You’re taking a road trip and spot a fruit and vegetable stand by the side of the road. Excited by the array of silver corn and bushels of ripe peaches, you fill your basket. Unfortunately, the stand only takes cash and all you have is a credit card, so you reluctantly leave your produce behind. 

The customer journey is made up of the stages of interactions between your brand and the customer. Increasingly, the customer journey has become omnichannel, with customers moving between devices as they research products and services.

We know a lot more about our customers than we did ten or twenty years ago. Where marketers once ran campaigns rooted in broad-sweeping assumptions and “one size fits all” messaging, today’s consumer requires a lot more nuance. Luckily, we have the data to inform our decisions. But the discussion always comes back to whether we’re using the right data – and what are we doing with it?

The key to developing profitable, long-term customer relationships is finding a way to personalize the customer experience. According to a study by Infosys, 70% of American consumers are encouraged to spend 13% more with companies that offer stand-out customer service. In response, marketing is increasingly moving away from mass, push-based marketing strategy to one that learns from and adapts to the consumer.

The concept of an influencer strategy isn’t anything new. Ask any business owner and they’ll say word of mouth is a key driver to gaining new customers. Scale that for larger brands and the approach requires much more than asking your customer to grab an extra business card on their way out.

The rise of mobile has changed the face of marketing. Consumers increasingly use mobile to evaluate products and services and make purchasing decisions. An additional challenge has emerged to complicate the marketing landscape. Customers aren’t just using one type of device to make transactions.

Nothing can fragment a marketing meeting like the subject of segmentation – and I don’t mean that in a good way. People are using market segmentation and customer segmentation interchangeably and while arguably one shouldn’t exist without the other, they are quite different and need to be treated as such. 

Embedding vs. End Game

Good facilitators will find every opportunity to link a strategy discussion back to the customer. Who are they? What are they doing (or not doing)? How are we, as a brand, engaging (or not engaging)? What can we do better?

Marketers are consistently challenged to define the ROI of their investments. And since the burden of proof varies by channel, it’s easy to fall into the temptation to execute only within channels with simplified tracking. While direct response attribution is an easy go-to, it’s not without complications. 

Perhaps the most straightforward version of direct response attribution is digital only offers. You can control the offer, where it goes, where it’s used. It all lives in a single channel so it’s easier to manage, right? Think again.

"Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends." - Walt Disney

Pluris Marketing celebrated its 15-year anniversary earlier this year and CEO and founder Michael Caccavale is the first to admit it’s been an awesome journey. Meeting clients’ needs has always required strong leadership, and a keen eye for what’s on trend, and what’s coming next. So I sat down with Mike to take a trip down memory lane and to talk about what lies ahead.