The ROI on marketing communications is again a burning issue as the economy is going through rough patches and tight budgets. The key trends for 2023, according to Forbes, is the ever-increasing focus on driving engaging and quality content across your channels. Also, the connection between quality comms and cx is more blurred - one can no longer separate one from the other.
How does one create more effective communications then? I believe the answer lies in how we create our creative and copy in the first place. A great comms piece must start from the TRUE NEED of your customer and NOT what you internally wish to communicate to the market. If you are stuck in the latter you may wan to read the key steps you can take in order to create more favourable conditions for you and your team.
A great true story to share is how a UK-based membership organisation CSSC transformed its approach to communications by becoming more customer-obsessed.
The team was not at grips with their customer needs resulting in challenges with communications, product offering, and membership retention. The product and marketing team didn’t have up-to-date segmentation or a solid picture of customer journeys. Also, most of the development had been based on gut feel and customers didn’t really have a role or a say in product or channel development.
To turn the ship around the team started a customer research program that would lay the new foundation of the way CSSC works with their members and set the direction for the future offering, comms, and customer experience.
The first step to swing things into motion was to move from a ‘one-size-fits-all’ customer profile to 4 different customer profiles reflecting the different needs of the members. This along with a more detailed customer journey map for each customer profile helped CSSC
- Create new offerings and revenue streams for different customer profiles that wouldn’t have been possible
- Increase drastically content relevance for the newsletter with a 60% uplift in email open rates
The second step was to start working more collaboratively across Product and Marketing comms teams through a series of workshops and other forms to foster internal collaboration and silobreaking. The workshops could start by sharing some customer facts and data to initiate discussion. The more open and collaborative style helps to
- Speed up the flow of information between teams
- Drive a culture of learning and sharing
- Spot new opportunities internally across silos
Thirdly, CSSC started actively involving their members by setting up Customer Lab where members are frequently asked to join and share their ideas and take part in concept development across product, digital channels, and content/comms. Having instant access to their members is helping CSSC to:
- Remote gut feel and iterate with speed with different ideas and concepts with actual members
- Test early and remove stresses and risks from new development
- Get more staff involved with customer-centric development
The job is never done but with these 3 key steps CSSC has successfully been able to swing around their business and the team was awarded the best employee benefit provider award in the UK. If you want to see the full story please watch a 15-minute video where Stuart Slavicky, Head of Marketing, explains their journey to becoming a more customer-obsessed organisation.
