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CRO Customer Engagement Highlights Paid Media Reaching New Customers SEO

The road to victory: Paid media strategies in an election and Olympic year

Decorative image representing paid media strategy in a saturated market.

For a few months every four years, the U.S. presidential election and Summer Olympics dominate the media landscape and create major challenges for advertisers trying to establish reach, maintain ad frequency, and meet cost per acquisition (CPA) goals. From roughly mid-July to early November, election campaigns and Olympic promotions overtake ad inventory, limiting supply and driving up costs for other advertisers. 

In 2020, the Tokyo Olympics attracted $2.25 billion in U.S. ad revenue and the U.S. election cycle totaled an unprecedented $2.5 billion of ad revenue. And that’s just for TV ads! With all of that extra competition in the market, breaking through the clutter and maintaining effective reach and frequency without breaking the bank becomes a major challenge for most advertisers.

Let’s explore how a thoughtful election- and Olympic-year paid media strategy can help you emerge victorious from this quagmire. After all, who doesn’t love a good underdog story?

Politics and pentathlons: The negative impacts on marketing

Before we discuss strategy, it’s important to understand what is at risk during these quadrennial events. Here are some of the ways your current paid media plan might feel the impact of the election/Olympic year:

Limited inventory

Channels like traditional broadcast, out-of-home (billboards, transit, airport advertising, etc.), and even CTV, have a finite amount of ad inventory. As politicians, advocacy groups, super PACs, the Olympic Games, and the likes buy up ad inventory, it becomes a challenge for other advertisers to secure inventory for themselves. 

For election candidate advertising specifically, the FCC requires broadcast stations and cable systems to charge legally qualified candidates the lowest unit prices, making TV advertising more affordable, and increasing the likelihood of those candidates purchasing a lot of inventory. Additionally, because candidates are guaranteed the lowest unit price that other customers receive, this means that you likely won’t be able to secure any zero-cost added value spots during this time.

In an effort to treat competing candidates fairly, the FCC also requires broadcast stations to abide by the “equal time” rule. This means that if one candidate gets a spot in the 6p news, the other candidates must also be able to receive a similar spot. As such, many non-political advertisers get preempted (“bumped”) during this time and may not receive makegoods during the desired window. This rule makes it especially challenging for advertisers who are operating within very specific promotional windows.

With political and Olympic ads taking over the airwaves, it becomes difficult for other advertisers to secure any ad inventory at all, yet alone enough to maintain an effective reach and frequency that will grow brand awareness or compel action from potential customers.

Cluttered ad space

As politics and Olympic promotion overtake traditional advertising outlets, many non-political and Olympic advertisers will move into the digital realm to secure inventory and lock in flat rates. The political and Olympic advertisers will be here too by the way. As you can imagine (or have experienced first hand in years past), the digital marketplace becomes inundated with heated political messaging and inspirational (usually sports-themed) stories, on top of all the normal ad clutter. 

It can be extremely challenging to break through all this noise. Consumers often get overwhelmed by excessive advertising, making it less likely that they will engage with or be influenced by ads.

Increased costs

While broadcast stations are required to keep costs low for advertisers, digital channels are not. Costs on Google, Meta, and other auction-based platforms will surge as competition increases. Cost per clicks (CPCs) and cost per conversions (CPAs) will increase as advertisers bid against each other to win ad space. Target CPAs are going to take more work to hit as each impression becomes significantly more expensive to secure. While you can still serve ads within a set budget, your paid media dollars won’t go nearly as far in auction-based platforms as they normally would outside the election and Olympic seasons.

Taking the podium: Overcome obstacles with a winning strategy

While the challenges that exist during an election and Olympic year may seem daunting, it’s not too late to implement a winning strategy. Strategically planning ahead can help mitigate these challenges:

Adapt your channel strategy

Perhaps the most obvious response to the challenges highlighted above would be to adjust your paid media channel strategy. The limited inventory on traditional broadcast channels will make it difficult to maintain an effective reach and frequency and auction-based digital platforms will experience increased costs. While you may not want to exclude these channels altogether, consider countering those challenges by:

  • Secure broadcast sponsorships and packages: These often guarantee a minimum number of impressions without the possibility of being preempted.
  • Extend your broadcast impressions with digital video and streaming audio: These channels have more inventory and often allow you to negotiate flat CPM rates.
  • Invest in podcasts: Podcasts break through the clutter by speaking to highly engaged listeners.
  • Incorporate flat-rate digital platforms: Plan ahead and collaborate with digital partners that will guarantee flat CPM/CPC pricing to avoid the increased bidding costs.

Understand your audience

As inventory shrinks and costs rise, efficiency is key. Don’t let your advertising dollars go to waste serving impressions to people outside your audience. 

Many marketers use demographics to define their target audience, but demographics have little to do with why a person takes a particular action. Well ahead of the Opening Ceremonies and primary elections, consider investing in values-based persona research to more clearly define who your audience is and what motivates them so that you can tailor your messaging and creative accordingly. Effective ad messaging and creative that resonates with your audience will help break through the ad clutter and drive action during a time when consumers are faced with significant distractions.

Additionally, make sure you’re investing in your first-party data to understand consumer behavior. Today, marketers collect more data than ever before, but often struggle to harness the power of that data in a way that yields actionable insights. Effective data quality management enables you to analyze the right data points that help you understand your customer, enhance their experiences, and optimize campaigns for more efficient and effective results.

Invest in Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategy is the insurance policy for any paid media plan. A strong paid media strategy can drive significant traffic to a landing page, but if users are met with a poor website experience, they might leave without converting, thus creating a leaky bucket situation. A strategic CRO program systematically tests various iterations of website design and functionality to weed out points of friction and increase conversion rates. 

By investing in CRO strategy ahead of the election and Olympic year, you can help prevent valuable paid media traffic from trickling away pre-conversion during that time when paid media traffic is more expensive and harder to come by. During election and Olympic years, when digital costs increase and consumer attention is being directed elsewhere, decreases in conversion rates are almost guaranteed. An effective CRO strategy will help offset the anticipated decrease in conversion rates.

Learn more about CRO and other Integrated Digital Marketing Services from Tallwave.

Emerge victorious

Strategically planning ahead is key to ensuring strong paid media performance during election and Olympic years. Ready to get started? Let Tallwave help you get the most out of your paid media budget this election and Olympic year.

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Customer Engagement News Paid Media Product Design Reaching New Customers SEO Strategy

Building a business-ready website: Beyond the surface of your website strategy

Decorative image depicting the magic triangle of website strategy.

In the fast-evolving digital landscape, a website is more than a digital brand extension— it’s a dynamic tool that can either advance or inhibit business. Creating a high-performing website requires moving beyond surface-level aesthetics to consider the functionality required to meet business goals effectively.

A website is arguably the most persistent external expression of a brand and one of the hardest working tools in the digital marketing arsenal. It’s the digital front door of your business and a frequent destination for customers at multiple points in their journeys. And yet, website strategy is often only skin deep, focused heavily on how a website looks rather than on how it functions. And it’s often short-term, considering the roles your website plays for your customers and your business today and note how it will need to evolve to meet needs in the future. When it comes to creating high-performing websites built to go the distance for both brands and customers, three is the magic number. 

The magic triangle: Role, goals, and audience

A triangulated approach that considers roles, goals, and audience can help you plan for successful and sustainable websites. This interconnected approach ensures that the website is not only visually appealing but also aligned with the broader business objectives. Let’s break down the elements:

Role: The purpose of your website

Understanding the role your website plays in your business is the first consideration in this website strategy power trio. At a basic level, websites can play two roles: business-enabling and revenue-driving. 

Business-enabling websites can support your business in a number of ways, including:

  • Acting as a support system for external revenue channels: Business-enabling websites act as a powerful support system for your existing revenue channels, such as your sales force. They don’t directly generate revenue themselves, but they play a critical role in nurturing leads, building brand awareness, and ultimately driving conversions through those external channels.
  • Encouraging high-value microconversions: While not the final sale, business-enabling websites excel at capturing high-value microconversions. These actions represent significant steps forward in the customer journey, indicating a prospect’s growing interest in your brand. Examples include lead capture forms, content downloads (e.g., white papers, ebooks), and newsletter signups.
  • Fueling the customer journey: Business-enabling websites are instrumental in moving potential customers through the buyer’s journey and down the sales funnel. By providing valuable content, educational resources, and clear calls to action, these websites nurture leads, build trust, and position your brand as a leader in your industry.

On the other hand, revenue-driving websites support transactions and encourage conversion, directly contributing to a brand’s bottom line. Consider how revenue-driving websites can support your business:

  • Acting as a revenue generating powerhouse platform: Revenue-driving websites are the engines that directly power your business’s revenue generation. These websites are transactional in nature, facilitating online purchases and financial transactions. Examples include traditional e-commerce stores selling physical goods, food delivery platforms where customers can order meals, travel booking websites where users can reserve flights and accommodations, and service-oriented e-commerce sites.
  • Encouraging transactions: The primary function of revenue-driving websites is to facilitate secure and seamless online transactions. This includes features like shopping carts, secure payment gateways, and clear order fulfillment processes.
  • Suiting your needs: Revenue-driving websites encompass a wide range of e-commerce models. From traditional product sales through an online store to service-based transactions, these websites cater to a variety of industries and customer needs.

Clearly defining whether your website plays a business-enabling or revenue-driving role for your business sets the foundation for the subsequent decisions in your strategy, from critical KPIs to key features and functionality, necessary integrations, and more. It also sets the stage for the expectations users will have when visiting your website.

Goals: What you seek to accomplish with your website

Now that you understand the role your website plays in your business, it’s time to define your website goals. You might consider setting these objectives with SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Website goals will vary depending on your website’s role and your overall business objectives. 

Consider the following examples:

  • Business-enabling website goals:
    • Generate a set number of qualified leads per month
    • Increase brand awareness and website traffic
    • Drive event registrations or webinar signups
    • Improve content engagement through downloads or shares
  • Revenue-driving website goals:
    • Increase online sales by a specific percentage
    • Grow average order value
    • Reduce cart abandonment rates
    • Improve customer lifetime value

Establishing clear and measurable website goals can help you track progress, identify areas for improvement, and ensure that your website strategy aligns directly with your business objectives.

Audience: Who your website is speaking to

Your target audience plays a critical role in shaping your website’s design, content, information architecture, and functionality. Here’s why understanding your audience analysis is vital when thinking about website strategy:

  • Tailored user experience: By understanding your audience’s needs, preferences, and online behavior, you can create a user experience (UX) that resonates with them. This translates to a website that’s easy to navigate, informative, and facilitates desired actions, ultimately influencing conversion rates.
  • Content strategy alignment: Knowing your audience empowers you to develop a content strategy that truly connects. This means crafting content that addresses their pain points, interests them, and guides them through the buying journey.
  • Personalization potential: Audience insights can unlock personalization opportunities. This could involve tailoring website elements, product recommendations, or even entire landing pages to specific audience segments, leading to a more relevant and engaging experience.
  • Search engine visibility: Understanding your audience paves the way for essential SEO optimizations fueled by linguistic profiling and search journey analysis. Implementing data-driven optimizations based on these findings can improve search engine rankings and organic visibility for your business.

Learn more about SEO and other Integrated Digital Marketing Services from Tallwave.

Having a clear understanding of your target audience is the bridge that connects your website’s features and functionality with the user experience that drives results. Effective audience analysis involves:

  • Buyer persona development: Create detailed profiles of your ideal customers, including demographics, valuegraphics, needs, challenges, and preferred online behavior.
  • Website analytics review: Utilize website traffic data to understand visitor demographics, interests, and content consumption patterns.
  • Market research: Conduct market research to gain insights into broader industry trends and competitor audience strategies.

By combining these methods, you can create a comprehensive understanding of your target audience and leverage that knowledge to build a website that truly resonates with them.

Evaluating your website’s business readiness: Beyond the surface

While websites serve as prominent brand outposts, often acting as the initial point, their multifaceted nature can pose a challenge. Teams can get caught up in the aesthetics – visuals, interactive elements, and the like – neglecting to truly get under the hood and identify underlying strengths and opportunities.

Before you put your website to work, it’s essential to get down to business and review your site under the following lenses:

  • Technical infrastructure: Is the website’s technical foundation robust enough to support your business goals seamlessly, both today and into the future? This includes aspects like website speed, mobile-friendliness, security measures, and content delivery efficiency.
  • Customer experience (CX): Does the customer journey feel intuitive and cater to your target audience’s needs? Assess whether the website is optimized for high-value conversions aligned with your business objectives.
  • Accessibility: Is your website accessible for users with disabilities? Ensure that your website’s design and content adhere to WCAG guidelines. This means implementing features like alt text for images, keyboard navigation options, and proper headings.
  • Navigation paths and flows: Does your website seamlessly guide visitors toward their next steps, building upon interactions with other digital touchpoints in your brand ecosystem? A well-structured website anticipates user intent and facilitates a smooth journey towards conversions.
  • Design: Does the website effectively reflect your brand identity? Validate your website against your brand guidelines to determine if the visual elements, as well as content, are applied consistently across all pages.
  • Marketing and sales strategy alignment: Is your website an active participant in driving your marketing and sales efforts? It is important to make sure your website integrates with your marketing automation tools, facilitates lead capture, and effectively supports your sales funnel. It’s also critical to ensure the content management system on which your website is built supports the frequency with which updates may need to be made and the level of technical skill of those who will be responsible for making them.

This multifaceted evaluation approach can help uncover hidden roadblocks and optimization opportunities that ensure your website is not just visually appealing but strategically positioned to support your business goals.

Ongoing optimizations: Sustainable website strategy

Your website is a living entity, not a static brochure. Don’t “set it and forget it.” To maintain your website’s strategic effectiveness, you must plan for ongoing and iterative optimizations. Here are some key practices to keep in mind post-launch:

  • A/B testing: Test different website elements, like headlines, call-to-action buttons, or page layouts, to see what resonates best with your audience and drives conversions.
  • Data-driven decision-making: Leverage website analytics and user behavior data to inform website improvements and prioritize resources effectively.
  • SEO optimizations and content enhancements: Regularly update your website content with fresh, keyword-rich, relevant information to maintain user engagement and improve search engine ranking.
  • Mobile-first approach: Even in B2B scenarios, first contact often happens in the palms of your customers’ hands. Ensure your website is responsive and optimized for mobile devices.
  • Security maintenance: Regularly update your website’s security measures to protect user data and website functionality, especially when relying on cloud-based tools and data storage.

A well-defined website strategy is no longer optional – it’s a necessity. By understanding the role your website plays in your business strategy, your target audience, and your desired goals, you can create a website that is not just visually appealing, but strategically designed to drive impactful results.

And you don’t have to go at it alone. Tallwave is eager to create website strategy solutions that align with your consumers and meet them where they are when they need you most. Let’s talk.

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Customer Engagement Reaching New Customers SEO Strategy

Holistic search strategy: A Grandmaster’s approach 

A decorative image that relates holistic search strategy to chess.

Conquering the digital landscape to boost online visibility and establish brand presence requires a strategic approach that mirrors mastering a chess game. It’s all about drawing up and executing a holistic search strategy that covers every angle of the digital marketing board. 

With time and money on the clock, crafting a holistic search strategy looks like the meticulous planning and execution required in a high-stakes game. Achieving grandmaster marketing status isn’t merely about making moves; it’s about anticipating your opponent’s next steps. And by combining search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and other winning tactics with a holistic approach, you’ll be prepared for success at every turn.

The opening gambit: Unveiling the holistic search strategy

A holistic search strategy breaks down silos between paid search and organic search efforts. By analyzing data from both channels together, you can create a unified strategy that maximizes your visibility across search engine results pages. This approach ensures your website aligns with user needs at every stage of the customer journey, ultimately driving overall search performance.

It’s about weaving together the threads of customer behavior, market trends, and competitive intelligence to inform strategic decisions with optimism and purpose. By gathering and leveraging data from diverse sources, such as search engine analytics, valuegraphics, and market research, a holistic search strategy strives to optimize many facets of a brand’s online presence. 

Much like a well-executed gambit, implementing a holistic search strategy can maximize ROI by aligning marketing efforts with the evolving audience needs and preferences, ensuring sustained success in the digital board.

The middle game: Key elements in play

SEM, SEO, and conversion rate optimization are a triple threat in the digital realm and serve as the key elements in a holistic search and integrated marketing strategy. 

SEM: The Rook

Our agile rook, SEM, charges forth with paid campaigns, reaching engaged audiences, amplifying brand visibility in search engines, and driving traffic to websites. Unlike the organic approach of SEO, paid search utilizes paid advertising platforms to quickly reach engaged audiences and achieve faster visibility. 

Like a rook on a chessboard, SEM is a very powerful piece in a marketing plan, but it requires strategic planning to effectively deploy:

  • Keyword strategy: Leverage organic keyword research to inform which keywords you will bid on and which keywords you want to exclude from campaigns. Include a healthy mix of brand and non-brand keywords, and test bid strategies on those keywords.
  • Aligned ad and landing page copy: It is important that the ad copy aligns with the copy on the landing page it drives traffic to. This helps ensure a cohesive user experience, which generally results in better performance.
  • Use your assets: Don’t settle for just headlines and descriptions— take advantage of site links, callouts, structured snippets, phone extensions, lead forms, locations, prices, and promotional features to capture user attention and drive immediate action.

SEO: The Queen

The queen of your strategy, SEO orchestrates content, keywords, and technical aspects, ensuring your website ranks high on the digital field of play. Imagine it as the most versatile force, attracting organic traffic through optimized content, targeted keywords, and a user-friendly website structure. Think of SEO as building a sturdy, well-defended castle, organically attracting visitors with relevant content and strategic placement with vast mobility. 

Here, SEO serves as that central force:

  • Keyword research: Like a skilled scout, SEO identifies the most relevant search queries and key phrases your target audience is using.
  • Content creation: Drawing on these insights, SEO transforms into an informed storyteller, crafting engaging, informative content that resonates with your audience and answers their burning questions.
  • On-page optimization: Finally, SEO acts as the architect, meticulously optimizing website elements like title tags, meta descriptions, and internal linking, ensuring search engines can easily understand and index your content.

See our latest client success story to understand how SEO and content strategy can lay the foundation for success in the SERPs.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): The King

As the game nears its climax, we focus on conversion rate optimization (CRO). Much like a well-executed endgame, CRO ensures that every move, or every click, counts. 

Here’s how:

  • A/B testing: A/B testing allows you to explore different variations of elements like landing page design, call-to-action placement, and content structure. This data-driven approach helps refine your tactics, uncover winning combinations, and constantly improve your conversion rate. Meticulously testing different strategies can help identify the most effective approach for your target audience.
  • Strategic landing page optimization: Landing pages guide visitors toward desired actions, such as making a purchase or subscribing to a newsletter. By optimizing them for seamless user experience and clear calls to action, you convert interest into tangible results. Think of landing pages as kings capturing website visitors by providing a clear path to desired actions.

SERP dominance: Checkmate

Securing top positions on the SERPs and winning clicks is the endgame in a holistic search strategy. Success looks like seeing your brand in the top positions for relevant keywords, increasing your brand visibility, and driving significant organic traffic toward your website. From organic and paid search results to Google Shopping ads, answer boxes, featured snippets, videos, and images, provide search engines and users with a clear understanding of your content and increase the click-through rate for your organic listings. Think of SERP dominance as securing the king’s position and establishing your brand as a leader in the digital landscape.

Learn more about SEO, SEM, CRO, and other Integrated Digital Marketing Services from Tallwave.

The ever-evolving chessboard: Adapting to change

The digital realm is dynamic, constantly shifting and evolving. Just as Garry Kasparov adapted in response to every single one of Deep Blue’s moves, brands too must be adaptable and responsive in their holistic search strategies. 

Here are some key moves to keep your holistic search strategy at the top of its game:

  • Embrace new technologies: Stay informed about emerging technology and industry trends, such as voice search and SGE, and incorporate them into your strategy. Get started with our blog about SEO trends in 2024.
  • Monitor algorithm updates: Search engines regularly update their algorithms, which can impact your rankings. Stay informed about these updates and adjust your strategy accordingly.
  • Analyze your data: Regularly analyze your website traffic and user behavior data with GA4’s new metrics to identify areas for improvement and optimize your strategy for long-term success.
  • Keep learning, keep growing: The digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, so continuous learning is essential. Stay up-to-date with industry trends, attend workshops, and actively seek new knowledge.

Take the board with purpose (and Tallwave)

Just as in a friendly game of chess, adopting a holistic search strategy means thinking ahead, staying flexible, and making smart moves to outmaneuver the competition. In this dynamic arena, where algorithms are always changing and search trends are in flux from day to day, taking an integrated approach will help your brand stay sharp and ahead of the curve.

And when you’re ready to level up your search strategy and capture the king, Tallwave is ready to support your success. We’ve got all the pieces arranged on the board; take the first two squares forward by reaching out to us now.

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Customer Engagement Reaching New Customers SEO Strategy

Microconversions: Unlocking the power of incremental steps in your conversion funnel

Image showing a piggy bank, referencing microconversions

Introduction: What is a microconversion?

In the dynamic world of digital marketing, where every click and interaction matters, understanding microconversions is crucial. But what exactly are they? Let’s start by demystifying this term.

What is a microconversion?

A microconversion is any incremental step a user takes to show initial interest in your brand or product. Unlike the grand finale of a macroconversion, like a product purchase or subscription that constitutes a final goal and often achieves a financial outcome, microconversions are the incremental steps along the way that lead up to those final actions. Imagine a visitor to your website as a curious explorer embarking on a journey. Along the way, they encounter various signposts, each representing a microconversion. These small actions might not lead immediately to a purchase, but they’re part of the breadcrumb trail that leads prospective customers to that final transaction.

Learn more about the power of the “micro-yes” in sales.

Why do microconversions matter?

1. Trust building and brand advocacy

Microconversions are like the first handshake between you and your potential customer. At the earlier stages of the buying journey, some common microconversions include:

  • Email newsletter sign-up: When a visitor subscribes to your newsletter, they express interest in staying connected. This small commitment builds trust and opens the door for further communication.
  • Social media sharing: When someone shares your content on social platforms, they vouch for your brand. Their endorsement reaches a wider audience, potentially attracting new visitors and signaling trust and confidence in your brand.

2. Insights into user behavior and intent

Microconversions provide valuable insights into user behavior. By tracking these smaller interactions, you gain a deeper understanding of what resonates with your audience and gain insights into the stage of the buyer’s journey they’re in and their needs at that stage. Examples include:

  • Page views: The number of pages a visitor views indicates their level of engagement. High page views suggest interest, while low views may signal disinterest. The nature of the content on the pages viewed can also illuminate stage and intent. For example, if a visitor navigates to specific product pages, adds products to a cart, or reviews a page on returns, those behaviors are all microconversions on the path to purchase that signal a higher degree of intent than a visitor that lands on your home page and then leaves.
  • Comments on blog articles: Engaged users often leave comments. These interactions reveal their preferences and pain points.

3. Optimization opportunities

Microconversions act as breadcrumbs leading you through the forest of user experience. They can also serve as a “canary in the coalmine” of your digital engagements, signaling friction that can then be resolved and highlighting areas for improvement. Consider:

  • Process milestones: These are linear steps toward the primary macroconversion. Analyzing them helps identify bottlenecks and UX pain points. For example, for one client, we pinpointed significant dropoff between the process milestones of viewing a product page and adding the product to a cart, particularly for mobile users. We discovered this was due to an issue causing the “add to cart” button to display much further down the page than intended, causing many users to overlook it and abandon the page. Addressing this issue allowed us to increase add-to-cart actions by 3.8x.
  • Secondary actions: These desirable but non-primary goals indicate potential future macroconversions. Examples include downloading an ebook, creating an account, or watching a video. Using these secondary actions as opportunities to deploy targeted outreach can be a great way to optimize the path to purchase with stage-specific content and messaging that nurtures prospective customers toward other high-value actions.

Monitoring and measuring microconversions: Enhancing your conversion insights

Understanding what microconversions are and the signals they represent is only half the battle. Unlocking their power to gain insights into the path to macroconversions and inform strategies for optimizing digital experiences to improve conversion requires ongoing monitoring and measurement. Both the types of data each microconversion produces and the methods for collecting and analyzing that data vary:

Qualitative data

Qualitative data can be invaluable for getting a sense for how effectively website visitors are navigating to and completing microconversions and where they may be encountering roadblocks in the path toward macroconversions. Here are some common approaches for gathering qualitative data on microconversions and examples of these measurement methodologies in action:

Heat mapping & scroll mapping

Heat mapping is like having a thermal camera for your website. It visually represents user behavior by highlighting the “hot” and “cold” areas of a webpage based on where users click, scroll, hover, and otherwise interact with the page (and where they don’t). Here’s how it works:

  • Heat maps: These colorful overlays show where users click, move their mouse, or spend the most time. Red and orange areas indicate high activity, while blue and green areas are less frequented.
  • Scroll maps: These reveal how far users scroll down a page. Understanding where visitors drop off helps optimize content placement.

Example: Imagine an e-commerce site. A heat map reveals that users consistently click on the “Add to Cart” button but rarely explore the footer links. This insight prompts you to enhance the checkout process and reposition critical links.

Session recording

Session recording is like a digital surveillance system for your website. It records user sessions, capturing every click, scroll, and interaction through the eyes of the user. Key points:

  • User behavior: Watch real users navigate your site. Understand their pain points, hesitations, and moments of delight.
  • Error identification: Spot usability issues, broken links, or confusing forms.

Example: You notice users repeatedly abandoning their cart during the payment step. Session recordings reveal that a confusing coupon code field is causing frustration. Fixing this leads to higher conversions.

Quantitative data

Quantitative data brings a numerical lens illuminating actions that can be counted, measured, or otherwise described in numbers. Where qualitative data can help you channel the perspectives and feelings of website visitors, quantitative can put that data into perspective in terms of its frequency and impact. Here’s how quantitative data on microconversions is often collected:

Basic analytics tools

  • Google Analytics (GA): The Swiss Army knife of web analytics, GA tracks user behavior, traffic sources, custom website conversion rates, and more. It’s free and essential for any website.
  • Built-in e-commerce analytics: Platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento offer built-in analytics. They provide insights specific to e-commerce, such as product performance, revenue, and customer demographics.

Example: GA shows that your blog attracts high traffic, but few readers proceed to the product pages. You optimize the blog-to-product link placement, resulting in increased sales.

Funnel reports

Funnel reports visualize the user journey. They break down the conversion process into stages:

  1. Awareness: Visitors arrive on your site.
  2. Interest: They explore content, view products, or sign up.
  3. Consideration: Users add items to their carts or engage with your services.
  4. Conversion: The final purchase or desired action.

Example: An e-learning platform’s funnel report reveals that most users drop off during the “Interest” stage. You tweak the landing page content, leading to better engagement.

Remember, microconversions are the stepping stones that pave the way for macro success. By combining qualitative and quantitative insights, you’ll create a conversion funnel that’s both user-friendly and revenue-boosting! 

Making the most of microconversions: Optimizing for conversion

The final step is putting qualitative and quantitative data-driven insights to work to optimize the digital experience to increase the microconversions (and ultimately macroconversions) your audience is successfully completing. This can be done broadly to optimize the digital experience as a whole or more narrowly to optimize for a specific high-value action through two distinct but interrelated approaches: 

Digital Experience Optimization (DXO)

Digital Experience Optimization (DXO) is the strategic process of enhancing user interactions with digital technologies to drive superior customer experiences. It encompasses a holistic approach to improving every touchpoint where users engage with your brand online. DXO aims to create seamless, personalized, and delightful experiences across websites, mobile apps, social media, and other digital channels.

Why does DXO matter?

  • Customer expectations: In today’s digital landscape, customers expect smooth, relevant interactions. DXO ensures you meet these expectations.
  • Business impact: Positive digital experiences lead to increased customer loyalty, higher conversion rates, and improved brand perception.

We discovered this was due to an issue causing the “add to cart” button to display much further down the page than intended, causing many users to overlook it and abandon the page. Addressing this issue allowed us to increase add-to-cart actions by 3.8x.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) focuses on improving the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up, or downloading content. It involves data-driven experimentation to enhance user experience and drive conversions.

Core elements of CRO

CRO applies a systematic approach to increasing high-value action completion by identifying and testing solutions to resolve friction points along the path to conversion to continuously improve performance. This process includes:

  1. Setting expectations: Clearly define goals and success metrics for each conversion action.
  2. User insights: Understand user behavior through analytics, heatmaps, and session recordings.
  3. Hypothesis development: Formulate hypotheses about what changes will improve conversions.
  4. Testing velocity: Regularly test variations (A/B tests, multivariate tests) to validate hypotheses.
  5. Cross-device testing: Ensure consistent experiences across different devices.
  6. Pre-test prototypes: Validate ideas before full implementation.
  7. Limit changes: Focus on impactful modifications rather than overwhelming redesigns.

Best practices for optimization

While CRO is focused on a specific digital experience, doing it effectively requires considerations that extend well beyond the specific microconversions you’re trying to improve, including:

  • Keyword research: Understand user intent and optimize content accordingly.
  • On-page SEO: Optimize meta tags, headings, and content for search engines.
  • User experience (UX): Prioritize intuitive navigation, fast loading times, and mobile responsiveness.
  • Content quality: Create valuable, relevant content that resonates with your audience.
  • Backlink building: Earn high-quality backlinks to improve authority.

Remember, DXO and CRO are ongoing processes. Continuously analyze, test, and optimize to create exceptional digital experiences and drive conversions. Let us show you how to incorporate this must-have continuous improvement cycle into your business!

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Customer Engagement Product Design Reaching New Customers UX Design

UX design: Define the problem, not the solution

decorative image representing great product design

About this series: In the fast-paced business world, it’s all too common to hear about companies striving to become “product-led” and chasing after metrics like velocity and conversion rates. While these numbers undoubtedly hold significance, they often overshadow the underlying force that drives the success of great products: design. Design is not just about aesthetics; it’s about understanding your customers, empathizing with their needs, and crafting solutions that meet and exceed their expectations. In this exciting three-part blog series, we will dive deep into the realm of design and design strategy and its pivotal role in achieving business goals. Let’s unlock the potential of great design as the ultimate path to great business.

Understanding the cornerstones of great product design

In the ever-evolving landscape of product design, success hinges on the ability to navigate a maze of user needs and expectations. Understanding the need at hand and then defining the actual problem is a crucial first step that can make or break the entire journey. You might have a fantastic idea for a product but if you aren’t drilling down to the true problem that this product is solving, then you aren’t going to be able to truly satisfy customers. This design stage uncovers true pain points for customers to ensure your product is solving the right problem and a real problem. Understanding user needs and defining the problem are cornerstones of successful products, ultimately paving the way for continually high business value.

Empathy: The heart of a user’s needs

User needs are the foundation of good design, placing the customer at the very heart of the product development process.  It’s imperative to empathize with users’ unique experiences, desires, and pain points when creating designs that resonate. User needs specific to a problem serve as a constant reminder that humans (specifically users) are at the core of the design process. By placing the human at the center of design, user needs act as constant reminders that the end goal is not just a product but a solution that addresses real-life challenges.

Moving from good to great design requires more than just a surface-level understanding of desired functionality. It requires a combination of both qualitative and quantitative UX research techniques that delve deep into user needs. First, quantitative UX research methods provide a structured and data-driven approach to learning about user behavior and preferences. Understanding the numerical data and statistical analysis can help you quantify user interactions, preferences, and performance. Surveys, questionnaires, A/B testing, and analytics tools are common examples of quantitative research techniques. Teams don’t need to use all of them every time, but carefully selecting a combination of methods will bring some helpful data to the surface as you assess user needs. These methods allow for the identification of patterns and trends, enabling UX researchers to create informed hypotheses about user needs. Quantitative research complements qualitative research by offering a more objective and measurable perspective, providing the necessary data to think through problems and have support for business decisions.

Qualitative user experience research methods provide valuable insights into the intricacies of user behavior, emotions, and perceptions. These methods delve deep into the more nuanced and harder to quantify psychological aspects of user interactions, aiming to understand what users do and why they do it. Qualitative research techniques, such as in-depth interviews, usability testing, and ethnographic studies, offer a way to channel the individual perspectives and experiences of users. Open-ended questions and real-time observations can help researchers uncover users’ needs, pain points, and desires, shedding light on the nuances that quantitative data often cannot capture. Qualitative research is an indispensable tool for human-centered design, enabling designers and businesses to truly understand user needs on a deeper level.

User needs are the baseline of effective design and encapsulate the essence of what the user truly desires and values. Before jumping to solutions or pixels, design teams must first empathize with their target audience, truly understanding their hopes, aspirations, and pain points. Taking the time to crystallize the human-focused needs and desires of the users ensures that every design decision is rooted in empathy and a genuine desire to enhance the user experience. Businesses that research, prioritize, and build products for these needs are not only better equipped to stay competitive in an ever-changing market but also to forge lasting, meaningful connections with their customers.

We know a thing or two about consumer values. Check out our post on the new persona playbook.

Crafting the perfect product design problem statement

With a solid understanding of user needs in hand, next up is crafting a clear problem statement to fuel product creation. A well-defined problem statement encapsulates the precise challenge that needs to be addressed, serving as instructions for design teams. Outlining the problem’s scope and context ensures that the design effort remains aligned with the customers’ real pain points and needs, allowing for a solution that truly resonates with them. This clarity and alignment fosters creativity and innovation in finding the optimal solution. It ensures that the entire team is headed in one direction, toward solving one problem. A well-crafted problem statement that is based on solid UX research guides the design process toward an excellent customer experience.

When thinking about the parts of a perfect problem statement, you must consider the person as well as the problem. This might be a problem that only a certain type of person has or a problem that lots of people have but only at specific moments in their lives. The person in the middle of the problem is just as important as the problem itself and cannot be separated from the problem statement. In addition to the who, problem statements must also consider the why but without the how. When the right amount of research has been done, there should be no trouble succinctly explaining for whom the problem exists and why. As the team sets out to create a solution for this problem, user needs and problem statements come into play. The goal is to reach an actionable problem statement that defines for whom you’re  building the product or feature and why.

The positive impact of a clear problem statement reverberates through the entire business ecosystem. First and foremost, it reduces the risk of costly missteps in product creation. By defining the problem clearly, teams can avoid the pitfall of investing time and resources into solutions that do not address the root issues. It ensures that design efforts are aligned with the actual needs and pain points of the target audience and that the team is setting out to solve for the user and their why. As a result, products are more likely to resonate with and create value for users, leading to enhanced customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy. A great problem statement empowers businesses to differentiate themselves in the market, gain a competitive edge, and drive sustainable growth. In sum, a clear problem statement acts as the catalyst for great design, and when design excels, so does business.

Learn more about Tallwave’s Digital Experience Design Services.

Wrapping Up: Great design, greater user experience

In the realm of product design and business success, two critical elements stand out as paramount: crafting well-defined user needs statements and clear problem statements. These statements act as the guiding light that illuminates the path to exceptional design and, in turn, outstanding business performance. User needs statements distill the essence of what customers truly value, enabling design teams to create products that resonate, cultivate customer loyalty, and fuel lasting trust. Clear problem statements also serve as a map for design, defining the challenge, scope, and objectives. They streamline decision-making, stimulate innovation, and ensure that design efforts align with real customer needs, ultimately reducing the risk of costly errors. The result is a positive ripple effect that enhances customer satisfaction, differentiation in the market, and sustainable business growth. In sum, these foundational statements are the key to unlocking the synergy between great design and great business.

Are you ready to embrace great design and improve customer experiences? We’re all ears. Let’s talk about your next project. And there’s more on the way; stay tuned for the second installment of this series! We’ll delve into how collaboration leads to the best design outcomes.

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Customer Engagement Reaching New Customers Strategy

Convergent commerce: Going beyond omnichannel retail this shopping season

A decorative image with a holiday gift tag, representing the season of giving, online shopping, and omni-channel engagement.

The holiday season is just around the corner, and that means Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the annual avalanche of gifts, deals, and shopping sprees is practically upon us. It’s that time of year when consumers embark on an epic quest to find the perfect presents and snag the best bargains. But for frenzied holiday shoppers, a poor shopping experience goes over about as well as coal in the stocking. 

While overall holiday spending is expected to stay relatively flat with last year, shoppers are expected to purchase fewer gifts to balance the effects of inflation. That means retailers are likely competing for fewer total purchases. At a time when cost consciousness is high and consumer loyalty is low, brands that can offer consumers a friction-free, customer-centric experience all tied up with a bow will be the winners this holiday shopping season. 

Let’s delve into the latest shopping trends, highlight some common shopping experience pitfalls, and provide valuable recommendations to ensure a seamless and enjoyable holiday shopping experience for your customers that puts your brand on the nice list.

Macro Trend: What is convergent commerce?

Shopping has become an increasingly multi-channel experience, blurring the lines between digital and physical shopping experiences. While data suggested that preference for online retail was waning heading into 2023, e-commerce is expected to be a major channel for holiday spending with over 60% of consumers planning to do at least 40% of their shopping in that channel. But with channels evolving and new channels emerging, channel preferences get increasingly difficult to predict. It also makes the notion of omni-channel retail where a seamless shopping experience across several channels a less desirable goal. 

Consumers are less interested in retailers creating curated multi-channel experiences and more interested in climbing into the driver’s seat themselves. Consumers want an anytime, anywhere commerce experience where they call the shots and execute their shopping activities—from browsing products on live streams to comparing prices across brand apps and AI-powered search, checking items in person for quality, ordering online to ship directly to gift recipients and everything between—wherever they want, whenever they want based on their changing preferences. That’s convergent commerce. It’s a shift from an experience that offers optionality (online vs. in-store) with parity, to frictionless fluidity. 

If that sounds like a tall order, that’s because it is. Shifting from either/or considerations for the retail channels you engage in to activating across multiple channels at once in an integrated and seamless way requires considerable thoughtfulness. Convergent commerce relies on a data-informed (and frequently validated) understanding of what your customers value and their shopping preferences, strong data quality management, and a commitment to breaking down silos across teams, technology stacks, decision-making processes, virtually every facet of your business.

But it’s also a tremendous opportunity to create a consumer experience that’s truly differentiated. Consumers aren’t looking for more of the same; they want experiences that are uniquely tailored to them. And for brands that embrace the concept of convergent commerce, a powerfully divergent experience that sets them apart from competitors can be the reward. 

Micro Trends: Delivering a better customer experience now

According to the National Retail Federation, this holiday shopping season is already underway with over 40% of consumers reporting they planned to begin their holiday shopping in October or earlier. That means today’s consumers can’t wait for your brand’s future convergent commerce strategies to take shape. And brands can’t let perfect be the enemy of progress when it comes to making this year’s shopping experience the best it can be. So what can brands do to better meet the needs of holiday shoppers right now? Reflecting on my own shopping experience, there may be more opportunities for quick wins than many retailers realize.

As both a holiday gift giver and receiver, my shopping considerations are the same as a lot of other holiday shoppers this season. Even though I regularly start my shopping before November, I’m always short on time. So convenience is key for me and online shopping is a great fit. I want to give gifts that feel personal and thoughtful, but with family all over the country, I’m concerned about the costs and potential delays of shipping. So like 55% of Americans who will buy at least one gift card this holiday season, experiential gifts in the form of gift cards, passes, tickets, etc. are high on my list. In what will be the dominant shopping channel (online) focusing on items that are subject to fewer inventory, stocking, and supply chain disruptions than a lot of other gift categories (gift cards), my shopping experiences have included a surprising amount of friction. So my gift to you is three ways you can ensure the holiday shopping experiences you’re serving up don’t leave consumers with a “bah humbug” feeling:

Consider the End-to-End Experience Gifting Experience

The actual purchase is only half the journey, but the gifting experience begins and ends outside the shopping cart. From the ability to effectively manage an influx of traffic from holiday browsers to ensuring gifts can easily be returned or exchanged, brands must consider the end-to-end experience to eliminate friction for both gift buyers and recipients. 

There have definitely been times in my own shopping experiences where a slow, laggy, friction-filled experience has driven me to abandon ship. In fact, this year I’ve begun using the app released by one of my favorite body care retailers. I’m a bargain hunter, but I’m not great about remembering to use my coupons before they expire. I was drawn into the app by the wallet and loyalty points features that keep track of both and give me anytime, anywhere access to them right from my phone. I could shop from the app, but I like to be able to “smell before I buy” when it comes to body products and using the “pick up in store” feature allows me to browse only the inventory I can actually test in the store. Unfortunately, the popup for selecting a store by zip code or my current location just spins. This has been the case up to the time of writing this post despite multiple app updates. So I’ve got two choices when faced with this friction: I can abandon the app and move to the website in hopes of a better experience or I can say “Scrooge it” and move onto something else. 

If you want to avoid turning gift givers and recipients into Grinches here are some tips for ensuring your delivering a gifting experience that sleighs from the first mile to the last:

  • Get your website traffic-ready: There’s nothing more frustrating than a website that takes forever to load. Consumers have zero patience during the holiday rush. A slow website will send them searching for alternatives so your website should be a well-oiled machine. Test its loading speed, ensure mobile-friendliness, and fix any broken links or errors. A smooth online journey will make customers stay and shop. 
  • Take deals directly to customers: Utilize customer data to provide personalized recommendations and offers. Making your customers feel special by proactively showing them that you understand their needs and preferences will help bring them to you.
  • Offer clear and flexible pickup and returns: With consumers moving between physical and digital channels across the customer journey, offering clarity around return policies and flexible pickup and return options will better allow you to meet customers in their channels of choice. Offer the option for customers to order online and pick up items in-store or return online purchases at your physical location for maximum convenience.
  • Have strong support standing by: The holiday season means long hours for your customer support team. Failing to respond promptly to inquiries or complaints can lead to disgruntled customers who won’t hesitate to share their grievances on social media. Implement chatbots, and set up a system for addressing inquiries and complaints promptly. Social media monitoring can help you spot and address issues early.

Make conversion dead simple

Optimizing high-value actions like purchases to the fullest extent means thinking beyond the point-of-purchase mechanics of your e-commerce platform to other experiential elements. Using language within the purchase experience that makes sense to consumers, providing the information consumers need to solidify buying decisions, making relevant payment options easy to use, and ensuring parity of experience across device types can make or break the buying experience. 

I was recently on the website for my favorite purveyor of chocolates with the goal of building a custom box of chocolates and I found myself getting tripped up at key points in the experience. After selecting the size and type of box I wanted to fill, it was time to select my candies. I specifically wanted dark chocolate and was surprised that there didn’t appear to be any search filters on the page; there was just a typical-looking search bar with “Search for flavors” as the hint text and a magnifying glass at the right edge of the box. I scrolled around the site to make sure the filters weren’t just oddly placed and after finding none, I begrudgingly opted to use the search. As I clicked into the box to search the word, “dark,” I discovered that what was designed to look like a typical search bar was actually a drop-down set of filters, which included a filter for dark chocolate. I proceeded to fill my box and initiated the checkout process and got all the way to the payment screen—the final conversion point—before realizing there was no option to select a store for pickup. At no point in the process did I have an option to choose a fulfillment option other than shipping (which also had a cost). Ultimately, I abandoned my cart after the experience left me with a bad taste in my mouth. 

Here are a few tips for ensuring your conversion experience is as sweet as a box of chocolates:

  • Simplify checkout processes: Your customers are looking for a seamless shopping experience, not a labyrinth of forms and confusing steps during checkout. So your checkout process should be as easy. Offer guest checkout options that prioritize speed and simplicity, enable auto-fill features, and provide multiple payment options. Simplify the process, and you’ll see a boost in completed purchases.
  • Avoid hidden fees and charges: Shoppers hate surprises, especially when it involves extra costs at checkout. Display all costs clearly and be upfront about shipping fees, taxes, and any other charges. A transparent pricing strategy builds trust and encourages purchases.
  • Reduce the pain of out-of-stock items: Nothing’s worse than finding the perfect gift only to discover it’s out of stock, so it’s critical to stay on top of your inventory. Ensure your inventory management software is equipped to prevent overselling, notify customers promptly if a product is out of stock, and suggest similar items to keep them engaged.

Consider people and process

Successful convergent commerce experiences require a seamless transition from one channel to the next. That means that the people and processes underpinning the in-store experience need to be equipped with the tools, training, policies, etc. needed to support customers who began their shopping journey in a digital channel (and vice versa). 

I was gifted a digital gift card to one of my favorite restaurants. Because I have three kids, I tend to opt for take-out and delivery more than in-restaurant dining, and I was looking forward to redeeming my gift card for dinner after a particularly hectic day. However, I discovered I wasn’t able to redeem the gift card on my favorite food delivery app or the restaurant’s website. I had to call in and have them run the gift card over the phone. And because the restaurant offers delivery through its app partners only, I was forced to place an order for pickup rather than delivery. The restaurant is in a very busy area, and having to drive, park, and go into the restaurant completely undercut the reason why I decided to order instead of cook. To make matters worse, the staff working seemed to be confused and inexperienced with the restaurant’s pick-up processes. As a result, I spent 20 minutes sitting at the bar waiting for them to sort it out before I could pick up the dinner I’d originally intended to have delivered. I really love their food, so the experience won’t keep me away entirely. But I can tell you their gift cards won’t appear on my wish list until they offer the ability to redeem them for delivery.

Here are a couple of tips for keeping customers from going from joyed to annoyed as they transition between digital and physical experiences:  

  • Drive brand consistency across touchpoints: Your online and in-store experiences should feel like two sides of the same joyful holiday coin. That means these experiences should feel connected in every way. Avoid creating functional silos between in-store and online experiences when it comes to ease of purchase; redemption of gift cards, coupons, and promotions; and returns and ensure where differences do exist—like offering a broader range of product options online or running online and in-store exclusive promotions—they feel purposed and beneficial to your customers. 
  • Prepare your in-store team: Train your in-store staff to be knowledgeable about your online offerings and promotions. They should be ready to assist customers in placing online orders, redeeming digital gift cards, and answering product-related queries.

In the world of holiday gifting, experience is everything. Shoppers are looking for convenience, transparency, and joy during their quest for the perfect gifts. And gift recipients are looking for ease and flexibility when it comes to redeeming, exchanging, returning, and using gifts. By staying ahead of the latest trends, addressing common pitfalls, and implementing our recommendations, your business can ensure a memorable holiday shopping experience for your customers. Even if achieving truly convergent commerce is still a future destination on your roadmap, implementing these strategies will help you deliver a cohesive shopping experience that supports customers as they transition between online and in-store shopping. This flexibility not only meets the evolving demands of today’s consumers, but also positions your brand as one that truly values creating a differentiated experience that puts customers at the center. No matter where your brand is in your convergent commerce journey, we can help you ensure each step along the way creates value for your customers and your business.  

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Customer Engagement Innovators Series Mindfulness Reaching New Customers Value Realization

The smart money is on treating marketing as an operating expense

A decorative image of a calculator representing the benefits of treating marketing as an operating expense.

As a digital agency CEO with a strong financial bent and a finance leader with deep experience in the agency space, we’ve seen the financial dance between marketing and finance teams more times than we can count. And we’ve heard some pretty creative approaches for classifying marketing expenses in different ways. While there’s no hard and fast rule that’s 100% right 100% of the time, more often than not the most compelling case is for treating marketing as an operating expense. This decision isn’t just a matter of semantics; it can have a significant impact on your business’s financial health and agility. 

Operating vs. Capital expenses

Before we dive into why you should treat marketing as an operating expense, let’s clarify the difference between operating and capital expenses.

What Is an operating expense?

Operating expenses, often referred to as OpEx, are day-to-day costs incurred to keep your business running. Think salaries, rent, utilities, and yes, marketing expenses. OpEx is immediately deductible against your revenue, reducing your taxable income.

What is a capital expense?

Capital expenses, often referred to as CapEx, are investments in long-term assets, like buying a new factory or upgrading your IT infrastructure. CapEx is typically depreciated over time, which means it’s deducted gradually over several years.

Now that we’ve defined these two expense types, let’s talk about why we recommend putting marketing investment on the OpEx side of the ledger.

The temptation of a capital expense classification

While we believe the strongest argument is for classifying marketing as an operating expense, we understand why some companies may be tempted to categorize it as a capital expense. It can inflate the company’s assets on the balance sheet, potentially presenting a more favorable financial picture to investors and stakeholders. Additionally, tax implications can sometimes favor capitalizing marketing expenses, especially when a company is looking to spread out deductions over several years to minimize immediate tax liability. However, it’s essential to weigh these potential benefits against the flexibility and transparency that come with treating marketing as an operating expense to make an informed decision that aligns with the company’s overall strategy.

 In cases where marketing initiatives have long-lasting effects, such as brand-building campaigns, there might be an argument for considering them as capital investments. One area where this argument tends to be the strongest is in investment in digital properties like websites.

Websites can serve as long-term assets, contributing to a company’s brand image, customer acquisition, and revenue generation over an extended period. This aligns with the capital expense criteria of enduring benefits and a useful life spanning several years, so classifying website investment as a capital expense has its merits. By capitalizing website development costs, companies can gradually expense them over time, smoothing out the financial impact.

However, there’s a counterargument to consider. Capitalizing certain marketing costs so they don’t hit your expense line and EBITDA can be enticing, but in the future, these become dead expenses because they’re being depreciated. Doing this over multiple years will lead to carrying depreciated expenses that you’re not realizing tangible return on, which hinders your marketing team from driving a full return on each year’s expenses.

Additionally, the digital landscape evolves rapidly, and website technology becomes outdated quicker than many other capital assets. Treating website development as an operating expense recognizes the need for continuous updates, improvements, and adaptations to keep pace with changing user expectations and technological advancements. Moreover, categorizing website investment as OpEx offers immediate tax benefits, as these expenses are fully deductible in the year they occur, potentially reducing tax liability in the short term.

Ultimately, the classification of website investment as a capital or operating expense depends on the specific circumstances and strategic goals of the company. CFOs and finance teams must carefully assess whether the long-term benefits and gradual expense recognition of capitalizing website costs outweigh the agility and tax advantages offered by treating them as an operating expense. It’s a balancing act that requires a nuanced understanding of the company’s digital strategy and financial priorities.

The argument for marketing as an operating expense

Potential exceptions like website investment aside, marketing investments represent ongoing, essential costs incurred to sustain day-to-day business operations, promote revenue generation, and adapt to dynamic market conditions. Treating marketing as an operating expense aligns with the constantly evolving nature of the marketing landscape and offers a host of advantages:

It gives you the flexibility needed to adapt to rapid change

One of the primary reasons to treat marketing as an operating expense is that it reflects the reality of the marketing landscape today. Marketing isn’t a one-time investment; it’s an ongoing effort to connect with your audience, build brand awareness, and drive sales. In today’s fast-paced digital world, consumer preferences can change on a whim and marketing campaigns must be able to adapt rapidly. When it comes to marketing, you can’t simply “set it and forget it” like you would with a capital asset.

When it comes to marketing, you can’t simply “set it and forget it” like you would with a capital asset.

Treating marketing as OpEx provides greater financial flexibility, allowing you to adjust your marketing budget more easily in response to changing market conditions or business needs. When marketing is a capital expense, you’re stuck with the initial investment, whether it’s performing as expected or not, which can limit your ability to evolve and adapt. As companies take greater control over their data and leverage technologies like AI and ML to execute data-driven decision making at scale, the capacity for ongoing, real-time optimization of marketing activity to drive performance improvement will only increase. With OpEx, you can scale your marketing spend up or down as needed, allocate resources to new marketing channels, and pivot your strategy without making the same level of long-term commitment from a finance and accounting standpoint and without the burden of depreciating assets.

It enables better ROI tracking and more accurate financial reporting

Accurate financial reporting is essential for making informed business decisions. When it comes to marketing investment, treating marketing as an operating expense ensures your income statement accurately reflects the real cost of doing business. This transparency helps you understand the true profitability of your operations and facilitates more accurate forecasting.

For its part, marketing efforts have high expectations for delivering quantifiable returns, whether it’s in the context of return on ad spend, reduced cost of acquisition, improved lifetime value, or any number of other metrics used to evaluate return on marketing investment. When marketing is categorized as OpEx, it’s easier to track and measure its ROI in real-time. You can see how your marketing efforts impact revenue and adjust your strategy accordingly. With CapEx, ROI calculations become more complex and less immediate.

It makes your CFO’s job easier

Given our roles and backgrounds in financial stewardship, we know the importance of prudent financial management. And we know that’s the love language of most CFOs. Treating marketing as OpEx actually makes your CFO’s job easier. Here’s how:

  • Clearer financial statements: Treating marketing as OpEx leads to cleaner, more straightforward financial statements, simplifying your job in preparing financial reports and ensuring transparency for all stakeholders.
  • Easier budget management: With marketing as OpEx, you have greater control over the budget. You can allocate resources more dynamically, responding to changes in the market or business priorities. It’s easier to manage and forecast expenses when they align with the business’s actual needs.
  • Reduced risk: Capital expenses carry inherent risks. What if the asset becomes obsolete or doesn’t perform as expected? Treating marketing as OpEx eliminates the risk associated with depreciating assets, offering a more predictable financial landscape.

Take it from us, it’s a great way to endear yourself to your head of finance, which can grease the wheels when you’re looking for approval on decisions that need to be made quickly.

It can send the right signal to strategic marketing hires

This last advantage of classifying marketing as OpEx is an easy one to overlook, but it can be really impactful. Top marketing talent often prefers companies that treat marketing as an operating expense. You might be surprised if this question comes up in an interview for a strategic marketing hire. But when a candidate poses this question, it can be a great indicator of strategic thinking about the level of ongoing business value your company ascribes to marketing. Because they know it demonstrates a commitment to staying current and competitive, being able to tell candidates that you classify marketing as OpEx shows that your company views marketing as a dynamic and mission-critical function and is willing to invest in it continually for long-term success.

Betting on marketing as a dynamic driver of growth

Things are rarely cut and dry when it comes to strategic budgeting, and marketing is no exception. There will always be a need to balance near-term and long-term financial constraints, business goals, and the marketing strategies and assets that support them. And there may be sound business reasons to capitalize on certain marketing investments under particular circumstances. But in general, treating marketing costs as operational versus capital expenses provides the greatest benefit when it comes to optimizing marketing performance, maximizing ROI, simplifying marketing budget management, and positioning marketing as the dynamic level for driving business growth that it is. 

Regardless of how you classify marketing expenses on your budget sheet, fostering collaboration between marketing and financial leadership is key. Driving ongoing conversations between marketing and finance will help ensure that your finance team has a clear understanding of the business context for marketing investment, including the roles that various marketing investments play in achieving business goals, how return on those investments is defined, and what short- and long-term management and stewardship of those investments looks like and requires. It will also help your marketing team understand the broader financial parameter and requirements within which the business operates and the considerations that go into expense classification. 

Sometimes the best way to foster understanding between your marketing and finance teams is with a partner who understands both sides of the coin and can translate between their unique points of view. If you’re looking for guidance or support bringing these critical business functions closer together, let’s talk.

Categories
Customer Engagement Reaching New Customers Strategy

Mastering full-funnel marketing for lasting growth

A decorative image of a mountain that represents the customer journey.

Many companies have shifted their focus to bottom-of-funnel tactics, like paid search and retargeting ads, as economic uncertainty drives budget constraints and increases the pressure to make sales. However, this imbalanced approach will almost certainly have a lagging negative impact on revenue and ROI.

Implementing a full-funnel marketing strategy can fix the imbalance and ensure long-term growth and sustainability. Let’s look at the full marketing funnel, why stage-specific engagement matters, and how to bring them to life.

What are the stages of full-funnel marketing?

Marketing strategy is often compared to a funnel because of the shape it takes as consumers move through the purchase journey. 

A chart showing the conversion funnel.

Stage 1: Top-of-funnel

Awareness tactics (at the top of the funnel) are broad and cast a wide net to reach consumers. This might include things like radio ads, billboard ads, blogs, or public relations campaigns. 

The purpose of top-of-funnel tactics is to get your brand in front of your audience and generate brand awareness. As such, success for these individual tactics should be measured by publisher metrics like impressions, reach, frequency, and video completion rates or through survey metrics like lift in brand awareness and ad recall. A common misstep we see marketers make is trying to measure the success of a top-of-funnel tactic by the number of conversions it drives. Billboards aren’t going to result in a click-through conversion, but they do influence consumers who may not even know they want to buy your product or service yet. Similarly, an attribution model that ignores the role top-of-funnel tactics play as part of the confluence of factors that ultimately drive conversion can work against you.

Stage 2: Mid-funnel

Consideration tactics (in the middle of the funnel) focus on consumers who are familiar with and evaluating the brand. Tactics deployed at this might include product-specific emails, FAQ pages, and organic search strategy. 

This is the stage where we start to see consumers interacting with the brand so success metrics look different than those in the top of the funnel. Here, we are interested in engagement metrics like click-through rates, social media interactions, rich media interactions, average time on site, pages visited per website engagement, scroll depth, and non-conversion website events (e.g., PDF downloads, webinar registrations, video completions, etc.).

Stage 3: Bottom of the funnel

Conversion tactics (at the bottom of the funnel) get in front of consumers who are ready to make a purchase. Paid search is a major tactic at this stage of the funnel, but tactics might also include website content like comparison charts or savings calculators.

This is the stage at which we measure tactical success in terms of conversions. Consumers, influenced by the awareness and consideration driven higher up in the funnel from other tactics, are now ready to make a purchase or submit a lead form.

But it doesn’t end there! After consumers convert, they move into the loyalty part of the funnel. The tactics in this part of the funnel keep consumers coming back. It might include things like personalized content, rewards and loyalty programs, or incentive campaigns.

The success of your loyalty program can be measured by customer retention rate, customer lifetime value, and repeat purchases.

The lowest part of the funnel is advocacy, which is all about getting consumers to tell their friends about your brand. This often takes the form of customer reviews and referral programs and can be measured by metrics like customer satisfaction scores, online reviews and sentiment analysis, and social listening insights.

Why does a full-funnel marketing strategy matter?

Although marketers like to position their strategy into a nice, neat little funnel, the reality is that the consumer journey is not so nice and neat. It’s also not linear. On average, it takes 8-12 touchpoints with a brand to convert a customer! 

An image depicting the unclear path that often occurs between the first point of contact and conversion.

The beauty of a full-funnel marketing strategy is that it helps you meet consumers where they are in their journeys. It is a holistic, integrated approach that drives repeat exposure and facilitates multiple touch points with customers at different stages of their journey, which is critical for ensuring your brand is top of mind when the moment of truth comes and a buying decision is made.

The negative impact of a bottom-of-funnel approach

Conversion-focused tactics often get the most attention because they produce the most conversions. But consumers can’t convert if they aren’t aware of your brand. Consumers won’t convert if they know about your brand, but haven’t taken the time to consider what it means to them. By neglecting the upper parts of the funnel, you choke the funnel and restrict your ability to drive conversions in the long term.

Unfortunately, many companies get overly focused on the bottom-of-funnel tactics due to the very real and understandable pressure that marketers get from leaders focused only on transactional KPIs. This is especially true in times of economic uncertainty (check out our white paper on how to optimize your customer experience for recession resilience) when driving revenue takes on a heightened priority.

A broken funnel can manifest in many ways:

Poor engagement rates

If you skipped over the awareness part of the funnel, consumers may not be familiar with your brand. Trust and credibility have yet to be established and so they are not prepared to engage with your content.

High engagement, but low conversion

Similarly, if consumers are clicking, but not converting, may not be meeting them at the right point in their journey.

Conversion stagnation

Often a symptom of low-funnel strategies, you may have tapped out your available audience by ignoring critical awareness tactics.

Unintentionally over-indexing on first-time customers

It is 5-7 times more expensive to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones. If your customer base is over-indexed on new customers, you may need to double down on your retention efforts.

Decrease in branded searches

Customers can’t search for you if they don’t know about your brand. Investing in top-of-funnel tactics is crucial to driving brand awareness.

Increase in costs to convert

Persistent increases in cost per lead (CPL) or cost per acquisition (CPA) signal that you are competing for a finite, over-indexed audience and would benefit from upper-funnel tactics.

Bringing a full-funnel marketing strategy to life

If any of the scenarios above sound familiar, it’s probably time to evolve your marketing strategy to adopt a full-funnel approach.

Here are some key considerations when establishing a full-funnel marketing strategy: 

Teamwork makes the dream work

A full-funnel marketing strategy requires collaboration across multiple teams (think strategy, brand, paid media, creative, content, design, PR, email, loyalty… the list goes on!) to ensure thoughtful, cohesive customer experiences. Make sure you are pulling in representatives from all the appropriate teams to drive alignment and ensure consistency.

Measurement matters

An appropriate measurement strategy is key to keeping a full-funnel strategy on the rails. As we described when defining the stages of the funnel, KPIs must reflect where tactics sit within the funnel to properly measure success and make informed marketing decisions.

Similarly, an attribution model can make or break your strategy. Last-click attribution models in particular can influence over-indexing on bottom-of-funnel tactics by assigning credit to the last touch before a conversion. This model puts a thumb on the scale for bottom-of-funnel tactics, limiting the ability to optimize for the distinct goals of tactics that play other roles in the funnel. Linear or data-driven models are generally more effective at assigning appropriate value to tactics throughout the funnel. 

Be patient

The impact of a full-funnel strategy won’t be felt immediately. Upper-funnel efforts build future demand. Building loyalty and driving advocacy takes time. But this strategy sustains growth marketing investment in the long term by allowing you to reach more potential customers, extending the lifetime value of those customers, and generating more profit for less investment by driving efficiencies across the program.

The bottom line: full-funnel marketing strategies work

A recent Nielsen study of CPG brands showed that those with a full-funnel strategy had 45% higher ROI and a 7% increase in offline sales compared to marketing campaigns running in a single purchase stage.

We recently published a case study about how we helped a nonprofit client of ours drive efficiencies in their paid media program by enhancing their bottom-of-funnel paid media program to a full-funnel one. In the first year of running this full-funnel program, our client spent 9% more on paid media year over year, but produced 61% more donations.

Designing holistic customer experiences that drive growth is our strength. Because full-funnel marketing strategy is a team sport that requires participation from multiple teams, internal silos are the enemy of creating a holistic, integrated strategy. At Tallwave, we pride ourselves on two things: 1) relentlessly keeping the customer at the center of what we do at every stage of the journey and 2) driving integration and collaboration in the strategies that drive the customer experience so we can deliver successfully against your customers’ needs and your business goals. 

Ready to learn more about how Tallwave can help enhance your marketing program? Give us a shout!

Categories
Customer Engagement Reaching New Customers Strategy Value Realization

Driven by values: The new persona playbook

Decorative header image displaying valuegraphics.

Target audience research and persona profiles have become a standard part of the marketing toolkit. Despite the changes I’ve experienced in my 20 years as a marketer as new technologies have emerged, channels have evolved, and customer expectations have become more demanding, the importance of persona profiles has been one of the few constants. A rich persona can be hugely beneficial in driving and informing how we engage with prospective customers, certainly through marketing efforts, but more broadly as well. 

Despite the rapid rate of change that has shaped the marketing landscape, how we approach persona profiles hasn’t changed all that much. I’ve seen personas with different levels of depth and layouts, but they’re generally pretty similar at their core. Most of the time, they include a combination of what your audience looks like, with details like their age, income, job title, and marital status. The more creative ones even include fictitious names and pictures. And the rest is some combination of consumer behaviors, statements, pain points, and information gathered from a fairly small number of representatives of your audience, often through interviews. 

But there’s one big problem with the traditional approach to personas. Nearly all the information they include has very little to do with what you care about most: WHY your customers buy and HOW to get prospective customers to do the same. The good news is we believe we have a better approach. In this post, I’ll share a method for audience research and persona development that taps into a huge repository of existing data to deliver insights on the values that drive your customers’ decisions.

Why Values Matter for Driving Consumer Behavior

Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt Disney and longtime senior executive for the Walt Disney Company, put the power of values into the most succinct statement I’ve seen yet: “When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.” He understood that, just like our customers, we make decisions every day, not based on our demographics or our past behaviors, but on our values. And brands can tap into that power. If you know which values your best customers share, the values that motivate the buying behaviors you’re trying to inspire in prospective customers, you have the power to know what to do and say to get existing customers to say yes more often and to drive new customers to purchase.

The Disconnect between Values and Demographics

As it turns out, our values have little to do with our demographics. Our demographics might be part of the reason we don’t take a particular action. For example, odds are if I don’t have children, I’m not searching for pediatricians or childcare options. Being childless, which is part of my demographics, is the reason for my inaction. But for people who share the demographic condition of parents, that common characteristic only determines that searching for and selecting a pediatrician or a childcare option is a choice they’re likely to make. The demographic condition of being a parent has nothing to do with which choice they make and why. If it did, all parents would make the same choices. But of course, they don’t. They make different choices based on what they value. That’s why using demographics alone to connect with and influence your audience doesn’t really work. 

I think the values gap that exists within a traditional demographic and psychographic approach to audience research and persona profile development is something that most marketers recognize intuitively. But there haven’t been a lot of better options for uncovering the nuances of what an audience values in a scalable way. That is, until I listened to episode 331 of the Digital Marketing Podcast, The Death of Demographics, An Interview With David Allison. In it, David Allison talked about his book, The Death of Demographics, and the research data behind it that spawned the first big data tool that makes a scalable, data-driven approach to values-centric audience research and persona creation possible. 

The book is the product of a massive global research study known as the Valuegraphics Project (more on that in a minute) that finds that when it comes to values, humans agree about 8% of the time as a baseline. When you group by any demographic cohort—age, gender, income, marital status, you name it—that agreement only increases by 2.5%. So building a marketing campaign around what you think “Gen Z” or “working moms” or “retirees” care about is going to be only slightly more effective than throwing the spaghetti at the wall and deploying your campaign to anyone and everyone. Because while the year you were born, whether you have kids, and your employment status may influence decisions you will or won’t make, they don’t have anything to do with the “why” behind them.

So what will be more effective? The answer is valuegraphics.

The Valuegraphics Project

The Valuegraphics Project is a global mapping of core human values, the drivers behind all our decision making. Through nearly a million surveys deployed in 152 languages in 180 countries across the world evaluating 436 values-related metrics, 56 core human values emerged. And 15 statistical clusters of agreement around subsets of those values, which the architects of this project call “archetypes,” emerged from that research data. Those 15 archetypes can be used as the basis for valuegraphic personas, each representing an audience that is demographically diverse, but highly aligned on values.

So building a marketing campaign around what you think “Gen Z” or “working moms” or “retirees” care about is going to be only slightly more effective than throwing the spaghetti at the wall and deploying your campaign to anyone and everyone.

This focus on values doesn’t mean demographics and psychographics don’t have a place—they do. They can be practical and effective ways to limit your audience based on functional barriers to making the decisions you want them to make. But demographics and psychographics won’t help you understand what actually drives those decisions. You need valuegraphics for that. That audience data triad of demographics, psychographics, and valuegraphics all come together with your audience engagement strategy in the Value Thinking process.

A Venn Diagram showing Values Thinking. Values Thinking is a process for identifying the underlying values that motivate your target audience so you can build an engagement strategy around those values.
Values Thinking is a process for identifying the underlying values that motivate your target audience so you can build an engagement strategy around those values.

Valuegraphics in Action

Chart showing Value Graphics in Action: The U.S. vs the world.
Value Graphics in Action: The U.S. vs the world.

So how do you go about putting valuegraphics to work to better understand and engage your audience? It starts with understanding the valuegraphics profile for your target regions and then surveying your target audience to illuminate their dominant and least dominant valuegraphic archetypes. 

Regional Valuegraphic Profiles

One of the outputs of the Valuegraphics Project is a set of region-specific profiles that tell you the top values for each region. Looking at the regional valuegraphics profile for the US, we know that belonging, family, relationships, personal growth, and health and wellbeing make up the top 5 values for the region. Looking at the top 5 values for the US compared to the rest of the world, we see that family and relationships are valued similarly. But there’s significant divergence between the US and the rest of the world when it comes to belonging and health and wellbeing. 

If you’re targeting a US-based audience, that’s already much more useful than any demographic or psychographic data when it comes to not just getting in front of, but influencing your audience to take a particular action. No matter what else you say, if you can connect your product or service to the values of belonging and health and wellbeing, your efforts will be much more effective at striking a chord than they would be with demographic and psychographic data alone.

Valuegraphic Archetypes

Value Graphics in Action. This chart shows "The Adventurer" archetype.
Value Graphics in Action: Adventurer Archetype.

With the valuegraphic profile for your target region, you’re ready to uncover the most and least dominant valuegraphic archetypes of your audience. Let’s say you’ve surveyed members of your audience and determined that the dominant valuegraphic archetype among them is the Adventurer. This is the 7th most common archetype globally representing 10% of the population. So you’re already getting much more narrow than the regional profile. When you get down to archetypes and the values they contain, you’re tapping into a currency that not only drives human behavior, but drives it in remarkably similar ways for those who share these values. 

Comparing the regional valuegraphic profile of the US with this specific archetype, two points of meaningful distinction in the top 5 values are immediately apparent. Experiences aren’t in the top values for the region at all, so focusing on this value will be uniquely resonant to this group. Personal growth is in the top 5 values for the region, but it’s ranked much higher for this particular archetype. Tapping into these values will create an engagement strategy that’s uniquely relevant for this specific audience. So in this example, we’ve deployed a valuegraphic survey to the kinds of customers we want to find more of. And in analyzing that data, we uncovered the Adventurer as the dominant archetype. How do we get from here to a values-driven persona that marketing and other teams within our business can sink their teeth into? 

Building a Better Customer Profile: Valuegraphic Personas

We’ve taken this process one step further to create personas based on the valuegraphic profiles we’ve built around specific audiences. One of the first things that makes these personas stand out from the traditional fare is what they don’t include. What you won’t see in this kind of persona are the demographic elements you typically see (a picture, fake name, age, and bio). That’s by design because they generally have nothing to do with the action we want to compel. And including them can imply that they do. Best case scenario, it’s not helpful. Worst case scenario, it can cause us to arbitrarily limit our audience and cut us off from engaging with values-aligned prospective customers.

Here’s what you will find in one of our valuegraphic personas:

  • The valuegraphic archetype(s) represented and a brief description of it, including contextual statements from people who share the archetype(s)
  • Statistics on how common this persona is in your region and their degree of values alignment
  • Highlights of the most and least dominant values, which serve as driver and detractor values respectively
  • A list of qualities and characteristics that are virtually certain (in that they’re true for 90%+) and highly likely (75-89%) to be shared by people who represent the persona and implications for your brand

The information in the first three bullets helps us start to get inside the minds of this persona. But the last bullet contains the gold nuggets that have actionable impact on marketing and beyond. The certainties and likelihoods for valuegraphic personas cover broad and sometimes unexpected ground, from unique perspectives on values to common behaviors and preferences related to travel, mobility, money management, leisure, the list goes on. And they can inspire insights that can influence everything from product and service innovation to content and creative, targeting, affinity and partnership marketing, and more. And these insights aren’t the product of a handful of qualitative interviews; they’re the product of a massive global research study that included analyses on massive quantities of research data at a level of statistical rigor that would exceed the requirements of most major universities. 

Beyond B2C: The Value of Valuegraphics for B2B Brands

It’s easy to see how a valuegraphics-based approach to target audience research and persona profile development applies to B2C companies. But the applicability to B2B companies might not seem as obvious because in these scenarios, we tend to adopt an institutional view of our buyers. In reality, purchase decisions for businesses are still made by human beings (and in most cases, multiple human beings). That means that not only is the concept of connecting with the values of your buyers still very much in play, one could argue that the impact is compounded given that purchase decisions are made by multiple decision makers. So if you’re engaging in a way that’s not aligned to your target audience’s values, you’re going to hit the same snags over and over again with multiple decision makers. 

In the context of the traditional approach to target audience research for B2B companies, it would be typical to develop buyer persona profiles for the different stakeholders who play a role in making purchase decisions and develop distinct persona-specific value propositions for those different decision makers. In the context of valuegraphics, the same logic holds. Illuminating the values that drive decision making for your cadre of B2B buyers will make you more successful in aligning to those values and compelling the desired action.

Evolving Your Approach to Understanding and Driving Consumer Behavior

With the execution of the Valuegraphics Project, we now have a way to leverage a much bigger body of data in the art and science of developing persona profiles. As marketers and growth drivers for our businesses, that gives us the ability to develop a deeper understanding of our audience at scale and parlay that understanding into action both within and beyond our marketing strategies to align better, resonate more, and compel action more effectively. As the world around us grows increasingly privacy-sensitive and the data at our disposal to drive reach with our audiences becomes more limited and nuanced, the brands who know their audiences best will have the greatest advantage. 

If you’re ready to evolve your approach to target audience research and harness the power of valuegraphics data to drive your market engagement strategies, I highly recommend checking out David Allison’s book, The Death of Demographics. Or better yet, give us a call for the CliffsNotes and our playbook for putting it into action.

Categories
Customer Engagement Reaching New Customers Strategy

Customer at the center: Why human-centric CX matters now more than ever

Image showing a mobile device with a happy face, suggesting a happy customer.

Customers continue to be dissatisfied with digital experiences. The Wall Street Journal reported on the National Customer Rage Survey in March about the increasing issues Americans are experiencing with products and services. There are so many things to think about when we talk about “Customer Experience”, it is easy to misplace goals like “Best in Class Customer Experience.” At times, it just feels like a buzzword that digital products must use.  When you take inputs into account (like usage data, retention metrics or KPIs) without considering the human customer at the center, you put the quality of your CX at risk. Putting the customer at the center of all experiences will allow companies to return to excellently designed customer experiences. Learn what’s at stake when it comes to CX and how to put and keep the focus of your digital product strategy where it belongs: on the wants and needs of your customers.

The customer has spoken: Experience is everything

Customers care about experiences and they are not afraid to report on those experiences online. Social media and review sites are full of issues and complaints about experiences that fell short of customer expectations. And they’re not afraid to deploy “revenge” tactics to make companies pay extra for their bad experiences. 

To avoid negative interactions (and their cost to brand reputation), companies need to put customer problems directly in the center of their digital experience. Don’t solve for the perceived problem, solve for the human involved. Great digital products and services come from a human-centric approach to design that will take your customer’s experience from good to great. As Tallwave CEO, Jeff Pruitt, outlined in a LinkedIn article earlier this year, there are three key considerations for leaders who want to put their customer in the center.

Curate great automation

Automation can relieve the burden of live customer support on teams and lower costs for operations. It seems so simple to line up a workflow that customers experience often and give carefully scripted responses to their questions. When it works, it can save customers time and save companies money. Unfortunately, automation can easily fail. One misplaced automation step or edge case can trap customers in a maddening circular workflow or drive them to give up altogether. 

Automation can and should be used for straightforward and simple scenarios, but there should always be an exit strategy. Don’t let your customers get caught in a loop of wrong answers or assumptions.  Automation creation and testing is a great time to utilize cross-team collaboration. Working with multiple teams illuminates biases so you can eliminate them. Your customer support team probably has lots of examples of workflows that could be built into automation that would be good for customers. Giving a variety of teams an opportunity to test automation will bring a unified approach to automation experiences. 

Unify data collection

Many, many years after the Big Data revolution, we are still trying to figure out how to collect, manage, and utilize the vast amounts of data available to us. In digital products, we can collect and curate data on the usage of our own product as well as many other contributing factors to the customer experience (demographics, device type, traffic, etc). When we leave the marketing data up to the marketers, the usage data to the product team, and the support data to the service team, we miss the opportunity to visualize the entire customer journey through all relevant lenses. Centralizing and using quantitative data as an input in all company decisions, but especially decisions about digital product strategy, is critical for keeping the customer at the center of CX. Quantitative data isn’t the only input— research, field studies, and classic conversations about experiences are still important—but it can drive internal discussions across teams to act in a holistic way to enhance customer experience.

Fix organizational silos

How often has your company reorganized its teams in the last 5 years? Especially for growing companies, re-orgs feel like second nature. Your team may do it to shake things up or to re-align as priorities move or the market changes. While changing your organizational structure can certainly be commonplace, organizational silos shouldn’t be. Don’t let the company changing around you break your focus from cross-team collaboration and overall company strategy toward great customer interactions. 

Even without the fracturing effects of restructuring, preventing siloing between teams that all play a role in CX delivery is important. Product-led companies, in particular, need to align on problem statements across marketing, customer service, product development, and support. If a single team is out of step with the others, customers end up confused or misguided by the experience. When the customer problem statement is forefront in everyone’s mind, the alignment can be spectacular. Every single team across the organization working to solve customer problems with great customer experiences can create really powerful momentum and the collaborative relationships it fosters between teams can help solve automation and data issues that can pop up. When you focus on creating great cross-team dynamics, you will be surprised at what else will start to fall in line.

(Want to know more about AI/SGE trends, data collection and silos, and CX heartbreak? We have more on these topics, too.)

The bottom line: Delight and ignite

Keeping the customer at the center of digital experiences is more vital than ever. It won’t just create loyalty from both customers and staff, it will also change how you consider customer experience design. People learn and change every day and we must stay ahead if we want to succeed in delighting them. Being thoughtful and inclusive about when and where to deploy automation will break down organizational silos and keep customers feeling supported. Unifying data collection and usage across teams will keep alignment on the central issues and ensure teams are talking realistically about what the data is telling you. Keeping the customer at the center of the experience will create opportunities to work across teams, solve problems together and create great experiences that delight your customers and ignite your products. Are you ready to create human-centered solutions and experiences for your customers? We’re ready to roll up our sleeves to delight and ignite. Let’s chat.

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Tallwave Headquarters

6720 N. Scottsdale Road, Suite 140
Scottsdale, Arizona 85253
(602) 840-0400

Tallwave Headquarters

6720 N. Scottsdale Road, Suite 140
Scottsdale, Arizona 85253
(602) 840-0400

For business inquiries, contact Ed Borromeo, Tallwave Partner at innovate@tallwave.com

For business inquiries, contact Ed Borromeo,
Tallwave Partner at innovate@tallwave.com

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