What are the best ways to make your Digital Strategy more customer-centric?

A mix between quantitative and qualitative customer data is key. I start every project by understanding key digital metrics, followed by talking with customers directly to understand what's working and not working for them in their journey to fill in the story. This might be followed by an observational study, like usability evaluation to understand their experience more percisely. From these activities, we can understand the improvement opportunities and can ideate on potential solutions. Prototype potential solutions with customers so you're not making assumptions on what will solve their issues. Match this with business objectives and hopefully, you have a plan of action based on customer needs.

Critically important for understanding customers as you plan any digital journey is to focus on their experience and make sure that whatever the digital experience you provide for them, that it is something you, yourself, can tolerate. ‘Tolerate’ is an intentional concept because digital experiences are not always magical for customers; they don’t have to be magical, but they do have to be effective to have a positive impact for the organization, but more importantly, it has to be tolerable for customers because if customers cannot tolerate the digital experience, there will not be positive impact for the organization.

As much as we think about the technical aspects of a digital strategy, there is no replacement for getting out in the real world and seeing how your customers consider, by, and use your product or services. Having a conversation with your audience can yield insights that will magnify results from any of your marketing efforts.

A common pitfall in understanding your customers is over-relying on quantitative data while disregarding more fundamental questions. A structured approach in talking to prospects and customers helps a great deal but what to look for varies depending on where they are in their journey. What makes would-be customers excited or hesitant, what is the problem they are looking to solve and what enables them to purchase? How does the product help current customers (the job to be done), cause frustration and are there any related problems you could solve to make their life easier and better. Lastly, don’t forget to talk to those that stopped using your product. These conversations can uncover aspects of your product that you have overlooked.

In one of my B2B digital marketing roles, for a period during the Covid pandemic, our sales team couldn't visit their clients in person - which was an essential part of their role. We decided to ramp up our existing webinar series to compensate for these reduced visits, continuing with the webinar topics we had planned. However we experienced a decline in sign-ups and attendance. The problem was that our webinar topics were not reactive to the unique challenges our clients were facing because of covid. It was guesswork. So, instead I created a survey to let them vote on what was more valuable to them to learn about. By simply doing a survey, our webinar sign ups increased, the attendance rate, and started new, valuable conversations.

Aligning your brand's goals with your customers' aspirations is crucial, transcending the allure of shiny product features. Rather than fixating on technical intricacies, focus on addressing real needs. In aligning digital strategy goals, consider customer expectations; if they seek seamless experiences, prioritise user-friendly interfaces over flashy functionalities. For instance, a tech company aiming to align with customers' productivity goals should streamline its app interface for intuitive use. By prioritising user-centric elements, brands can forge a meaningful connection, demonstrating an understanding of what truly matters to their audience.

With my experience of more than 8 Years in digital landscape I believe the following are the key elements —Conduct market research, use surveys, analyze social media, and create customer personas to understand customer expectations, preferences, and behaviors. —Tailor your marketing messages, offers, and experiences to individual customers based on their unique characteristics and preferences. —Regularly gather feedback, measure results, and iterate your marketing tactics to enhance customer satisfaction and drive long-term success. Use tools like analytics, A/B testing, and customer journey mapping to monitor and optimize your performance.

believe it's important for your organization to have a clear plan that everyone understands. Before focusing on how you serve customers, it's helpful to involve all teams and departments. Start by defining why you're doing this, what goals you have, and which customer needs you aim to meet. This way, from the start, you'll know where to connect with customers and find out what problems they might have. Then, you can work on solving those issues.

Creating a customer journey map will provide a clear overview on if the organisations goals are aligned with the customer experience. Designing campaigns around the customer journey map will also ensure a customer-centric approach.

Aligning your goal with your customers is KEY. To start this process you need to first start with the customer by charting their journey with your business. Once you understand the journey the customer will take, you can easily align your goals and identify where needs improvement for success.

To make your digital strategy more customer-centric, prioritize optimizing channels and touchpoints. Conduct a thorough audit, addressing any gaps or friction points in the customer journey. Align optimizations with user preferences and behaviors, ensuring a seamless experience across platforms and devices. Prioritize usability, accessibility, speed, and responsiveness, acknowledging the diverse ways customers engage with your brand. A customer-centric approach transforms touchpoints into avenues for meaningful interactions, enhancing satisfaction and loyalty.

Funding to support a sustainable business model across people processes and tools, implementing an effective MarTech strategy and integrated marketing approach to campaign, develop and share audiences, hiring cross channel data driven content creators, measuring channel strategy success against agreed business goals.

In modern-day marketing, adopting a multi-channel or cross-channel targeting strategy is crucial to all digital campaigns. Beyond running Google ads, consider complementing your approach with re-targeting campaigns on platforms like Facebook or Instagram. Google's research underscores that an average consumer engages with 3 to 5 touchpoints before converting. Leveraging this insight in your digital strategy ensures a holistic brand presence and helps maximize your opportunities for consumer engagement across diverse channels. The use of multi-channel targeting can create a more seamless and interconnected experience for your audience, amplifying the impact of your digital touchpoints.

No two customers are the same. We must reimagine and rollout entire new interfaces to connect with customers … to sense, shape and serve their needs. No static model or representation can do justice to the dynamic, evolving and sometimes unpredictable nature of customer journeys … at scale. Focus on the critical few touch points and moments of truth that matter most and make them delightful. Unforgettable for the right reasons. #DigitalIsHuman #HumanSense

An important decision is the choice of channels and touchpoints. If you’re a baker who sets up shop at the exit of a shopping mall, you’re a genius.

Campaign highlights, Recaps, QBRs, on-going testing and learning should all be part of the customer focused toolkit to achieve optimum results moving forward.

Periodically checking in with customers via quick surveys just to see how they're finding value goes far. Small touches to reward loyalty - even just exclusive webinars or early access - are meaningful. Getting reviews shouldn't end after the first purchase - following up on renewal and referrals presents further opportunities. And examining who goes inactive and why uncovers areas needing attention we may not see otherwise. Staying close to different user segments provides helpful indicators guiding strategy.

Engaging your customers is important part for building lasting relationships and loyalty. Interact through personalized content, prompt responses, and meaningful conversations. Engaged customers are more likely to stay connected, advocate for your brand, and contribute to long-term success.

Do not assume customers understand your offering - we run free 30-minute seminars monthly to educate and inform customers, in innovative ways to fully use our email marketing product.

As companies start to grow and scale, they often forget about the engagement tactics that propelled them to new heights from when they were small. Things like the after hours message to update the customer, the handwritten thank you note, the holiday card, etc. Companies that continue that high level of touch and investment in the customer experience after they scale tend to be the generational organizations we all come to know and love.

One time at work, we implemented A/B testing on our landing pages, tweaking elements like headlines, CTAs, and color schemes step by step. The results were striking, a 20% increase in click-through rates (CTR) and a 15% boost in conversion rates. This experiment not only validated the power of small changes but also emphasized the importance of data-driven decision-making in optimizing our digital strategy. Not every experiment was a success, but we learned that embracing failure was our secret sauce for refining our digital strategy. This mindset shift fueled continuous improvement and kept us ahead in a dynamic market.

We try to start each post campaign discussion with what didn't work. Learning from mistakes and talking about it openly is important for all leaders to embrace themselves so team members can feel comfortable trying new things and not fearing failure.

One of the best ways to innovate is through the practice and power of Radical Differentiation. When every other brand does the same thing, your brand should 'Make Waves' in the sea of the same. This is the true power of sustainable brand growth and an optimized Digital Strategy.

Start making mistakes. After a mistake you don't start from scratch, you start from experience. It's not about not making mistakes, but about how fast you can recover from them. A team that 1. Aims for perfection, is 2. Open in communication about them and is 3. Curious for the lesson that can be learned, will be the most innovative.

Things online don't remain cool or emotional over time. You have to invent and surprise to give consumers something to discover. This is hard work and it requires a strong strategic method, an ability to produce across various mediums and for diverse audiences. But, the payoff is huge. Innovation and experimentation can create the most valuable quality the internet can provide...discoverability. then, you aren't chasing people with clumsy targeting, you're creating additive experiences and content people actually enjoy, building brand equity and a reason to return.

Talk to them like you’re talking to humans. Our issues are when we dont get to hear, see the customer we tend to build messaging which is generic, too information heavy. Talk to your audience as if they are right there, and automatically you’ll filter people out, because people it’ll resonate with will click it.

Edutainment in digital strategy boosts engagement and learning...combining gamified training, narrative-driven videos, and immersive VR/AR. Host webinars with industry experts, making education conversational. Simplify concepts with visuals and develop serious games for skill enhancement. Utilize social media for quizzes and challenges, fostering interactive learning. Implement AI for personalized learning paths in customer-centric frameworks, tailoring content to individual preferences. Engage, Immerse, Personalize.

One of the approaches that I have found that enhances the overall customer experience is by providing elearning opportunities. These educational sessions are both live which gives a chance for interaction and for questions to be asked as well as on-demand so that people can consume the material when it fits their schedule. This goes beyond the old “webinar” approach but by using a online video platform we can offer support before, during and after which helps our customers better understand what is available to them with the programs and services we offer. We take this a step further with drip campaigns with email that focuses on scheduling one-on-one appointments with our team to explore the customers unique situations and overall needs.

Try many things, and never stop trying newer things. What worked today might not work in the future. Customers are always expecting highly of the brand they love so if you are behind on of them: keep up, keep track, go back, make mistakes but learn from them and never be the brand that thinks is better than it's customers.

No one cares about your brand or product as much as you think they do. No one cares about your brand or product as much as you think they do. Repeat.