‘Outward-facing, not inward’ – that’s my motto. Too often we see companies marketing to customers about who they are and what they do, forgetting the fundamental rule about aligning marketing to the voice of the customer.
We should speak to our customers in a language that resonates with their goals and objectives. We should make their challenges a shared opportunity and provide solutions via a range of multi-channel, targeted, and personable marketing and communication initiatives.
As marketers, we have an endless list of digital options including social listening, influencer tracking, CRM systems, lead scoring and more. All of these can build a picture of who our customers are what they care about and what forms of marketing content they consume. But we must not use them in isolation; this is where my second motto comes into play.
‘People are people’, and relationship building is fundamental. We need to know our customers at every level, especially in large organisations such as NHS Property Services, where tone of voice and objectives can differ across departments and regions. Building a customer engagement map is crucial.
What works for one organisation will be completely different for another. Insights need to be drawn from a variety of sources so that we can use this intelligence to tailor our conversations with our plethora of clients and stakeholders – identifying the appropriate medium to facilitate collaboration is key. One size doesn’t fit all.
The process of understanding your customer, like any relationship, is an ongoing journey. You should consistently check the pulse of the relationship and never stop learning about your customers in order to evolve as they do.
For example, we recently overhauled our company website. Although we knew our customers, and in some cases well, we needed to go deeper to ensure a seamless user experience. We started with an extensive customer journey map which illustrated the different ways customers interacted with us on our website, the questions they were asking, and any hang-ups they were facing along the way. It was during this customer journey mapping process that we realised we didn’t understand some of the personas as well as we wanted to.
Unfortunately, this is a common pitfall for marketers: overconfidence on how well they know each customer persona. That makes it even more critical for companies to really take time to go through the strategy and mapping process, and check back with the map over time. It will continue to evolve with your business and customers.
When our new site launches, the learning process won’t stop. As customers and prospects come to sitecore.com, we’ll learn from their visits and continue collecting data to create a more compelling experience for them. More data means better personalisation as we ensure every customer or prospect, (whether they are a first-time or regular visitor) receives an experience that meets their expectations at every stage of their journey.
Organisations and individuals alike are operating in a world that has witnessed massive change, brought on by technological disruption. Despite many businesses still operating at ‘corporate speed’, organisations are now recognising the need to move at ‘customer speed’.
Customer understanding remains a central focus for marketers. But in this changing world, the future marketer must aspire to be a change leader, using their understanding of market disruption to transform the organisation.
Marketers need to be more aware than anyone of the external perspective – from customer understanding to competitor and market analysis – and their mission must be to bring this to the business as a whole.
In turn, this will link to the softer skill of collaboration, which is necessary to bring together diverse views found within an organisation. The modern marketer must be able to feed into strategic plans by using technology, data and unrivalled audience understanding. At times that may be at odds with the views of the board. Part of the role is to be brave, offering unbiased advice based on market understanding.
Collaboration is a vital skill here – marketers of the future will need to be fearless and fast, working with sales, the board and external stakeholders including customers. Marketers should no longer be asked to execute a business plan, we must fight to be central to its development and use all of the skills, knowledge and insights we have at our disposal to help our businesses thrive.
