is incredibly complicated and marketers are drowning in data.

Arm Treasure Data’s The State of the Customer Journey in 2019 report—which our host Erika Heald partnered on—found that sales cycles often last at least 2 months and can span upwards of 10 different touchpoints. And even though marketers can access more data, that does not mean they can effectively use this data.

Building on the report findings, the #ContentChat community joined to discuss the modern buyer’s journey, the hurdles we face in delivering the optimal customer experience, and how to address the issues with our current attribution strategy.

Check out the conversation below, and if you’re interested in hearing more on the report findings, listen to Erika and Tom Treanor of Arm Treasure Data discuss the report and answer questions on it in this webinar archive.

Q1: Do you have a documented customer journey that details the path to purchase for your ideal customers?

Nearly half of our Twitter respondents do not have a documented journey.

Q1: Do you have a documented customer journey that details the path to purchase for your ideal customers? #contentchat
— Erika Heald | Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) July 1, 2019

The respondents that do have documented customer journeys said that customer journey maps help them prioritize efforts that drive action from the customers.

A1: We have a customer funnel that allows them to go down a number of journeys on our backend that ultimately ends with them taking action based on serving them solutions to the problems. Things like events, memberships and webinars work best for us. #contentchat
— Youpreneur® (@youpreneur) July 1, 2019

Q1: Yes! Our team has mapped out the customer journey of our clients so we can best connect with them and increase sales. #ContentChat
— Express Writers | Your Content Writing Team (@ExpWriters) July 1, 2019

Those that don’t have documented customer journeys acknowledge they should build them.

A1: I work on mapping customer journeys for my clients, but for my consulting business, I haven’t gotten around to it yet. But it is on my to-do list. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) July 1, 2019

A1: I’m retweaking our sequences to get things going again. Long overdue. #contentchat
— Jennifer Navarrete (@epodcaster) July 1, 2019

A1: We should, to be frank(furter). But we haven’t. Why? I’m not sure. #ContentChat
— John Cloonan (@johncloonan) July 1, 2019

Using Social Media to Enchant Your Customers

March 7, 2011 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

…Even if It Means Steering Them to the Competition

That’s the premise @MattSingley from #Caesar’s shared with attendees at a recent social media conference I attended a while back. He was speaking about his team’s social media strategy for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in their main marketplace– Las Vegas.

Matt started out by noting that Facebook unsubscribes peak within the first hour after you make a post. This makes it imperative that when you post to your social media channels you make sure you have something relevant and interesting to say that engages your audience. You need to stand out from your competition by finding your own niche.

Matt’s team’s differentiator was their depth of knowledge about what was happening in Vegas year ’round. And this turned itself into a powerful way to connect with potential customers during CES.

Matt’s social media team was on the lookout for folks talking about Caesar’s and their properties, but they also had a task force looking for folks talking about CES. As you might expect, folks used social media channels to get recommendations for places to eat, where the best parties were, and where they could meet up with other CES attendees to unwind.

The team took a concierge approach to interacting with those folks. They gave info on places that could be a good fit and cool happenings around town—including those happening at their competitors’ properties. The idea is that by being seen as in the know of what’s cool and happening around Vegas, it builds their brand’s prestige and the idea that Caesar’s has its finger on the pulse of Vegas.

The amount of interaction and buzz generated about Caesar’s during this concentrated effort (Note: Matt had a larger than normal staff manning the social media channels around the clock for CES to capitalize on the opportunity) has led Matt to try the same approach for other large-scale events that affect cities within their markets.

I came away from this presentation with a few key takeaways:

To engage your customers on social media, you need to know where they are and what they are talking about.
Next, find a way to add actual value — not just self-promotion– to those conversations, to build those relationships.
Don’t be afraid to try something a little bit out of your comfort zone.