How to do content marketing rather than marketing content?

Marketing is surrounded by data: Big Data, "Little Data", personal or professional social networks, databases ... Yet the budget allocated to marketing in companies has not grown, it has simply cut into shares more restricted. This # 1to1Biarritz conference, moderated by Andrew Davis, discusses the performance indicators of a customer journey.

How has the marketing budget changed?

25 years ago, the marketing budget was divided into only a few parts, dedicated to positions such as advertising or press relations. If an employee announced to his employer that it was necessary to create a site, the budget for this was for example taken from that of advertising. Today, when we talk about the need to use social networks to improve the visibility of the company, it may be on SEO that the necessary budget will be deducted.

But now it's important to think about the learning potential of data. Marketers need to ask themselves if they are really capable of learning anything at a time when absolutely everything is measurable and where they get lost in the volume of data.

It is considered that within the marketing environment, data is reliability, information is a convenience and performance indicators are assets. Companies need reliable indicators to have a real impact on their marketing and have a deep and accurate understanding of the audiences they target. To do this, they must study the data provided by the purchase route: the funnel.

Why is it necessary to rethink the funnel?

A classic funnel is as follows: discovery, consideration, intention, conversion, loyalty, then transformation of customers into ambassadors. While funnel is an interesting concept, it was invented in 1898 and has not been redesigned since then. However, marketing has changed since then and it is now important to adopt a new vision of the customer journey.

To present this new vision, it is possible to rely on the two ways of seeing the world that are those of Ptolemy and Galilee. Ptolemy thought that the earth was the center of the universe. This approach can be compared to some companies, which expect a large number of visits quite naturally when they create their first website.

Galileo, for his part, claimed that the Earth was not the center of the world, but a small planet revolving around the sun. Marketers must similarly admit that the website of their business is not so important. If they want to make a difference, they must act and think the same way as their most valuable customer, every day.

The sun of the digital universe is represented by Google and its ecosystem. However, the small websites of retailers and brands are lost within this ecosystem. For Andrew Davis, "valid marketing insights do not come from a company's way of thinking, but from acting like a customer." The customer journey must therefore be rethought by adapting to its new behaviors.

How is the new customer journey presented?

Inspiration is now an instantaneous moment that sends the consumer into a customer journey that he did not expect. As a result of this inspiration phase, there is an active evaluation phase that adds or eliminates purchase possibilities as the consumer approaches the conversion moment.

About 53% of BtoB customers, for example, know which company they want to work with even before interacting with it. This figure is 72% for BtoC customers seeking the best brand to make their purchases.

The moment of conversion is linked to the "loyalty loop", which starts at the moment of purchase. It then goes back through new moments of inspiration for the client or the members of his network. These new moments of inspiration bring them closer to the brand. It is particularly within this loyalty loop that important performance indicators are found in the customer journey.

What are the three questions for finding indicators of success?

 There are three main questions that can be used to find relevant performance indicators:

• What are the audiences to target? When you talk to a whole market, you run the risk of failure. To be effective, the company must target a niche. It must be wondering which niche, and therefore which specific audience it can target.
• "How much of the time of your hearing can a company take ownership of? Businesses need to target when the audience thinks or is about to think about their product or service to anticipate the best time to send their message.
• "What drives the market? Brands need to use simple performance indicators that really increase demand. They must not seek to improve their notoriety but to listen to the market to have a greater impact.

In conclusion, some rules must be followed: test and test performance indicators, build on these indicators, reject those who fail, follow the evidence no matter where they drive, and question everything. Following these principles leads to marketing success, no matter how digitalised the world we live in.

SPEAKER:Andrew DAVIS, AUTEUR