Tools and Metrics to Optimize Multichannel Engagement

Transcription

1 white paper Tools and Metrics to Optimize Multichannel Engagement Turning Good Experiences into Great Customer Journeys

2 Table of Contents I. Marketing Gold Easy to Mine, Hard to Find 1 Searching for the mother lode 1 Engagement is the new gold standard 1 Sitecore gives marketers the right tools 2 II. The Elements of Gold: How to Gauge Commitment 2 Assigning value to customer behaviors 3 III. The Path to the Mother Lode: Not as Random as it Looks 4 Engagement in the real world 5 IV. Who s Doing It Right: Spotlight on Jabra 6 Making customer centricity a reality 6 Engagement: The key to enhancing the customer journey 6 V. Why CEOs Care: The Business Impact of Engagement 8 VI. Conclusion 11 About Sitecore 11

3 Copyright Copyright 2013 Sitecore. All Rights Reserved. Restricted Rights Legend This document may not, in whole or in part, be photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form without prior consent, in writing, from Sitecore. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Sitecore. Trademarks Sitecore is a registered trademark of Sitecore. All other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

4 I. Marketing Gold Easy to Mine, Hard to Find As presented in the second paper in this Sitecore series, Customer Journeys: Accelerating the Path to Engagement, marketers are looking today to multichannel marketing as an alternative to the silo tradition. In doing so, they re in hot pursuit of marketing gold customer journeys that take advantage of every opportunity, across multiple communication channels, to create lifetime relationships. This white paper reveals the tools marketers can use to better understand customer behaviors throughout the course of their individual journeys, to weave good isolated experiences into great customer journeys. This paper also includes a quick calculator to help marketers understand their potential to maximize overall Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) through effective multichannel marketing. Searching for the mother lode Today s multichannel marketing, like modern mining, is data-intensive. Both disciplines require sifting through vast amounts of data to pinpoint exactly where tiny bits of gold lie, whether mineral or behavioral. Every gold miner is in search of the mother lode, that fabled, huge vein of gold. The most sophisticated companies typically approach multichannel marketing in this scientific manner. Their efforts are a precise, well-oiled machine an endless loop of carefully coordinated campaigns that are conceived, executed, analyzed and refined in deep, stand-alone silos: , web, mobile, social and offline. But how can the mother lode of gold be found when marketers are focused on secondary veins? Unfortunately, any marketing professional can attest that marketing gold is hard to strike, even when equipped with terabytes of channel-specific behavioral data. Customer journeys are highly personal, and conversations occur across multiple channels. Tasked with juggling multiple single-channel campaigns simultaneously, and correlating and cross-referencing results between them, it s easy for marketers to become frustrated. Despite being professional communicators, they find it impossible to communicate effectively, in a customercentric fashion, when taking a siloed view of campaigns and customer behavior. Thus, searching for gold in the digital marketing landscape is part science, part art. Finding the mother lode of marketing gold more revenues, superior customer knowledge and measurable return on investment (ROI) requires a better toolset. Engagement is the new gold standard Your CEO: Wow. The work you re doing is incredibly important to our business growth. What marketer doesn t want to hear that? As noted above, the metrics currently used to assess the success of digital campaigns are channel-specific, and manifold. Specifically, marketers using traditional methods need to sift through 47 metrics to determine what s working and what s not. And that s just for digital channels. Offline channels, such as point-of-purchase and traditional direct mail, have their own set of success measures. As a result, the business value of multichannel marketing programs has been extremely difficult to measure, particularly when trying to marry finite past behaviors such as time spent on a web page with the return on marketing investment (ROMI) metrics CEOs really care about: increased revenues, higher/faster conversions and repeat business. 1

5 There is a new way to measure how into your company or brand a customer may be. It s called engagement, and it is the new gold standard of marketing analytics because: Engagement doesn t measure just what customers have done. It helps to tell marketers what customers will do next. Compared with traditional analytics, engagement is the closest in proximity to, and strongest predictor of, revenue generation. Engagement is a single essential analytic that can be applied to every communication channel, on- and offline. It is the common thread that weaves through the highly personal, and often circuitous, journeys that individual customers take. Measuring engagement can point to how deeply customers, collectively and individually, are engaged with a company or brand. This gives marketers laser-like insight into what the next step of the conversation should be, and through which channel it should occur. Sitecore gives marketers the right tools Sitecore provides a comprehensive suite of platforms and tools to pinpoint marketing gold in digital programs, to accelerate buying cycles and drive revenues. This white paper explains what engagement is, how marketers can understand and leverage it, and why CEOs care. It contains an ROI Calculator that can give managers a quick view into the mother lode of business benefits their companies can derive from adopting Sitecore as their digital marketing solution: higher revenues, higher revenue velocity and lower costs. Finally, this white paper provides a powerful, real-world example that shows how a Sitecore customer applied the science and art of engagement analytics to transform its global business. Engagement doesn t measure just what customers have done. It helps to tell marketers what customers will do next. Engagement is the strongest predictor of conversion and revenue generation. II. The Elements of Gold: How to Gauge Commitment To explain how engagement analytics work, and how they can be an important supplement to traditional digital analytics, it s easiest to compare the two. In the web world, traditional analytics are based on how visitors click to a web page, stay on the web page, how many pages they look at, etc. These analytics tell marketers how attractive a web page is not its relevance to the visitor, or whether the visitor engaged with the site or took action. They also don t give any qualitative feel; if a visitor spends a long time on a page, does it mean she or he is really looking at it, or were they distracted away from the computer? 2

6 Across all communication channels, traditional analytics also are poor at segmentation, one of the most important tools a data-driven marketer has. Traditional analytics are limited to using segments such as geographic region, return customer, etc. These segments are useful, but in an overloaded communication environment, filled with seductive channels, customers frequently hopscotch between web, , mobile and social marketing interactions. Given the fierce competition for customers which extends beyond one-off transactions, into a battle to maximize lifetime customer value what a marketer really wants to know about is customer engagement. How committed is a specific customer to a company or brand? And what should the marketer s next move be? What message, delivered via which channel? Assigning value to customer behaviors Engagement is measured with value points that assign and measure the value of specific visitor actions and behavior. To effectively use this metric, companies can develop a numeric scale that interprets online data to determine and rank which actions demonstrate varying levels of visitor commitment. For example, at a car company s website, engagement value points could be assigned like this: High Commitment (100 Engagement Value Points) Medium Commitment (50 Engagement Value Points) Medium-Low Commitment (10 Engagement Value Points) Low Commitment (5 Engagement Value Points) Lead form filled out; test drive scheduled Completes a survey that produces a detailed price quote; engages in dialog on an online forum Signs up for newsletter with detailed personal data; completes a needs profile Signs up for a newsletter with just ; votes in a poll These actions will inherently vary across popular channels, but the levels of commitment from high to low can remain the same. This is an extremely important feature of engagement analytics; for the first time, marketers can use engagement levels as a means to easily orchestrate cross-channel customer conversations. For example, if a prospect demonstrates high engagement in social media first signing up for special deals on a corporate website and then liking the company s Facebook fan page the conversation can be continued with an offer to that prospect, with a special offer as a thank-you for the Facebook like. As a precursor to the point of revenue, engagement value is what matters most. 3

7 III. The Path to the Mother Lode: Not as Random as it Looks Because most companies are still focused on backward-looking metrics instead of engagement, a siloed approach to marketing is still prevalent today. The graphic below vividly illustrates the Random Acts of Marketing that comprise the typical customer journey. Figure 1: In today s disconnected, siloed marketing environment, the prospect s path to purchase is littered with Random Acts of Marketing. But this circuitous journey can, in fact, be the path to the mother lode of marketing gold. By applying the concept of engagement and metrics that quantify it Sitecore unravels the mystery by tying the cross-channel threads together into a cohesive conversation. With Sitecore, the prospect can be guided down a streamlined path with a two-way conversation that seamlessly traverses multiple channels, as illustrated in Figure 2. Figure 2: Sitecore shortens the path from awareness to revenue by facilitating the back-and-forth, multichannel conversations that occur naturally in any purchase decision process. 4

8 Engagement in the real world Engagement analytics drive much of the action in the example below, which charts an individual prospect s customer journey with the car company. These new-school metrics trigger the car company s appropriate automated response, propelling the customer journey forward. This example also shows how closely multiple online and offline channels intertwine. Customer Behavior Channel Progressive Visitor Profile Automated Response Customer searches in Google for Safe economical minivan, enters website and signs up for . Online Search and website Unique visitor profile created with name and , interested in safe economical minivan. Send relevant content regarding safe economical minivans through . Customer opens , clicks on Test drive minivan link and requests test drive from website. Online and website Goal: Signs up for minivan test drive. Send confirmation link asking for further details. Customer opens confirmation on smartphone and submits additional details about gender, birthday and previous car. Mobile and mobile website Gender, birthday and previous car added to visitor's profile, even though this is a different session on a different device. Send reminder one day prior to test drive, send SMS morning of the test drive with driving instructions. Customer test drives minivan, talks to car salesperson about finance and safety for her newborn child. Offline Car Dealer Car salesperson adds Concerns about safety for newborn and Needs to be financed to profile. Send about safety two days after test drive. Send about finance options three days after test drive. Customer opens finance on smartphone, clicks on finance options, calculates loan and payment starting date. Mobile and mobile website Add specifics about selected finance to profile. Send alert to car salesperson, who schedules a phone call to customer. By measuring one thing engagement value instead of dozens of disconnected, channel-specific metrics, marketers can see, from customers actions and behavior, exactly where they are on their customer journey. This insight allows marketers to see how close to purchasing the customer really is, and know what to do next to move the journey forward. 5

9 IV. Who s Doing It Right: Spotlight on Jabra Translating the granularity of engagement into an online business strategy requires a number of resources: a business vision, a plan on how to implement that vision within the tactical framework of online media, and a technology platform to enable it. In 2011, Jabra, a Danish producer of innovative headset and speakerphone solutions with a 35% share of the global market for Bluetooth wireless technology headsets set out to transform its business with new thinking, and a new website based on the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform. Making customer centricity a reality As inspiration, Jabra looked to the book Customer Centricity by Peter Fader, a Wharton Business School professor who argues that too many companies are customer friendly, but not customer centric. In other words, they treat each customer the same, missing an opportunity to discover who their best customers are. Without that data, they cannot make their most valuable customers even more profitable to the firm. 1 With the support of the company s CEO, Mogens Elsberg, Jabra set out to achieve its vision of achieving customer centricity, rebuilding the way it interacted with customers from the ground up. The challenge was, how could Jabra best apply the concept of data-driven customer centricity to its online presence? How could the website be used to provide each customer with an individualized experience, identify Jabra s best customers, drive more revenue, and turn the best customers into lifetime customers? As a start, Jabra developed an eight-point customer centricity manifesto, including the point, We will allow customer-centric metrics to drive our decisions, priorities and actions. With that tenet as a foundation, the Jabra team set out to convert theory into website features and services that benefit customers. The process started with customer research. Thousands of customer participated in online surveys. Jabra interacted directly with a much smaller number of customers by telephone and in person, to answer the question, What do customers want from Jabra? Engagement: The key to enhancing the customer journey Leveraging the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform an integrated solution that connects channels, engagement automation, and engagement analytics with external tools and databases Jabra unveiled its new site (which now comprises 17 regional versions) in May In a novel twist, instead of describing its site in terms of navigation, features and functions, Jabra instead discusses how the Sitecore solution was used to engage customers in every aspect of their individual journeys. In doing so, Jabra s new Sitecore-powered site meets the following key requirements, which are verbatim customer responses from its initial research: It really has to be super intuitive to use. I expect that it works on my ipad and iphone, for sure. Local presence is important for me to trust any website. 1. Peter Fader on Customer Centricity and Why It Matters, November 18, 2011, Knowledge@Wharton. 6

10 It is smart that it is obvious to see what they [Jabra] do. I really also want to be inspired. If they don t speak my language, for sure I cannot get support. I more often turn to social media, as I am already there. I must find the site relevant to me, that it is for sure essential. But really, I just want it to be easy to find the product I want to buy. It really has to speak to me right away. I quickly decide if a site is relevant to me, if it s not I leave right away. [For navigation] I like everything in one place, and I hate tabs. It must work on my ipad. But don t overdo it. I want to compare my choices, just to get any easy overview before I buy anything. Video is great; I d rather watch videos than read long text. I trust my friends and [YouTube] reviews. And my dad. [For support] I d rather help myself online than talking to some student. With the new site, the majority of visitor feedback is positive, including affirmative responses to the Was this useful? buttons that are used liberally throughout the site s design. Jabra reports that these buttons are hit upwards of 10,000 times per month. As the company shifts even more of its business to the new digital platform, Jabra is confident that it has taken the right approach to understanding customer behavior, and in using the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform to deliver experiences that are personalized, customercentric and highly profitable. Jabra s customer-centric website incorporates social elements and feedback mechanisms into every product page. 7

11 V. Why CEOs Care: The Business Impact of Engagement Sitecore recently commissioned Forrester Consulting to research current and planned practices in multichannel (or cross-channel) marketing, the approach that marketers have adopted to manage and optimize customer engagement across the burgeoning landscape of customer touchpoints. 2 Forrester found that marketers who have adopted multichannel marketing practices have realized significant business benefits, ranging from improved campaign performance to higher return on marketing investment (ROMI). 3 Specifically, companies that identified themselves as mature multichannel marketers have achieved significant benefits (see Figure 3): The biggest gain reported by respondents was in the dimension of reach, with 48% of respondents reporting more than 15% increase in impressions. The second highest benefits were realized in customer satisfaction, with 43% of respondents reporting more improvements of more than 15%. Realized benefits extended beyond the marketing organization; 24% reported more than a 15% reduction in sales cycle times. 4 What improvements has your organization achieved to date, as a result of bringing your multichannel tactics under a single integrated marketing umbrella? 1% 5% improvement 6% 15% improvement More than 15% improvement Revenue that can be attributed to marketing activities 17% 40% 40% Customer satisfaction/loyalty measures 8% 45% 43% Returns on marketing investment 21% 40% 34% Impressions 10% 33% 48% Reduction in average sales cycle time 12% 55% 24% Campaign payback 8% 41% 40% Reduction in agency expenditures 20% 30% 37% Reduction in per customer acquisition costs 12% 42% 32% 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% Base: 90 global marketing decision-makers who consider their organizations to be mature practitioners of multichannel marketing Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Sitecore, December 2011 Figure 3: Mature multichannel practitioners reported significant business benefits. 2. The Multichannel Maturity Mandate, Forrester Consulting, May Ibid. 4. Excerpted from The Multichannel Maturity Mandate, Forrester Consulting, May

12 Forrester s research also found a mix of strategic and tactical gains for a variety of stakeholders: Marketing practitioners experience improvements in campaign performance. More than 60% of the mature multichannel practitioners reported more than a 10% increase in campaign payback. Marketing executives found improvements in operational performance. Forty percent of mature multichannel marketers reported increases of more than 15% in revenue that are attributed to marketing programs. Sixty percent reported a gain of more than 10% in return on marketing investment. Multichannel marketing increased alignment between sales and marketing. Mature multichannel marketers reported several outcomes about improved collaboration and alignment with sales. These marketing teams are 11% more likely to be a primary contributor to the sales pipeline, and 40% more likely to collaborate with sales on field programs. In addition, 60% of this group attributed a reduction in the endto-end sales cycle time of more than 10% to their multichannel marketing efforts. Tactical Outcomes 48% increased impressions by more than 15% 61% experienced more than 10% increase in campaign payback Strategic Goals Improve marketing contribution to pipeline Strategic Outcomes 40% reported an increase of more than a 15% increase in marketing-attributed revenue 11% more likely to be the primary contributor to sales pipeline Multichannel marketing has significant impact on customer satisfaction. When Forrester asked survey respondents about perceived benefits from investments in multichannel marketing, customer satisfaction was at the top of the list with 27% of respondents listing it as their top choice. In fact, the survey results revealed significant gains in customer satisfaction, with 69% of mature practitioners reporting CSAT (customer satisfaction) improvements of more than 10%. 37% reported a reduction of more than 15% in agency expenditures A single view of customer behavior/interaction across marketing channels Improve sales performance Improve marketing sales collaboration Continuous improvement in marketing efficiency and effectiveness Increase customer satisfaction 60% reported a reduction in average sales cycle of more than 10% 40% more likely to collaborate with sales on field programs 60% reported a 10% increase in return on marketing investment (ROMI) 69% gained more than 10% in CSAT scores Base: 90 global marketing decision-makers who consider their organizations to be mature practitioners of multichannel marketing Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Sitecore, December 2011 Figure 4: Tactical results from multichannel marketing drive strategic results. Tactical results drive strategic gains. As could easily be expected, Forrester s research uncovered links between tactical results (such as increasing campaign conversions) and strategic gains such as improving return on marketing investment (see Figure 4) Ibid. 9

13 Pure Gold: Sitecore s Marketing ROI Calculator Mature multichannel practitioners report golden business results. How might your organization benefit? Plug in your current figures and do a simple calculation to see what kind of results you can achieve by adopting more mature multichannel practices, like the ones already used today at most sophisticated organizations. 6 Current (Enter your current metric for each business outcome) Do the Math Potential Gain or Savings DRIVE REVENUES Demonstrate How Marketing Drives Revenues 40% of mature multichannel practitioners reported an increase of more than 15% in marketing-attributed revenue. Increase Sales Velocity 60% of mature multichannel practitioners attributed a reduction in the end-to-end sales cycle time of more than 10%. More Impressions 48% of mature multichannel practitioners reported an increase of impressions by more than 15%. Higher Campaign Payback 61% of mature multichannel practitioners experienced more than 10% increase in campaign payback. x.15 = x.10 = x.15 = x.10 = LOWER COSTS Reduce agency expenditures 37% of mature multichannel practitioners reported a reduction of more than 15% in agency expenditures. - x.15 = IMPROVE THE THINGS THAT MATTER MOST Boost Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty 69% of mature multichannel practitioners report CSAT improvement of more than 10%. Increase Your ROI 60% of mature multichannel practitioners reported a 10% increase in return on marketing investment (ROMI). x.10 = x.10 = 6. Metrics excerpted from The Multichannel Maturity Mandate, Forrester Consulting, May

14 VI. Conclusion As companies like Jabra can attest, striking marketing gold with a customer-centric digital presence is readily attainable with the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform. With Sitecore s ROI Calculator, any marketer can get a quickly approximation on how an the Sitecore solution can deliver benefits that are make CEOs say, Wow. The work you re doing is incredibly important to our business growth. Specifically, the Sitecore Engagement Platform can immediately improve current operations while providing a strategic vehicle for achieving top business goals such as increasing revenues and maximizing customers lifetime value. The Sitecore multichannel marketing solution is also a key enabler in helping companies adopt three of Forrester s key recommendations that are stepping stones to the strategic benefits the mother lode of multichannel maturity: Stop thinking about campaigns and start thinking engagement. Marketers who continue to build campaigns, and make offers, around products and product features will be perceived as tone deaf to the multichannel customer. Customers will engage with marketers who meet their needs their changing needs for different information and options during the buying journey. Marketers who continue to go to customer with product centric campaigns and offers risk becoming irrelevant. Transform your website into a pervasive customer engagement hub. Too many marketers have grown accustomed to thinking of their websites as a collection of pages. That thinking is obsolete when virtually all multichannel touches aim to drive customers to your website. Leverage highly dynamic websites to drive unique experiences for customers. Dynamically deliver content, messages, experiences, products, and offers from pools of content assets based upon knowledge of the customer s profile, behavior, and engagement history. Choose technology partners that can help you rack up short-term gains on the path to the full vision. The secret to selecting technology solutions for multichannel marketing is to partner with a vendor that can immediately help improve your current operations, and also has the strategy and road map to help you realize your long-term vision. Select on vision, but roll out on tactics. The selection of the right vendor will enable a short-term ROMI as well as the surest path to the grand strategy. 7 To learn more about how Sitecore can put your organization on the path to marketing gold in today s multichannel communication environment, please visit About Sitecore Sitecore is a global software company that creates products to deliver the most relevant experience and content to customers at any moment of interaction and via any communications channel the web, , mobile, social and offline. Our customer experience management platform combines proven web content management with customer intelligence to create a single view of a customer that drives meaningful interactions, increases conversions and builds lifetime customers. Global brands, including American Express, Carnival Cruise Lines, easyjet, Heineken, LEGO, Microsoft, and Nestle rely on Sitecore to get and keep loyal customers who engage more and drive revenue growth. 7. Op. cit. 11