Determining what data to capture within a content audit Before embarking upon a content audit, stop and ask yourself this question: How is this content audit going to improve your content programme? It is [...]
McKinsey says that “Full Funnel” marketing is the new must have for CMO is but is it really? Will it work? Let’s set the scene: We divide marketing activity into one of [...]
Here is our formula for optimising your conversion rate and the shape of your funnel: Define your Personas - and they are not segments and may not be already on the shelf! We define [...]
Believe it or not, fifteen years ago or so, we did many deals on the golf course - the buyer journey ended at the 19th tee! Seems incredible now that it was like that, [...]
What do we mean by the “shape” of your funnel? You may recognise the following funnel diagram: you might have some more levels and different names for each level, but it will look something [...]
By using Odyssiant as your content auditing tool, you will gain access to exceptionally valuable insights. This insight will inform and improve your content planning, delivering greater value from your content programme for your [...]
How to approach content auditing? Odyssiant is a buyer journey content management platform that allows you to capture, visualise and act upon a content audit. Users can upload all content into the Odyssiant content [...]
At Odyssiant, we are advocates for content audits that go beyond the basics of telling you ’what you’ve got’ and instead inform you of what you need to create in order to maximise your [...]
Before looking at what the new potential is for calculating the ROI of marketing, let us first look at the “old” ROI of marketing. What do you measure at the moment to determine success? [...]
Marketing Applications for AI - where to begin... As marketers seek practical applications of AI, they are encountering the first challenges. However, the biggest challenge of all is data. Almost all AIs require “training”. [...]
Chief marketing officers (CMOs) who design and incorporate customer journey management in their marketing outperform all others by 54% (24.9% vs 16.2%). This is in annual improvement on ROMI (Return On Marketing Investment). According [...]
Buyer Journey Mapping is about understanding how we make decisions and then providing the content to support that process. A few weeks ago, I treated myself with a pair of Bose SoundSport Free wireless [...]
You have heard many times already that your role as a marketer needs to change. In fact, your role as a marketer has always been about change, so this is nothing new, really. What [...]
To be fair, it is impossible to describe the ‘perfect’ content audit as different businesses will have different objectives and start-points. However, if you want your content audit to move beyond simple list generation [...]
Effective content doesn’t happen by chance. It results from a strong centralised content strategy. When content is out of control, it might not appear on the surface that it is a problem or that [...]
Customer communications silos are commonplace within nearly every business. For large businesses there is no getting away from the fact that the natural evolution of the various business structures and processes has led to different [...]
How many content strategies do you have within your business? Indeed, how many content strategies do you have within your marketing function? Just the one? Fingers-crossed, that is the case, but can you place [...]
In a recent survey, 74% of marketers said that a cohesive omni-channel experience was important (34% said it was very important). We would all agree that there needs to be consistency in the brand [...]
Better customer communications can be worth millions in annual revenues. This is because there is a strong correlation between the customers’ experience and loyalty [Forrester Report: Customer Experience Index]. So, companies that manage their communications [...]
Customers’ needs change throughout their buying journey. That represents a challenge for us marketers and customer experience managers – How do you create the right content to support that journey?Before looking at what content you [...]
Anyone who has invested the time mapping the end-to-end customer journey for their business will almost certainly have come across one simple revelation: it is not one journey, it’s two journeys.In reality it could be [...]
Are you feeding the content beast? Accepted thinking on a content strategy is that you think of some themes that you want to create content around. You may well call these content pillars. Then [...]
We have already identified the problem of over communication with customers because of the wide variety of internal silos all communicating at once. But being aware of the problem is one thing, doing something [...]
Best practice in Buyer Journey Mapping is about thinking about a bigger picture and all the parts of the customer puzzle. All too often, organisations constrain Buyer Journey Mapping to the customer’s online journey. [...]
From established vendors to innovative start-ups, specific applications are emerging that are simplifying tasks, enhancing analytics, freeing up resource and creating new and exciting opportunities for customer engagement. Customer experience can feel disjointed and [...]
Current ABM approaches assume you need to know who the person is to market to them. A core tenant of ABM is that good targeting of accounts is key to the success. This has [...]
In the previous article, “Every journey starts with a single content step”, we explored the need to define your customer’s buying journey from their perspective and then use this to create truly customer-centric content. [...]
Did you know that only 3% of the market at any given time are ready to buy. The rest, 97% are at various stages of their buyer journey. Watch this short video for an [...]
Silos are one of the largest hurdles for any successful Buyer Journey Management programme to overcome. We explained why in our article “Is Customer Journey Management next?” when we discussed the challenge of demonstrating [...]
Funnels are useful things. In the real world, they allow you to pour accurately into narrow containers and in the marketing world; we use them to describe the channelling of customers towards a sale. [...]
Times, they are a-Changin’ sang Bob Dylan. Marketers around the world should all be singing the refrain. Change is not new when it comes to marketing of course. In fact, change is a constant. [...]
Do you work for a business that has prioritised the need to become customer-centric? If the answer is ‘no’ then it is a fair bet that over the next year or two it could [...]
In the article The New ROI of Marketing, we looked at the calculations to understand our ROI and profitability. The conclusion was that becoming a customer-centric business will unlock a better engagement with customers that will [...]
Building the case for a Contact Strategy Picture yourself sitting in the senior management meeting where you are seeking agreement to a contact strategy change management programme. You have spent several weeks developing the [...]
Have you bought your competitors’ product? This might sound like madness. You probably do competitor analysis, if not regularly at least once in a while, to keep your positioning fresh. Why would you need [...]
As you start to investigate where your customer contact/communications are causing problems with your customers you will quickly realise that what you need is a contact strategy. Your next question will be “What is [...]
Watch an online ad, navigate around a brand’s website or consume some social content on the likes of Facebook or Linkedin and you will notice one similarity – none of the content is connected.You read, [...]
Why do you need to do anything differently with the way you contact your customers? (Your Contact Strategy.) Because change is inevitable and your customers have already changed. When things change and new information [...]
There is considerable amounts of noise and “trending” around customer journey mapping at the moment. While it is good to see that this now includes more about what content is required to guide customers [...]
Who are these socio-demographic twins? Both male Both born 1948 Both grew up in the UK Both have divorced and re-married Both have grown up sons Both are very wealthy Both like to spend [...]
What is “customer timing”? In the article on mapping the buyer journey, we discussed what the buying decision-making process is. As marketers, we can use this structure to get a better understanding of our [...]
Is centralised content planning possible? Simple answer: yes. For many organisations, though, the gap between the production of content (i.e. within lots of separate teams) and planning content centrally may appear too enormous a [...]
This is how to commercialise your content strategy and deliver marketing attribution to sale Marketing attribution to sale is an elusive "nirvana" that many CMO's are seeking to achieve, but it is a challenging [...]
The world of customer-centricity can be split into three camps. Firstly there are those that have embraced the need to transform themselves into a customer-centric business. Then secondly there are those who realise that [...]
“Holy Grail”, “Elephant in the Room”, “64 million dollar question”, whatever idiom you want to give it, the marketing industry is quite rightly obsessed by ROI. In the world of content marketing, the initial feeling [...]
Integrating disparate customer communications silos is a major headache for CMOs, as highlighted by a recent survey of 50 CMOs by Marketing Magazine.The article says: “Creating a truly integrated customer experience requires joined-up thinking across [...]
Having a customer-centric culture does not make your business customer-centric. Many factors will be behind this, but the hardest one to tackle will be the customer communications silos that exist within your business. So [...]
PR and marketing has fallen into a trap. This trap is something we call the ‘spinning wheel of engagement’.PR and marketing teams have become very good at engaging their target audiences online and within social [...]
Customer Journey mapping is a term that is increasingly being used within the marketing industry, the but definition of what exactly it means is still very much in dispute. Many commentators refer to Customer Journey [...]
Buyer journey mapping is a process used by marketers to define the behaviour of their target audience when they are trying to persuade them to buy their product or service. Most commonly visualised as [...]
In the article “Houston we have contact!” we talked about the first three steps to take in designing and implementing your contact strategy. Whilst these are all necessary steps, they are still “tactical”. What we [...]
The big picture - the totality of your communications - why you need a communications audit Have you thought about how your business communicates with your customers? Not what you are saying or how [...]
Building a business case to break down the communications silos requires a clear understanding of the business benefits and a considerable amount of internal alignment of different functions. While both are obvious points, they [...]
Two questions with profound consequences for how your market and sell to your customers todayQuestion 1: How many customers make it from your marketing activities through to a sale?Question 2: How many customers are making [...]
The no brainer business value of speaking to your customers’ needsIf I’m going to buy from you, I need to know you can meet my needs; that’s a no brainer. If I’m going to engage [...]
