Apprentice or Internship. I primarily audit university courses and whatever stack you’re using I can learn from TypeScript to C++, and I’m careful to never ask the same question twice to avoid bothering engineers on Slack. Any role where I can slither my way in to eventually working on the code so open to user support, technical writing, QA/testing oracles, or bounty-style work for PRs solving open issues.
Skills:
Property-based testing
Technical writing
Functional programming
Conceptual design of new features
Basic SQL like CTEs/Aggregates/Window functions
Converting math/stats functions to programs
Metaprogramming like CI and dependency management
Tools like Git, wrangling textual data with the shell
Did you know that 17 percent of your customers could walk away from your business after just one bad customer experience? That’s a pretty significant number, especially when you’re trying to grow your business and increase your return on investment (ROI). There’s good news, though: You don’t need to lose these buyers if you prioritize … Continue reading 5 Ways to Reinvent Customer Experiences That Will Increase Your ROI
Brittney Griner has been detained in Russia since February after she was arrested for allegedly bringing vape cartridges containing oils derived from cannabis through a Moscow airport.
Did you know that 17 percent of your customers could walk away from your business after just one bad customer experience? That’s a pretty significant number, especially when you’re trying to grow your business and increase your return on investment (ROI).
There’s good news, though: You don’t need to lose these buyers if you prioritize the customer experience. Below, I’ll explain what customer experiences are, why they matter, and how you can optimize your customer experience online.
What Are Customer Experiences?
Customer experience (CX) is how customers perceive any interactions they have with your company. It’s the overall impression of your company that customers build as they move through each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Think of it this way. Each time a customer interacts with your brand, even if it’s only a brief interaction, they’re building an impression of what it’s like to do business with you. This impression determines, for example, whether they’ll shop with you again or recommend you to friends.
In other words, positive (or negative) customer experiences can directly impact your bottom line. Got an unhappy customer? They might abandon their cart or never shop with you again. Got a happy customer? They might recommend your services to a family member.
Actions that can shape the customer experience include:
calling your help center
paying a bill
tweeting you with a query
How important is CX, though, in real terms? Very. Let me show you why.
Why Is Customer Experience Important?
For one thing, it’s hard to grow your business without customers. They’re central to everything you do. However, if you’re still not convinced CX matters, here are a few more specific reasons why the online customer experience is so important:
Customers are more likely to stay loyal to brands offering great CX. Given that 65 percent of a company’s business often comes from existing customers, delivering a great experience can help you work on that all-important retention rate.
When a customer has a great experience, they could leave a review online, which encourages others to try your business. According to ReviewTrackers, more than a third of individuals reading reviews only look at businesses with four or more stars, so great CX can help you boost your visibility.
The better the experience, the less likely customers are to abandon your business in favor of competitors. In other words, CX can directly affect your churn rate.
The bottom line? Happy customers are more likely to spend more, stay loyal, and recommend your brand to others. If you’re keen to boost your ROI, it pays to work on customer experience optimization.
What Do Most Businesses Get Wrong About Customer Experience?
Customer experience optimization can be challenging to get right, especially if you approach it all from the wrong angle. To help you avoid making time-consuming (and potentially costly) mistakes, here’s what businesses often get wrong about CX.
Ignoring CX
It sounds obvious, but the biggest mistake businesses make is ignoring CX completely. Why? Because customers care about their experience. In fact, four out of five people would abandon a brand after fewer than three negative experiences
Ignoring CX could damage your customer retention and even limit your ability to attract new business.
Failing to Track Metrics
Even if you do care about customer experience optimization, you’ll never know how you’re doing without tracking your performance. I’m going to touch on the best metrics to track later, but here are some key questions that performance data can help answer.
How many customers stop doing business with you?
Would customers recommend you to friends or family?
How easy is it for customers to resolve issues or queries?
By tracking customer experience metrics, you can optimize CX at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
Using Impersonal Communication
It’s not uncommon for businesses to treat customers as a whole unit rather than an online audience made up of multiple individuals. The issue? Well, personal communication matters: Impersonal communication won’t drive growth.
According to McKinsey research, 71 percent of customers expect personalized interactions from businesses.
What’s more, fast-growing companies see at least 40 percent of their revenue coming from personalized messaging.
If you treat your customers as numbers, they could look elsewhere for the personalized CX they want.
Neglecting to Train Employees
Sure, it’s important to build a user-friendly website and make it easy for buyers to shop with you, but the customer experience starts with your staff. What’s a common mistake companies make, though?
Failing to train their employees in the art of customer service delivery.
Customers come to you looking for a shopping experience. If your staff don’t have the knowledge, experience, or authority to resolve customer issues, then you’ll frustrate your shoppers and they could turn to your competitors instead.
Now you know what notto do, there’s still one question remaining: How do you actually improve CX to boost your revenue? Let’s take a look.
5 Ways to Improve Customer Experiences and Increase Revenue
While there are multiple ways you might drive revenue by optimizing customer experiences, here are my five favorite strategies.
1. Find Out Where You Stand
Before you can perform customer service optimization, you need to know what’s working right now by tracking key performance indicators (KPIs.)
You might already be familiar with tracking KPIs as part of your wider marketing strategy. However, in terms of measuring customer experiences, here are some metrics to track:
Churn rate: Your churn rate is how many customers stop using your services, e.g., they cancel their subscription. The higher the churn, the more customers you’re losing.
Customer effort: This is how easy people think it is to perform an action, e.g., complete checkout. A low customer effort score means people are dissatisfied.
Net promoter score (NPS): This is how likely someone is to recommend your business. The higher the NPS, the more likely it is that they’ll recommend you.
Retention rate: Your retention rate is the number of customers you hold onto over a period of time. High retention scores mean greater customer loyalty.
Here are some tips to measure metrics:
Measure churn by choosing a set period and dividing the number of customers you lost by the number of customers you started with. The percentage is your churn.
Poll customers using surveys and ask them to rate their experience.
Ask customers how likely they are to recommend you on a 1-10 scale.
Measure customer retention by choosing a set period of time, calculating how many customers you start with, and how many of those customers stay with you.
Not sure where to start with customer surveys? Email them to customers or do what Tim Hortons does and invite people to complete satisfaction surveys online:
An example of using surveys to find out the customer experience with a brand.
2. Improve Your Customer Service
It’s important to note that customer service differs from the customer experience. CX means every interaction a customer has with your brand, while customer service refers to interactions between a customer and employees when there’s a problem.
Unsurprisingly, then, boosting your customer service delivery can have a positive effect on your overall CX. How do you improve customer service, though? Here are some ideas.
According to research by Khoros, 77 percent of customers expect customer support teams to share information so they don’t need to repeat themselves. Make sure you properly integrate your customer support processes using, for example, customer relationship management (CRM) software.
Use chatbots: The Khoros research shows that 79 percent of customers enjoy chatting to customer service reps through these apps.
Identify your most loyal customers. Reward them with exclusive discounts and special offers to encourage new transactions.
Here’s an example of a chatbot from Dropbox. Users can follow the step-by-step instructions or, if the chatbot can’t answer their questions, they can speak to a service representative or try other resources:
An example of using chatbots to improve customer service.
Improve customer service by offering various quick, simple, and effective ways to reach your team.
3. Make Conversions Easier
Zendesk’s research shows that 65 percent of customers are looking for quick, easy transactions. What does this mean?
Well, if you’re an e-commerce store, this means customers want a straightforward checkout experience. Let me give you some tips for speeding up the process.
Provide a guest checkout option so there’s no need for someone to create an account to buy something.
Offer multiple ways to pay, such as PayPal or mobile wallets like Apple Pay.
Make your shipping and delivery costs transparent.
Reduce the number of checkout screens where possible.
Are you a service provider? Then you want to ensure your sales process is seamless.
Offer a free trial to nurture customers along the sales funnel.
Explain your sales process upfront so customers know what to expect.
Schedule a sales call so you can get the information you need from customers to solve their problems and resolve any hesitancies.
Offer clear packages and transparent pricing structures tailored to various customers’ requirements.
Monday.com, for example, has a very clear pricing structure.
An example of using a clear pricing structure to help make customer conversations easier.
What’s more, it only takes a few steps to get started with a free account so prospects can experience the software before committing to a paid package:
Use free accounts to allow customers to use software before committing to purchasing it.
Impress your customers and boost CX by creating a seamless, user-friendly sales experience.
4. Personalize Customer Interactions
Earlier I touched on how personalization goes a long way to help boost customer acquisition and retention. How do you personalize customer interactions, though? Here’s what you can do:
Build customer profiles so you know who your ideal customer is. Once you determine your audience base, you can segment your customers into groups to send them relevant marketing materials tailored to their personal preferences.
Take an omnichannel approach. According to Zendesk’s research, companies with higher CX scores deliver consistent, reliable experiences across all mediums, from in-store shopping to buying products through a mobile app.
Use the data you collect from customers to personalize surveys and try to follow up on survey responses.
Don’t forget the power of email, either. Retarget lapsed customers with personalized incentives, and send loyal customers recommendations based on their shopping history.
5. Empower Your Employees to Take Action
Who do your customers interact with? Your employees. If customers aren’t happy with your employees, there’s a risk they’ll abandon your brand completely.
What’s the answer? Empower your employees. Give them the tools they need to resolve queries, by:
Asking employees for their feedback. Do they feel they have the resources necessary to deliver a great service, or are they feeling frustrated?
Resolving identified pain points. Maybe you could streamline manual processes by updating your CRM software, or you could improve contact center protocols.
Finally, empowering your employee, for example, maybe they could offer a discount to incentivize a new customer.
Customer Experience Case Study: Gymshark
Gymshark, an international fitness brand, excels at employee engagement.
How? Because employees have pretty significant authority to resolve disputes, and they’re very engaged with customers online.
For one thing, they have a dedicated Gymshark Help social media account to answer queries, proactively engage customers, and improve the customer experience.
An example of engaging with customers online.
Their employees are entrusted to offer real solutions, which make customers feel valued at every stage of the buyer’s journey—even after the sale.
Does it pay to give employees freedom over CX delivery? Absolutely: Operating in over 180 countries and still growing, Gymshark knows how delivering great customer experiences can boost ROI.
Frequently Asked Questions About Customer Experiences
We’ve covered why customer experiences matter and how you might improve your CX, but let me give you some key takeaways.
How do you improve customer experiences?
Learn who your customers are and how they interact with your business. Once you understand the buyer’s journey, you can equip your employees to meet their needs and exceed their expectations.
What are the main components of customer experiences?
Promoting a customer-focused culture, ensuring you’re easy to do business with, measuring customer satisfaction, and delivering on your promises all contribute to the customer experiences that individuals have with your business.
How do you track the customer experience?
Get honest customer feedback and track CX metrics at each stage of the buyer’s journey using tools to measure your churn rate, customer effort score, retention rate, and net promoter score.
What makes a good customer experience?
Great customer experience starts with your staff. Give them the knowledge they need to manage your buyers, and you’re on track to impress your customers.
Conclusion: Improving the Customer Experience Is Crucial to Business Growth
Without customers, you won’t boost your ROI and your company won’t get off the ground, so you need to prioritize customer experiences.
To perform customer experience optimization successfully, help your staff nurture individuals along the buyer’s journey. Monitor key customer experience metrics along the way, and don’t be afraid to ask customers what you’re doing right—and where you’re falling behind.
Need extra help with the online customer experience? Check out my consulting services.
WSo what are integrated marketing communications, and why do they work so well? In this blog post, we’ll answer those questions and give you some tips on how to create your own integrated marketing communications plan.
What Are Integrated Marketing Communications?
The goal of integrated marketing communications is to create a consistent message and brand identity that customers will recognize across all channels.
This requires a coordinated effort that includes all aspects of marketing, from advertising and public relations to sales and customer service.
For example, if a customer sees an ad for your product on TV, hears about it on the radio, and then visits your website, they should have the same experience.
Your message should be consistent across all channels, and each channel should work together to support the others.
An integrated marketing communications plan will help you do just that by bringing all of your marketing efforts together into one cohesive strategy.
The difference between single channel and omnichannel order rates.
Why Integrated Marketing Campaigns Work
Integrated marketing communications campaigns work because they provide a consistent message across all channels that are reinforced with each interaction.
This type of marketing allows you to control the conversation about your brand and ensure that your target audience is seeing the same message no matter where they encounter your brand—–whether it’s through paid advertising, social media, or even in person.
Plus, integrated marketing communications campaigns are often more cost-effective than single-channel campaigns because you can leverage existing content and assets across multiple channels.
Key benefits of an integrated marketing communications plan:
Rreach a wider audience than single-channel experiences
Kkeep your brand top of mind across all channels
Bbuild audience trust with consistent messaging and campaigns
Ssave budget by reusing content and assets
If that’s not enough, research from the Harvard Business Review found that customers who use omnichannel shopping spend 10 percent % more online and four4 percent % more in-store than single-channel customers.
Integrated Marketing Communications Examples
Looking for your next great integrated marketing communications campaign? Check out these examples for inspiration.
Budweisers’ “Whassup?” Campaign
The “Whassup?” campaign by Budweiser first aired during Monday Night Football in 1999. The campaign featured characters answering the phone saying, “Whassup?” in a comical, slurred way.
On the website, visitors could learn how to say “Whassup” in over 30 different languages! With this new marketing campaign, only one phrase increased visitors to Budweiser’s website and sealed the integrated marketing communications campaign’s efficacy.
The campaign was a success and won the Cannes Grand Prix award as well as the Grand Clio award. The catchphrase was also featured in pop-culture hits such as Scary Movie (2000), Friends (2003), The Simpsons (2002, 2005), and Ant-Man and the Wasp (2008).
For the 2020 Super BowlSuperbowl, Budweiser brought this campaign back in a pandemic-themed re-make titled, “Whassup again?”
Domino’s “AnyWare” Campaign
Another integrated marketing communications campaign example success story comes from Domino’s Pizza.
ToIn order to increase digital orders, Domino’s created AnyWare, which allows customers to order pizza through various platforms such as a tweet, text, Ford Sync, Smart TVs, and smartwatches.
Each new way to order was introduced with its own press release and driven to the DominosAnyWare.com website.
In 2015, Dominos also launched a national TV ad campaign featuring celebrities arguing that their way of ordering was the best.
To date, the AnyWare campaign has generated 2 billion earned media impressions including spots on The Ellen Show, Jimmy Fallon, and The Today Show. The TV campaigns generated 10.5 percent year-over-year growth for the brand.
Dominos “Anywhere” Campaign.
The Martian Movie
To promote the theatertheatre release of 20th Century Fox and Ridley Scott’s, “The Martian” in 2015, a prologue campaign was created to increase awareness and excitement.
An integrated marketing communications strategy was built to be consumed on a variety of channels including, but not limited to: social media, video, celebrity endorsements, and traditional PR and marketing efforts.
The campaigns included a mock episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk from the year 2035, an Under Armour campaign showing “The Martian”‘s main character, Mark Watney, as a superathlete of the future, and mock-declassified NASA footage showing each character going through psychological testing before heading out into space.
The Martian opened number one at the box offices and had the second-highest fall opening of all time. It was also the number one movie in the U.S. for four4 weeks.
How to Create an Integrated Marketing Communications Plan
If you want to create an integrated marketing communications plan that highlights the best of your brand, here are a few key steps you need to take.
1. Get to Know Your Audience
Before you start developing your communications plan, you must takeit’s important that you take the time to get to know your audience.
Consider demographic factors, such as education level, gender, income, age, race, and geographic location. Then, think about behavioral and psychological traits, including things like interests, hobbies, and values.
Take demographic factors like education level, income, age, race, gender, and geographic location into consideration. Don’t forget about psychological and behavioral traits like values, hobbies, and interests.
Creating a customer profile that is specifically tailored to your ideal customer will help you make better decisions about your marketing campaign.
In some cases, you may have more than one customer profile for a given campaign. Sometimes, you may have multiple customer profiles for one campaign. In that case, it’s important to segment your audience so that you can tailor your message to each group.
For example, if you’re marketing a new line of environmentally-friendly cleaning products, you might have one customer profile that is interested in saving money and another that is interested in saving the planet.
Tailoring your message to each group will help you create an integrated marketing communications plan that highlights the best of your brand.
2. Set a Budget
Let’s face it, you might not be in a position to hire Neil deGrasse Tyson, NASA, and Under Armour in your first integrated marketing communications campaign.
But tThat doesn’t mean you can’t create a strong, compelling message.
The key is to set a realistic budget and then allocate your resources accordingly.
If you have a limited budget, focus on creating high-quality content that can be distributed across multiple channels.
If you have a larger budget, look for high-profile partnerships, influencer marketing, and other paid media opportunities.
In either case, make sure you have a clear plan for how you will spend your money and what your limits are.
3. Outline Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
One of the most important parts of creating an integrated marketing communications plan is understanding what makes your brand unique.
What do you offer that no one else does?
What can you do better than anyone else?
Answering these questions will help you develop a strong unique selling proposition (USP), which will be a key component of your communications strategy.
Once you have your USP, make sure it is front and center in all of your marketing materials.
It should be the through-line that ties together your various communications channels and provides a consistent message to your target audience.
For example, if you are a luxury car brand like Audi, your USP might be “Luxurious and comfortable cars delivering excellent engine performance.”
Make sure this message is clear in your advertising, social media posts, website content, and any other marketing collateral.
If you’re selling running shoes like Nike, your USP might be “The best shoes for athletes and fitness.”
Again, this should be a consistent message across all of your communications channels.
Your USP will be the foundation of your integrated marketing communications strategy, so take the time to develop it thoughtfully.
Use your unique selling proposition to create an effective integrated marketing communication campaign.
4. Decide Which Platforms You’ll Use
Once you know who you’re speaking to and what you want to say, you need to decide which channels you’ll use to reach your target audience.
This will be different for every business, but some common options include:
Eemail marketing
Ssocial media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn)
For example, if you’re using Facebook to reach your target audience, will you primarily rely on organic posts or paid ads? If you’re using email marketing, what sort of content will you include in your newsletters?
Asking yourself these types of questions will help you create a more comprehensive and effective IMC strategy.
5. Messaging Style
While your brand voice needs to be consistent across all channels, the way you actually communicate with your audience will vary depending on the platform you’re using.
For example, the messaging you use in a Facebook ad will be different from than the messaging you use in an email newsletter.
Your tone might also change depending on whether you’re trying to build awareness, generate leads or drive sales.
Keep this in mind as you create your content calendar and start to populate it with messaging that’s in line with your brand voice and the goals of each individual piece.
Here are two examples from sneaker company No Bull, which uses different messaging styles on Facebook ads versus Twitter posts.
A Facebook ad example from No Bull.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>About to take on the week like…<br>Congrats on a great finish in Dubai, Tola!<a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/IAMNOBULL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#IAMNOBULL</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/JustTheHorns?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#JustTheHorns</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/BehindTheHorns?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#BehindTheHorns</a> <a href=”https://t.co/RqlABILona”>pic.twitter.com/RqlABILona</a></p>— NOBULL (@justthehorns) <a href=”https://twitter.com/justthehorns/status/1206646654989783047?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>December 16, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
6. Set Your Targets and Goals
You’re almost ready to start putting your IMC plan into action, but first, you need to set some targets and goals. Consider the following:
What do you want are you looking to achieve with your integrated marketing communications strategy?
Are you trying to improve your external reach?
What about internal communications?
Is there a particular target audience you’re looking to engage?
Attaching numbers to your objectives is a good way to measure progress. For example, if one of your goals is to increase brand awareness, you could measure this by tracking the number of mentions your brand receives online.
Or, if you’re looking to improve customer satisfaction, you could survey your customers after they’ve made a purchase.
Other goals can include:
Email sign- ups
Social media follows and engagement
Website traffic
Sales or conversions
Phone calls
Event sign-ups and ticket sales
Once you have some goals and targets in mind, it’s time to start putting your integrated marketing communications plan into action!
7. Track and Optimize
Once your integrated marketing communications campaign is up and running, it’s important to track progress and optimize along the way.
Analytics are key in understanding what’s working and what’s not.
Be sure to keep an eye on your campaign goals and KPIs, and adjust as necessary. If you’re not seeing the results you want, don’t be afraid to change things up.
For example, let’s imagine you’re running an email campaign as part of your integrated marketing communications plan.
You might want to track metrics such as:
Oopen rates
Cclick-through rates
Uunsubscribe rates
If your open or click-through rates are low, you might want to consider changing up your subject lines or email content.
Or, if you’re seeing higher than average unsubscribe rates, that could be an indication that your content is not relevant to your audience.
It’s important to constantly test and measure the performance of your campaigns so that you can make necessary adjustments to ensure success. By doing so, you’ll be able to create an integrated marketing communications plan that highlights the best of your brand.
Frequently Asked Questions: Integrated Marketing Communication Plans
What does integrated marketing communication mean?
Integrated marketing communication is an approach to marketing that uses all aspects of a company’s communication channels to deliver a consistent message.
What are the benefits of using an integrated marketing communications plan?
The benefit of an integrated marketing communications plan is to ensure that all of a company’s marketing efforts are working together in harmony to deliver a consistent message.
What are the five forms of integrated marketing communications?
There are five main ways to market your product or service. They are advertising, direct marketing, internet marketing, sales promotion, and public relations. All of these methods can be used together to create a harmonious marketing plan.
Do integrated marketing communication plans help drive ROI?
Yes, integrated marketing communication plans can help drive ROI by ensuring that all marketing efforts are working together to deliver a consistent message. This will result in increased brand awareness and customer loyalty, which will lead to increased sales and profits.
Final Thoughts on Integrated Marketing Communications Plans
An integrated marketing communications plan is the key to success for any company.
By creating a plan that outlines the main ways to market your company and product, you can ensure that all of your marketing efforts are working together to deliver a consistent message.
This can result in increased brand awareness and customer loyalty, which can lead to increased sales and profits.
The end result? A more successful company that is better able to compete in today’s marketplace.
How have you found success with integrated marketing communications?
GDPR Cookie Consent Agreement
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRejectRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
