In recent years, inbound marketing has seen a boom in popularity. Businesses of every shape, size, and industry have started adopting the inbound methodology to attract visitors and turn contacts into clients. Unfortunately, the final step of the inbound methodology—delighting customers—has been talked about quite a bit less than other topics, such as writing a killer e-book or organic keyword rankings. But that’s all about to change.
As more and more brands turn to inbound marketing, the competition will grow only fiercer, making it even more important to focus on a positive customer experience (CX). After all, if a customer has a negative experience with your brand, what’s stopping them from turning to a competitor that can offer them the same services and content? By focusing on customer success and support, organizations will be able to increase the lifetime value of their current customers, decrease the cost of acquisition for future customers, and turn passive customers into enthusiastic promoters.
https://www.business2community.com/marketing/inbound-customer-experiences-future-marketing-02035120/
The takeover is complete: The customer is in control and customer experience now reigns supreme over the business universe. A whirlwind of global forces has propelled us to this place. Now that we’re here, what do companies need to do to not only survive, but also thrive?
https://customerthink.com/making-customer-experience-your-marketing-and-sales-magnet/
The marketing landscape has seen a tremendous shift in the last five years, largely due to data aggregation, and 2018 will be no different as communicators continue to gain a greater and increasingly granular understanding of customers.
Marketers have become proficient in gathering performance and consumer data through a wide variety of online experiences. These insights have enabled organizations to provide more relevant content throughout every stage of the sales funnel -- from the awareness stage all the way to the conversion stage. In the past, audience data metrics, informed by Google and Facebook analytics, could be applied effectively in organic social media content. But the days of free content are in the past as the industry has moved to a pay-to-play approach to reaching consumers.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2017/11/28/priorities-for-marketers-in-2018-refining-the-customer-experience/
For years, many marketers have focused on adding new customers with methods like social media, content and outbound interruption. Interestingly, the cyclical marketing winds of change are bringing a revitalized focus on existing customers. At HGS ― a business process management leader in optimizing customer experiences (CX) and increasing client competitiveness ― we are predicting tighter marketing and customer service alignment in 2018.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2017/12/20/the-integration-of-marketing-and-customer-experience/#1e0c18501b8d/
For years, many marketers have focused on adding new customers with methods like social media, content and outbound interruption. Interestingly, the cyclical marketing winds of change are bringing a revitalized focus on existing customers. At HGS ― a business process management leader in optimizing customer experiences (CX) and increasing client competitiveness ― we are predicting tighter marketing and customer service alignment in 2018.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2017/12/20/the-integration-of-marketing-and-customer-experience/#536d96591b8d/
Consumers are gradually starting to ignore sales pitches and tune out the invasive marketing methods that many businesses still employ regularly. And subsequently, these changes have made way for a new method of bringing in new customers – inbound marketing. Inbound marketing has recently become a very popular method of marketing among digital-first businesses, especially in terms of content marketing – which is considered a subset of inbound marketing. As a result, many content and inbound marketing tools have since been developed to make these strategies more efficient.
https://mopinion.com/top-27-content-and-inbound-marketing-tools/
Do you know where your customer data is?
If you’re like many marketers, your customer data is split across multiple systems and databases. In a Harvard Business Review survey, only 13% of executives had a unified view of their customer with a single source of customer intelligence to integrate the entire customer journey.
https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/data/unifying-your-view-of-the-customer/
Today’s consumers are more connected than ever before - constantly checking emails, social media apps, and even interacting online via voice technology.
For brands, the challenge is to cut through the noise to be able to reach consumers at the right time. This is where cross-channel marketing comes in: an approach that allows brands to seamlessly communicate with consumers across multiple touchpoints.
https://econsultancy.com/blog/69690-what-is-cross-channel-marketing-and-why-do-you-need-it/
The customer journey has transformed from a marketing industry buzzword to an integral part of many companies’ marketing and customer experience strategies, but there’s still a major consideration that most are overlooking.
An eye-opening 76% of customers report that they receive conflicting answers from different customer service agents. This lack of consistency creates frustration and a poor customer experience even when a problem is solved. When answers differ between representatives in the same organization, customers recognize the disjointed feeling of their interactions. It’s no longer enough to just map and track individual customers along a single journey -- brands need to account for the fact that a modern customer can be on multiple journeys within the brand at the same time and provide seamless transitions between those business segments.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/04/02/when-it-comes-to-customer-journeys-they-all-matter/#5ee4aee622d0/
What Ian is saying is that there are different departments working on the customer's journey. From marketing, which positions the company in the marketplace, to communications, which pushes the message out further, to sales, which is the official name we've given to the process of the point where the customer buys. And then, once they are a customer, we try to get them to come back, moving them from one-time buyers to repeat buyers.
My original post was about creating a special department or team that focuses on creating loyalty from the casual or one-time buyer. I still believe that's an effort worth investing in. But, Ian's response warranted a response:
https://www.hospitalitynet.org/opinion/4087706.html/
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