Step 4: Coordinate All Touchpoints
This deep dive into the fourth step of the Marketing Optimized Framework posted previously.
Why
For a good customer experience and more effective marketing, we want a consistent message in communications at all touchpoints with a prospect/customer
We've all been there... there is never enough time. Clarity is the best most effective give you can give someone
keeps your audience from straying from the path because another shiny thing caught their attention (which would have added time to the journey to becoming your customer
this will amplify your effectiveness
What
The central Content Director acts like a conductor in an orchestra, each member of the orchestra takes cues from the conductor to play their piece to combine with all others to produce something bigger than the sum of its parts. It orchestrates the personalized content path for each contact.
How
From Step 3, we have automated the process of selecting and deploying content at each marketing touchpoint for a unique Content Path for each contact. As we touched on previously, we need to coordinate the message at every touchpoint. Prospects/Customers see the company as one entity and care little that they might be talking to different departments and employees. They want a seamless experience.
Let's use a consumer example most of us can relate to. Imagine you are looking for a new car and you have looked at Honda and its luxury brand Acura. And it's wintertime so you also looked at Honda Snow Blowers and at the end of last summer, you had looked at lawnmowers. Now imagine as you start your research for one of the most expensive purchases you will make (your car)... you google Honda and the paid ad shows Honda Power Equipment highlighting Snow Blowers. Then you go to a review site and the Display Ads, show Lawn Mowers. And are getting emails for both Honda cars and Acura cars. I'm exaggerating (near worst-case scenario) to make a point... has this effectively helped progress the contact to be ready to buy? Or has the marketing been so disjoined that the customer feels the right-hand doesn't know what the left-hand is doing.
As Marketers, we want to progress the contact and the entire buying group into the buying process as soon as they are ready. We can help them get ready faster by focusing our message and avoid distracting them. This is why we have a central Content Director that defines the personalized Content Path for each contact based on what they have shown interest in.
This is probably understood but I'll mention it just in case there is misunderstanding. The Content Director should drive content for outbound marketing but for inbound you obviously need to show the content they are expected based on what they clicked etc... but you leverage the Content Director for secondary content (i.e. recommendations, sidebar, etc)
Starting with a simpler scenario where you only have one main line of business and all content drives that. Then the output from Step 2 should be one of the below (increasing maturity/complexity):
List of content (unordered)
List of content by Marketing Stage
List of content by Marketing Stage by Buying Role
In a business with multiple products / product groups you will the above for each product group. In a more complex business, you may have separate business lines that have separate teams for marketing and lead follow-up. Now you will need to consider the definition of Current Product Interest (increasing maturity/complexity):
Last Product Theme consumed (often content can cover more than one product... this will require some debate internally on how to classify these... gateway product, more profitable product, easiest to onboard product, etc)
Rules-based model on interest using response data (this can range in complexity and the amount of data should scale to cover a time range that is indicative of the research cycle)
Predictive model using response data and a logical time frame (similar to above)
There will be instances where there is a tie in the Current Product Interest. You will need rules for tie-breaking. Similar to content that can cover more than one product, you will need to gain agreement with the leadership of the teams on how to handle ties:
Gateway product (leads to purchase of our other products)
More profitable product (we have the best margins on this product)
Easiest to onboard product (customer gains ROI fastest)
More sticky (low attrition)
etc.
Some further maturity/complexity are GEO and Language considerations.
What languages do you translate/create content in?
let's assume the easier scenario where you sell all product in all regions but only have partial localization support
In this case, you can handle Language as a type of personalization at the execution system level and just swap in the appropriate language based on a preferred language field and a matrix of Country of origin and Language Supported
where this gets more complex is the instance where the local content is significantly different... in these cases, the Customized Content Path really should be done at the GEO level
Not all products are sold in all regions. There area a couple ways a user's response data can include product not support in that GEO (user visits out of GEO content or is not targeted properly or has changed GEOs etc ). This gets a little more complex as this means there are differences in what is supported in Current Product Interest (increasing maturity/complexity):
use a simple rule to translate unsupported products to support products
create Scoring that determines the Current Product Interest that eliminates unsupported products
Have a separate field that stores tiered Product Interest then have your logic move down to the next supported product. This also lets you see interest in GEOs of unsupported products but can get onerous on the execution systems logic setup
We didn't talk about initialization of a Personalized path. There are a couple option to examine.
Welcome Nurture style of content distribution (General pieces that present solutions that use multiple products and breaks out links to specific products and use that to start to test Product Interest)
Jump right into your main gateway product that have secondary link to other products (this is best for mature industries where explaining the value of the solution is not necessary as the solutions are well understood and are treated like commodities
Tools
This part of the process needs some technological evolution as the solutions I've cobbled thus far are more complex than I like.
Key features include:
API or native integrations (with Data Science systems, Digital Asset Management systems and downstream campaign execution systems)
fast data aggregation, processing, and query at scale (meeting call need from all marketing channels)
customizable data structure to accommodate aggregation appropriate to the business model and personalization needs
In the past, I've used or seen used KNIME Analytics platform and Server (or another data science platform) for analyzing the patterns in content and updating the Personalized Content Paths for each contact. These are feed into Adobe Campaign (or Marketo or another Marketing Automation Platform). Campaigns and lists can be generated from the MAP or other execution systems can make API calls to the MAP to get the Personalized Content Path info. In this example, KNIME is also used to aggregate the response data. All the content in it's various components resides in Adobe Experience Manager. Which the MAP and other campaign execution systems call on to get the content for assembly.
Perhaps some of the CDP solutions will work well here replacing the MAP as the central repository but I will need to build a pilot to come to a determination. (Share your experiences with CDPs below... I'm interest in getting my hands dirty with Segment, Tealium, and Lytics).
