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Category: Neuromarketing

What Customer Personality Can Teach You About Your Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Neosperience Team

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Conversion optimization is a matter of persuasion. And persuasion is, first of all, a matter of psychology. As you may know, nobody is better than Robert Cialdini in teaching us about persuasion and psychology as a way to understand how customer's mind works.

Not surprisingly, marketers regularly base promotional techniques on Cialdini's principles of social influence to increase the desirability of their products among customers. The choice of what tactics to use, however, is primarily determined by their business goals, while ‘who’ their customers are - from a psychological point of view - is often pushed into the background.

Reciprocity, Commitment and Consistency, Social Proof, Liking, Authority, and Scarcity. These six principles rely on different psychological motives:

  • The desire to give something back when we've received something (Reciprocity).
  • The need to behave consistently with our previous choices (Commitment and Consistency).
  • The tendency to perform actions that reflect other people's actions (Social Proof).
  • The tendency to like someone or something that seems similar to us (Liking).
  • The tendency to follow the lead of credible, knowledgeable figures (Authority).
  • The desire to have more of those things we can have less of (Scarcity).

Each of these principles is related to our inner needs, which make us different one another. As a result, their effectiveness can be stronger or weaker depending on who is the target audience - always from a psychological perspective.

Here are three good examples.

SOCIAL PROOF

People look at what others do to determine their own behavior, especially when they are uncertain or doubtful. Conforming to others, in fact, helps us to feel part of a social group and avoid social faux pas. This kind of "peer power", however, works only with certain types of people.

The ideal customer personality

Social proof is typically more persuasive to people who have a high need for approval and a desire to conform, but it can't work with those who seek uniqueness. Having a high need for uniqueness, in fact, undermines the influence of majority (Imhoff & Erb, 2009). As a result, recommendation techniques such as "people like you bought this" may bother uniqueness-seeking customers while attracting conformity-seekers at the same time.

SCARCITY

People perceive products as more attractive and valuable when their availability is rather limited. So, when they believe that something is in short supply, they want it more. Because valuable things are often scarce, people tend to conclude that scarce things are valuable and more desirable. That is why customers are so attracted by products promoted as being "scarce" (versus abundant), in time or quantity (Cialdini, 1993).

Promotions such as the 'limit one per customer' sales and the 'limited editions' are designed to harness the persuasive power of the scarcity effect. However, as they rely on specific psychological mechanisms, the effectiveness of scarcity changes according to "whom" they are addressed.

The ideal customer personality

Scarcity effect by its nature conveys a feeling of urgency and the belief that you will be missing out on something if you fail to act quickly. A personality trait called "need for closure" refers to one's desire for gaining a definitive answer to a question, thus avoiding uncertainty.

People who are high on this trait feel the urge to come to a quick decision, and scientific research demonstrates that scarcity affects them more compared to people who tend to avoid closure and are more comfortable with ambiguity (Jung & Kellaris 2004). As a result, customers with higher need for closure would be more prone to buy something if they know that it is the very last one or that a special deal will soon expire.

RECIPROCITY

People feel the need to give back to others the form of behaviors, favors or gifts that they have received in the first place. In other words, they want to treat others the same way they have treated them before and, more importantly, be the last to give.

Running a blog that offers highly actionable and useful insights for free; a waiter or waitress that gives you a gift - such as a fortune cookie, or a mint - when bringing your bill; offering a gift incentive upfront rather than at the end of a sale.

All these common-used tactics apply the principle of reciprocity to make your readers more willing to buy something from you or provide you with a conversion and to be more generous tippers. As we all know, however, the feeling of being indebted to others, the sense of gratitude and the desire to repay a kindness, are not equally present in each of us.

The ideal customer personality

Studies have found that such "prosocial" tendencies are strongly rooted in personality and, especially, in individual differences in agreeableness.

Agreeable people are typically more grateful, thankful, and trustful. They are also more likely to attribute their positive outcomes to the intentional behavior of others, while distrustful people tend to be suspicious, skeptical, and address others' kindness to personal or selfish gain. So, agreeable customers are perfect for reciprocity-based engagement techniques.

If you think that customers decisions are just based on past behaviors, you are wrong. They mainly depend on who they are. That is why it is imperative to put effort into knowing the human side of your customers and choose how to communicate with them on a personal level.

In a world where hyper-personalization is an essential factor for success in every business, blending empathy in your marketing strategy becomes the key to meet the challenge. Add technology to the equation, and that is the key to make it scalable.

References:

Cialdini, R. (1993). The psychology of influence. New York: William Morrow & Co.

Imhoff, Roland, Hans-Peter Erb. 2009. What motivates nonconformity? Uniqueness seeking blocks majority influence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 35(3) 309–320.

Jung, J. M., & Kellaris, J. J. (2004). Cross‐national differences in proneness to scarcity effects: The moderating roles of familiarity, uncertainty avoidance, and need for cognitive closure. Psychology & Marketing, 21(9), 739-753.

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Be Human - Matching Customer Personality is the New Key to Relevance

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Travel Customer Journey – The Evolution Of Planning and Purchasing

Posted on by Neosperience Team

 

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Brace Yourself; Vacation days coming!

Whether it is the summer or winter season, the desire to travel never misses the opportunity. For those who want to plan their trip, but also those who produce and sell vacation-related products and services.

The desire to explore the world has not changed over the last century, and will not change in the next future. What has evolved dramatically - in the last decade - is the way we research, plan and purchase our trips. What Google has called The Travel Customer Journey. A disruption made possible - again - by the smartphone.

Long gone are the days when planning a vacation (a honeymoon or a business trip) meant you had to trust a specialized agency, with little control over the final result. In the nineties, the Internet has opened a whole world of information for the customers, and then mobile technology did the rest, switching the balance of power definitely.

Today, the smartphone is the first point of reference whenever we need to find the solution to a problem or the product that perfectly fits our needs. Travel planning makes no exception, as perfectly summed up by a series of reports released by Google on Think With Google.

“As more research happens in the traveler's customer journey, there are more micro moments - when people turn to a device with intent to answer an immediate need. In these moments, the stakes are high for travel brands as preferences are shaped, and decisions are made. What happens in these micro-moments ultimately affects the travel decision-making process.”

In our times of economic constraints, organizing a vacation can be tricky business:

  • People see the travel as an investment, and so take all the time needed to research the possibilities (mostly using their mobile devices).
  • Travelers usually worry they are not finding the best solution or making the best decision, even while they are paying and booking.
  • Even when they find a last minute opportunity, most customers bounce back and forth between destinations, websites, agencies, and price comparison engines.

Customers are much more conscious and demanding than in the past. They spend more time researching and comparing the alternatives (in terms of destinations and providers). They go through a multitude of touchpoints and, even though they take quick decisions, ultimately ponder every single detail.

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If your brand plays in this industry, the task is clear and simple:

  • You must show up during the critical micro moments of travel research process;
  • You must be there, reachable whenever customers need your attention or help;
  • You must be useful, engaging them with relevant, useful, personalized contents and offers;
  • You must be quick. If you do not convert your customers, someone else will (namely a competitor).

The main reference for this article is the ‘Travel Micro-Moments Guide’ published by Google. The underlying assumption is that “travelers increasingly turn to mobile in real time and on-the-go, making informed decisions faster than ever before. For marketers, this means there are new opportunities to connect throughout the entire travel customer journey, across devices and channels.”

Researchers have defined four main travel micro moments that matter:

I Want To Get Away - We explore options and ideas, looking for inspiration.

Time To Make a Plan - We have a destination, and look for dates, flights, accommodation.

Let’s Book It - We are ready to book and look for extra activities to reserve.

Can’t Wait To Explore - We prepare to live the experience, and share it with the others.

Given the premise, we see a huge opportunity for those who provide products and services related to the various the steps of the travel experience. The digital customer journey of the travelers has become more complex than ever, and so you have multiple chances to engage customers.

Whether you are an online or offline business, you may tap into one of the main micro moments or everywhere in between those, proposing suitable and innovative solutions. In example: a micro-insurance delivered on the smartphone at the right time; a local transportation mobile app filled with shopping and entertainment suggestions; a conversational interface or Facebook Messenger chatbot that helps customers find the best prices or deal.

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Of course, mobile is the keyword to understand the new scenario, because the micro moments mostly unravel online:

“Recent data show that there are already more searches on mobile than desktop for select travel categories, such as family vacations and luxury travel. And when it comes to planning holiday activities, mobile devices are giving travelers increased flexibility. Many travelers are willing to plan activities on the fly, while they are at their destination.”

The optimization for mobile is mandatory now that customers take faster decisions and expect faster experiences:

“Over 90% of travelers using mobile devices will switch to another site or app if their needs are not being met. 79% of mobile travelers say that when researching on their smartphones, they are looking for the most relevant information available, regardless of where it comes from.”

The continuous transition from the real world to the digital dimension generate a whole new set of data that you can use to get a better understanding of customers. When it comes to travels, in fact, not all customers are equal.

Also, this type of experiences is heavily influenced by the emotional and psychological traits. Data-backed psychographics research becomes essential if you want to sketch a proper customer journey map, build a successful digital strategy, and ultimately deliver truly personalized contents linked to the emotional profiles of the different customers.

Once you determine customers’ behaviors and deepest needs, you can anticipate their needs and desires. You will also be able to prioritize the right audience and target the most valuable customers with tailor-cut contents, notifications, and promotions.

“Travel marketers need to account for the new multi-device, multi-channel landscape. And those who are moments-ready—and consistently manage their share of intent to meet consumer demand—will take the lion's share of the reward.”

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Soft Skills are the New Core Skills – and Technology Can Hire Them

Posted on by Neosperience Team

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Mark Murphy, the author of Hiring For Attitude, leadership trainer and CEO of Leadership IQ, has trained companies like Microsoft and IBM. In one of his research he tracked 20,000 new hires, and found that 46% of them failed within 18 months.

Even more shocking than the failure rate was the fact that 89% of the time it happened for attitudinal problems towards work and colleagues, and only 11% for lack of expertise. The attitudinal deficits included low levels of emotional intelligence, motivation, and temperament.

In today's fluid and interpersonal workplaces, skills such listening and learning from criticism, collaborating with others, working under pressure, presenting ideas effectively, and a having a positive, flexible attitude become all vital qualities for career success.

And while studying takes us on a path towards acquiring those hard, technical skills that we need to manage our job operationally, soft skills have little to do with knowledge or expertise. They are closely linked with our character.

As a combination of social competences, communication abilities, and emotional intelligence, soft skills are the spearhead of our inner nature and a direct result of our personal inclinations, which can strengthen or weaken them.

Some personality traits, in particular, have proven to be strong predictors of career success, leading to superior performances in general people’s working lives and within different jobs.

Let’s look at two important - yet not so well-known - personality traits: Internal Locus of Control, the key to success in any work environment; Need for Closure, which can have a different impact in various job functions.

Locus of Control

Locus of Control is our tendency to believe that 'control' resides internally within us, or externally, with others or the situation.

Individuals with an internal Locus of Control (called "internals") feel that they are in charge of their life and have primary responsibility for their actions, whether they are successes or failures.

Individuals with an external Locus of Control (called "externals") tend to feel more vulnerable and view themselves as victims of circumstances, fate, luck, and the influence of other people. They are more likely to make excuses or blame other people, events, or things, rather than taking responsibilities.

Having an internal Locus of Control is a source of energy, motivation, and confidence, which represents an advantage at all levels within an organization in many areas and situations. For example:

Effective Leadership. An "internal" leader is more likely to be favored by group members. One reason is that "internals" are perceived as more influential than "externals" because they take responsibility for events, emphasizing that they can change unfavorable conditions.

Taking the Initiative. Effective managers demonstrate a strong self-efficacy and an internal Locus of Control when they take steps to circumvent obstacles, actively seek information to solve problems, and usually initiate action, rather than waiting for things to happen.

Occupational Well-being. Amongst other things, Locus of Control is found to be a strong predictor of occupational health, and 'internal' employees show higher levels of job satisfaction and lower levels of job insecurity.

Need for Closure

Need for Closure (NFC) describes people's desire for a firm answer to a question or an issue and an aversion toward ambiguity.

A person with a high NFC prefers order and predictability and, in uncertain situations, tends to seek closure urgently. In contrast, a person with a low NFC tends to tolerate more, or even to look for the fluidity of uncertain situations.

In business and management, this personality trait has significant implications. For example:

Decision Making. Employees' level of NFC can serve as a useful criterion to select decision makers in organizations, by identifying the decision-making style that fits better with a job function. People with a high NFC prefer to think about black-or-white solutions and simplified dichotomization. They are more willing to make instant decisions, whereas people with a low need for closure prefer to postpone decisions and carry out a more in-depth evaluation, even if it takes extra time.

Leadership Behavior. Experimental findings have highlighted that individual differences in the desire to reduce uncertainty affect people's leadership style. For example, supervisors that are high on NFC tend to show an autocratic leadership and a preference for 'hard power' tactics of social influence, whereas 'soft power' tactics are those that managers with a low NFC value most.

Coping with Change. Because of their desire for stability and permanence, people with a high NFC feel uncomfortable with change. They are also more resistant to changing their minds and yielding to persuasion attempts. For example, high NFC levels are associated with political conservatism, an ideology whose core definition involves resistance to change.

Personality assessments have always been a common practice amongst large companies, to identify peoples' strengths and weaknesses and help HR managers decide whether or not an employee is a good organizational fit. To this end, traditional paper-based and web-based questionnaires are still today the primary tool used by companies.

Technology, however, is changing the face of the HR world by progressively, but rapidly, automating processes on previously unimaginable scales. Today's softwares can do much more than grade multiple-choice questions to measure people's technical skills.

With natural language processing and machine learning algorithms analyzing things like keywords, intonation, and body language, it becomes possible to capture more intangible human qualities. This data can then be used to create a psychological profile that allows HR managers to predict whether a person's attitudes fit with the company’s culture, values, and desired behaviors.

For the past year, the consumer-goods giant Unilever - for which about 170,000 employees work worldwide - has been using artificial intelligence to screen all its entry-level employees, and neuroscience-based games to measure their inherent traits. The company needed to renew itself, and transforming new talent recruitment by digitizing the first steps of the hiring process was a great way to do so, says Mike Clementi, VP of human resources for North America.

More and more, it has become clear that Artificial Intelligence not only improves the work processes of employees by automating time-consuming daily tasks; it is revolutionizing the HR world at all stages. Let’s look at some of them:

Hiring Process. By scanning resumes, machine learning algorithms can do initial screenings to identify the best candidates, eliminate unqualified prospects, and then create shortlists that can be organized based on specific skills, keywords or employment history.

Training Methods. By recording how an employee is responding to an ongoing training program, AI can help HR managers to better tailor future training sessions to each worker.

Performance Evaluation. By analyzing productivity data, AI can help to measure how well an employee is performing, thus becoming a supplemental tool to management decisions.

Turnover Prediction. By analyzing employee engagement data, gathered from quantitative surveys or qualitative methods, AI can determine an employee’s level of commitment or satisfaction, and better predict if he or she is at risk of leaving. That allows HR managers to decide whether to adopt some backup retention measures or provide new growth opportunities.

There have been great strides in the HR world, since technology was usually seen simply as a tool to streamline technical procedures. A turning point comes when AI applications are increasingly expanding from specific standardized, low cognitive demand tasks, to typically human jobs, such as discovering the human side of employees, from their temporary feelings and emotions to their stable personality traits.

We cannot predict the future of HR with a 100 percent certainty, but what we can see is undoubtedly a world where technology will embrace more and more the human side of people.

Photo by Larm Rmah on Unsplash

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Be Human – Matching Customer Personality is the New Key to Relevance

Posted on by Neosperience Team

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There came a time when the digital era took over the analog world and completely changed the face of marketing, with no possible turning back.

If you ask how things changed, most marketers will likely point at three main areas of marketing that have been disrupted: Speed, Relevance, Reach. The rise of digital means you can (must) be incredibly fast and get an unprecedented coverage - something you could only dream two decades ago.

If we focus on the mere numbers, there is no comparison between the analog and the digital worlds. It gets a bit more complicated when it comes to relevance, a purely subjective concept.

When we say or hear that digital technology has given us highly relevant marketing and branding campaigns, what are we referring to?

In our previous article about the Psychographics we have emphasized how a good seller always understands his customer, and has an easy game knowing how to communicate with him - not just what to propose but how to sell it. In his own way, he is surely relevant.

In the digital communication, this kind of ‘human’ relevance is lost: messages are targeted to specific groups of users, which are segmented and profiled based on some objective, explicit and observable data (typically demographic and behavioral).

Attitudes, emotions, and personality are almost never considered, although they are a big part of what makes the human communication so appropriate, empathic, and relevant.

Here, we are talking about the importance of psychology and the influence it has on the development of marketing and technology. What can psychology do to increase the relevance of your Brand’s communication on digital channels, where technology - with its speed and reach - has replaced the human touch?

For decades now, psychological studies have played a prominent role by identifying strategies to improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns through the principles of persuasion. One such strategy, known as message tailoring, involves the adaptation of communication to the characteristics of the customer.

As researchers have shown, messages that fit with an individual’s attitudes and dispositional motives are processed more fluently and evaluated more positively than incongruent messages. These effects have been observed across several domains, including prevention, behavioral change, and consumer purchases.

For marketing and advertising professionals, this means that tailoring the messages so that they match customer personality can be a promising tactic to increase the effectiveness of campaigns.

To better understand this interweaving of disciplines, we have to pass from theory to practice. For example, by framing the messages through the well known Big Five model of personality, it becomes possible to target a broad variety of motives, including:

  • Desire for excitement, social rewards, energy, and fun - powerful drivers for Extroverts.
  • Sympathy, interpersonal harmony, connection with family and community - values more significant for Agreeable people.
  • Efficiency, order and goal pursuit - primary motives for Conscientious people.
  • Quiet, carefree, safety and security - people with lower Emotional stability pay more attention to these benefits.
  • Creativity, curiosity, innovation, imagination and intellectual stimulation - perfect features when interacting with people Open to experience.

As a result, an advertisement emphasizing a specific motivational concern, congruent with the user’s personality traits, would be more effective in term of attention, evaluation, and impact.

To sum up, in an era where the customer centricity is more and more about personalization, understanding customers as human beings in their uniqueness is the only way to anticipate their needs and desires.

If you know what they are about to do before they actually do it, you will unlock the true power of digital and mobile technologies; Technology may make giant leaps forward in all areas, but communication is definitely where Natural Intelligence still wins.

We are empathetic human beings, and we can flexibly adapt our attitude, language, and relational approach. In this perspective, machines are still far away from us, and will probably always be.

That is why you should strive not to replace human with technology, but to fill the gap between the two by infusing more human capabilities into technology. Talk to your customers as humans, and you will ultimately build strong, intimate, long lasting relationships.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

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Psychographics – Turn Mass Personalization into Customer Uniqueness

Posted on by Neosperience Team

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Mass Marketing is dead, that's nothing new. In a world dominated by the culture of "Me", one size doesn't fit all. Customers - no matter what their socioeconomic status is - want to take center stage. They want to be loved by the Brands they love, in return for their loyalty.

If you are not willing to take care of your customers’ emotions, desires and needs, they will devote their soul and heart to your competitors. In this ever-customer-centric scenario, personalization goes from being a nice-to-have to becoming a must-have.

For over 15 years, one-to-one marketing (also called personalized marketing, or individual marketing) has moved in this direction to help companies engage with customers the right way, based on their needs, preferences, and behaviors.

Global players such as Netflix, Amazon, and Spotify, to name a few, are well-known for being data-driven companies aiming at the customer excellence.

Netflix knows the ‘completion rate’ for a TV series; how many users started and finished it til the end of the last season; where the common cut-off point was; how long has passed between when they watched one episode and then the next.

And the data go even deeper: when you pause, rewind, or fast forward; when you watch a specific type of content; where you watch and what device you use; the ratings you give, what you do after any episode - if you leave the app or go back to browsing.

The same way, Amazon constantly analyzes what items you purchased; what is in your wishlist; what you search for the most; which products you reviewed and rated; and uses this information to recommend you additional products based on what the other customers purchased in the same situation.

Given this continuous evolution towards a more and more detailed knowledge of a customer’s ‘moves’ and features, the question is: What is the missing piece that will enable Brands to create a more intimate, long-lasting relationship with customers?

Tracking behaviors is a critical task, no doubt about it. However, it is not enough to explain, discover or predict the 'Why' of our behaviors, feelings, and choices, that is deeply linked to our inner world and is a consequence of 'Who' we truly are.

Who we are - our unique personality - affects our behaviors more than people think or realize. And even more than marketers do. Understanding this simple fact is the basic requirement to persona-lize your strategy.

A crowded place full of new people can excite an extroverted and annoy an introvert. An extreme sport or a transgressive experience will attract those who love taking risks, and scare those who avoid them. An open-minded person will be excited to try an entirely new product, while a conservative person will prefer to wait for that product to be tested by others.

It is evident that we - as marketers - are missing something important, the human side of customers.

The interesting thing is that our personality determines not only what we like, but also our communication preferences and, consequently, what is most likely to persuade us. As empathetic human beings, we can flexibly adapt our language and relational approach from time to time, depending on who we are dealing with.

A good seller who understands his customer has an easy game because he knows how to communicate with him - not just what to propose but how to paint it.

As an example, let's take a personality trait known as Need for Uniqueness, the pursuing of differentness relative to others, that can be obtained through the purchase and use of goods and services.

This personality trait can be a key buying reason in various contexts, such as shopping for clothes. Some people usually look for items that visibly distinguish them from others, and when they realize that another person also wears something they just bought, they lose interest or even get annoyed.

Other people, on the other hand, prefer to blend with others - especially their reference group - and use their dressing style to emphasize this membership and belonging.

Now think about this. What if fashion brands had this information readily available for each customer, exactly as they already know the age, sex, and last purchase?

Would they communicate their offer in the same way? We hope not. Such information would radically change the way they see customers, interact with them and deliver unique customer experiences.

One-to-one marketing, as we know it, is surely getting smarter thanks to the huge amount of detailed data on what customers do across all stages and channels of their journey. But if this is useful, it is not necessarily exponential.

The innovation here does not come with the increasing of the data managed, but by introducing new ideas and criteria to evaluate those data (i.e. the Psychographics, based on techniques that have been developed and refined over 100 years of cognitive, behavioral and social psychology).

Mass communication is dead, and mass personalization is evolving to embrace the human side of customers progressively. Starting from now, an empathetic marketing strategy will take marketing and customer experience to the next level.

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Take These 5 Steps And Reinvent Your Customer Journey Map

Posted on by Neosperience Team

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“The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

With the wisdom of this Chinese saying, let's start 'our journey' to discover how the 'customer journey' has changed in the last five years, pushed by the evolution of mobile technology, and what this means for your Brand.

The rise of the born-digital generations of customers (Millennials and post-Millennials) makes your traditional customer journey map obsolete. Every single map that you have used in the last decades is now useless. How can you recover?

In the digital ecosystem, everything changes at such an impressive pace that you risk losing sight if you do not get a new compass, a unique perspective to engage and monetize customers. The disruption brought in by the smartphone is unprecedented and requires drastic measures.

First things first, we need to clarify the difference between traditional customer journeys and the digital customer journey. We can simplify and streamline the two processes:

Traditional Customer Journey

Think of it as a (mostly) linear sequence going from the Awareness to the Consideration and then Purchase:

  • This funnel unravels across few touch points, well-known and presided by marketers;
  • The customer has a limited set of alternatives;
  • The communication is usually top-down and lead by the Brand;
  • Customer's choices are influenced by the 4 Ps of marketing, by routine and the trusted opinions of my closed circle of friends and relatives.

Digital Customer Journey

A neverending journey, not necessarily starting from the Attention/Awareness or ending with the Loyalty:

  • This funnel unravels across an increasing number of touch points, both in physical and digital worlds.
  • The customer has tons of alternatives;
  • The communication is always two-way;
  • Customer's choices are rarely influenced by advertising, price or routine. The circle of trust includes the online communities: social networks, e-commerce reviews, forums and blogs.

The evolution of technology reshapes the essence of the journey and this, in return, defines the pillars of your marketing strategy. In our ecosystem you should never underestimate:

  1. The arise of young customers - the picky millennials and the elusive GenerationZ.
  2. The growth of connected technologies - trackers, wearables, beacons, the Internet of Things.
  3. The dawn of Micro Moments - real-time mobile interactions, driven by specific intents.

The digital customers are accustomed to living surrounded by connected devices that melt the offline and online worlds. They build their identity by interacting with their virtual and pshysical communities, and do not recognize any other way of experiencing (life, emotions, and relationships).

In our markets, made flat by the globalization, your customers refuse to be considered as part of an indistinct mass. Each customer wants to be treated as an individual. This rejection of the massification requires that you invest your marketing efforts on the personalization and relevance of contents and experiences.

Today, there is a question to answer: Why should people buy from you when they can choose from a potentially infinite set of alternatives? You are not simply battling against your neighbors; you are fighting against thousands of suppliers from all over the world. Even a great, unique product might be not enough to win.

What then? The customer experience becomes the real key to differentiate your Brand, and the creation of a new customer journey map the ground to deliver personalized experiences. You need an innovative approach to the mapping of an unstructured journey, or your clients will still be strangers, inanimate figures you do not know anything about.

Luckily, you can still rely on a few basic requirements that have not changed ever since the idea of ‘customer journey map’ was considered for the first time. While the contents and the framework evolves with technology, you will always have to start your planning from these foundational elements:

Buyer Personas + Customers + Emotions + Research + Touch Points + Objectives + Measurement

On the one hand, marketers need to reach the customers when they stand in the early stages of the journey; unfortunately, that is the most obscure moment. The Brands usually know very little about customers' emotional profiles, and the traditional research methodologies does not provide useful data that show what clients were doing and thinking before - let's say - they entered your website or store.

That is exactly why you need a revamped version of the journey mapping. Starting with the following prerequisites.

RETHINK THE JOURNEY

Of course, behind a new mapping there is a new journey. Every single social and technological trend leads to the inevitable reinvention of the customer journey. There is no value in a map that ignores the different sources of interaction brought out by the mobile disruption.

The innovation extends the relationship between companies and people, to embrace the added value for both Brands and customers. Stay eyes wide open and willing to test and learn new means of engagement and fidelization; only then you will earn customer's loyalty and trust.

ENGAGE THE CUSTOMER

The foundational element of the journey is the traveller, of course. And yet, you might be surprised to know how many marketers still design their journey map starting from the company and the products instead of the customers.

Since the whole point here is to improve the relationship between your clients and your business, the only way you can build a map that actually works is to bring the customer's perspective into the process. Describe not the experience that you want to provide (or you think you are providing) but the experience that people expect (and you are actually providing).

UNVEIL THE EMOTIONS

The key is to understand how people take decisions and choose what to buy and how to buy. In a world where the smartphone has become the first screen and the attention span is lower than ever, not all customers are alike, and not all journeys should be considered equal.

People embark on very different journeys, driven by peculiar behaviors and personality traits. Each journey has different touch points that can be influenced by unexpected causes and intents. Individual needs, emotions and expectations lead to very personal behaviors. If you do not study these patterns (i.e. Psychographic profiling), you will not be able to reach the contextualization required to appeal each person.

CONNECT THE DOTS

Mobile technology reshapes the journey, influencing both the space and time of the interaction. The smartphone reboots the entire experience of communicating, searching for information, and connecting with people and brands. According to Nielsen, half of customers believe that mobile is the most important resource in the purchase decision-making.

Mobile platforms already account for more than 60% of total time spent on digital media. Your strategy should think mobile and act local, combining location and behavior to deliver meaningful contents, wherever your customers are. Connect the dots to get a holistic view of the ecosystem.

UNLOCK THE (SMALL) DATA

While it is still hard to understand what customers think and do in the early stages of their journey, companies can now take advantage of something they did not have before. Something that shuffles the cards on the table: small data.

Connected technologies create a large quantity of information about the customer's path; you only have to find the way to unlock the power hidden into this information. The key is to match the different sources and step from Big to Small data. Always remember that the real value not the information itself but what you do with this knowledge.

"Activating customer journeys to capture value requires journeys to be treated like products that need to be actively managed, measured, and nurtured. How well companies are able to do that will dictate how successful they are in making customer journeys a competitive advantage." (McKinsey)

Photo by Mahkeo on Unsplash

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Editor's Note: This post was originally published in October 2015 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy with the latest trends and advancements of digital customer experience.

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“Persona-lize” Your Strategy To Change the Face of Customer Centricity

Posted on by Neosperience Team

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Recently, we have talked about Gamification as an unconventional way to engage customers and increase loyalty, in a world where the two go hand-in-hand and are intimately related.

Now we take a step back to move forward, shifting the focus from the engagement to the understanding. Even before thinking about ‘how’ to drive customer loyalty, in fact, you need to figure out ‘who’ your loyal customers are.

Behavioral science has done a lot of work to provide marketers with valuable insights. The aim is to put customers in a buying mood, by pushing the right buttons, finding the right needs to tap and shaping them with the right words.

As an effect, you will be able to drive customers’ preferences and other virtuous behaviors, including positive word-of-mouth, loyalty, and so on. These goals are of primary concern to all marketers, regardless of the industry or the competitive arena.

If word choices reveal - consciously or unconsciously - our state of mind, so the shared language reveals shared meanings, and shows a certain view of the world which continues to strengthen over time.

In the same way, marketing language says a lot about the relevant culture, mindset, and attitude amongst professionals, and the more we think about it, the more we get skeptical about the long-term effectiveness of this approach.

We can sum it up in two questions. The first one is of a purely linguistic nature.

Who Takes Center Stage?

Reach the target audience, shape customers’ needs, drive preferences and choices, stimulate customers to buy. All these expressions have something in common, beyond being overused: the brand takes action, not the customer.

We talk a lot about customer-centricity and the shift from passive to empowered customers, but the reality is that more is said (and “story-told”) than done.

Our language reveals what implicit stereotypes and beliefs are still embedded in our brains, including such of companies and brands actively shaping customers’ attitudes and thus driving desired behavior - but does this not represent a step back from the very concept of customer empowerment?

One of the most important - and most sensitive - issues for brands is customer loyalty. When it comes to loyalty, we use to say that loyal customers are typically those more satisfied, engaged, and delighted.

That is absolutely true, but we are again taking in account solely the perspective of the Brand, and so considering an oversimplified and incomplete version of the reality, the one that better explains marketers’ goals rather than those of the customers.

And here comes the second question:

What about individual differences?

This approach takes into account customers as if they were a single monolithic entity, to be treated in the same way. Of course, as human beings, we are not totally separable: we share common basic human needs, motives and cognitive patterns that determine our spontaneous behavior in response to certain stimuli.

Individual differences, however, play a crucial role in determining people’s preferences and choices, whether it comes to personal life, professional decisions, or purchase behaviors.

Sometimes consciously, sometimes not, our dispositional motives continually shape and drive the experiences that we have, including our buying experiences. So, why should these factors not be considered in your marketing and communication strategy?

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There is clear evidence that tailored messages are considerably more effective than one-size-fits-all campaigns, and that the effectiveness of tailoring increases with greater customization and adaptation to the unique features of the recipient.

For example, as suggested by Higgins in 2000, you should frame your message to match the recipient’s personal goals by focusing either on promoting gains (e.g., “Product X makes teeth stronger”) or on preventing losses (e.g., “Product X prevents cavities”).

Moreover, many other researchers have shown that messages that are consistent with an individual’s motivational orientation are processed more fluently and evaluated more positively than inconsistent ones.

The effects of what we can call the “message/person congruence” have been examined in correlation to differnt psychological characteristics, including the Big Five Factors, by changing the framing of a message to target specific motives, such as desires for excitement and social rewards, connection with family and community, efficiency and goal pursuit, safety and security, creativity and intellectual stimulation (i.e. see Personalized Persuasion).

For years, retailers have been using a variety of personal information, such as purchase and the website journey history, to tailor their online offers to individual customers. But an emerging literature in the field of Marketing Psychology says that personality traits are no less important.

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own”, Henry Ford said.

One of the first rules of persuasion is: Know your audience. In a world of companies and Brands striving for relevance, understanding your audience’s point of view is a strong element of differentiation. Understanding every single customer’s point of view? That would be the turning point!

First of all, customers are individuals, and every individual is unique - the way we think, behave, and act, we all do it differently. As the way we communicate to others reflects our mindset, even the way we respond to (and are attracted by) different communication styles changes significantly, depending on our personality. We are more likely to interact, listen, share, believe and be persuaded by communication styles tailored on our peculiarities.

To cut it short, understating customers’ ability to shape the world around them proactively gets into conflict with the very idea of customer-centricity. More, overlooking customers’ individual characteristics undermines the concept of personalization, turning it into a ‘buzzword’ without any substance.

Taken together, these two ‘gaps’ offer huge opportunities for those who are willing to overcome the ‘Business As Usual’ (to quote Brian Solis) and define a real turning point in the world of customer experience. What would you do if you were able to “persona-lize” your marketing strategy?

Download The 7 Pillars Of The New Customer Loyalty to define the foundations on which to build your engagement and loyalty strategy, create innovative experiences and establish a lasting and valuable relationship with your customers.

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Mythological Marketing – The Future of Your Brand is in The Past

Posted on by Neosperience Team

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What is the meaning of your marketing? What are the roots of your storytelling? More and more companies embark on a long journey to discover the hidden traits of their identity. And what they find is a long red thread that goes straight to the roots of culture and society.

There is a persistent wave that moves underneath the structures of modern business, molding everything we do. Sometimes we recognize it, sometimes not. This wave is made of myths and heroes, and it is shaping a new marketing. Mythological Marketing.

The union between myths and marketing is not a new thing. The art of selling has always been closely related to the ability to leverage on the hidden meanings we all bring in. That is, in example, the reason why a Brand rarely offers the same type of message in different markets, even for the same product.

To be compelling and engaging, the storytelling must resonate with the feelings and perceptions (and prejudices) of a particular audience. The content and the context are inescapably entwined, more so in a time of technological revolutions where the concepts of space and time lose relevance.

“Myths are the stories people tell to explain nature, history, and customs. Myth is a feature of every culture. Mythologizing continues, as shown in contemporary mythopoeia such as urban legends and the expansive fictional mythoi created by fantasy novels and comics. A culture's collective mythology helps convey belonging, shared and religious experiences, behavioral models, and moral and practical lessons.” (Wikipedia)

As human beings, we come from different narratives, layered over the centuries, but these stories are all rooted in myths: Greek, Roman, Mesopotamian, Norse, Celtic, Egyptian, African (with all its nuances), Biblical, and so on. They all provide a reference to the many stories that have been formed by peoples throughout all of time.

Long gone are the days when marketing was considered a ‘left brain matter’. Today, we know that the emotional elements guide our decisions, not only as people but also as customers. The marriage between the left brain and the right brain is essential to unlocking the unreleased and untapped power of mythological marketing.

If we consider the last couple of centuries, however, it is easy to see how the Western economies have dismissed the emotions in the name of a more rational approach to productivity and economy.

We find it hard to communicate with our emotions. Sometimes, they are even considered a sign of weakness (“You are too emotional!” is a negative catch phrase we hear too often). But now we know that understanding the emotions plays a pivotal role in the creation of meaningful experiences.

To drive positive behavior, goodwill, and business results, you must engage with customers by deeply appealing to their emotions with delightful, person-centric experiences. If you agree upon the fact that customer experience is the primary differentiator in today’s markets, then you recognize how critical is to study the myths that lay the foundations of our right brain.

Even though the entire human species shares a few basic, hard-wired emotions, in fact, most of them are a product of the cultural and anthropological substrate. Today more than ever you have to understand and drive the major clusters of emotions that either destroy or drive added value and create loyal customers.

So, we can define mythological marketing as the marketing that can speak both to the left and right brain. A marketing that can bring the emotional dimensions back to the role they deserve, and blend them with the functional elements, forging a storytelling that is unique and relevant to the customer.

Customer experience, customer journey mapping, content marketing, social media management, psychographic profiling, product development and launch: every single activity you plan and execute is influenced by what you are and what your customers are. Even your company’s archetype comes from there.

At a basic level, it is pretty easy to recognize the Brands that have been heavily influenced by the ancient myths - especially Greek mythology, embedded into our everyday culture. Nike comes from the Greek goddess of victory; Pandora originates from the ancient Greek “all gifted” woman; Amazon derives from a Greek woman warrior (and so does DC Comics’ Wonder Woman).

Way more difficult is to find companies that have used mythology as the building ground for their storytelling and content marketing efforts. The lack of examples highlights how ‘young’ this marketing trend is, and how many opportunities lie ahead for those who can catch them.

Recently, the Italian fashion house Prada has launched a jewelry line named Talisman. According to Luxury Daily, this is an “homage to what the Brand refers to as the original designs, as individuals in ancient times would construct and revere objects for their magical properties.”

The main object of the communication campaign was to build belonging, leveraging on a shared narrative every customer could connect with. The launch of the collection, in fact, has been accompanied by a short film that:

“Celebrates the potential for the supernatural that exists in these pieces (...) The Talisman film speaks to modern tribalism and the simultaneous coexistence of individual and affinity-centered communities. The talisman itself, a finely made and unique piece, is portrayed as a source of mystic strength, protection, and desire while making a strong statement in support of handcraft."

Another brilliant example, reported by Harvard Business Review, is about Future Group, India’s fastest-growing retailer, and shows the differences in the approach to myths between Western and Eastern cultures.

Kishore Biyani, CEO of Future Group, shows respect for how the West is innovating the customer experience, but he is also well-aware that such a vision must come to terms with the peculiarities of the Indian tradition.

Thus, he has tried to design innovative customer experiences - aimed at improving employee engagement - that blend the best of West and East, collaborating with consultant and mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik, one of the world’s leading experts on Indian mythology.

“Devdutt explained that all employee training programs at Future Group always start with storytelling, inspired by Indian mythology. The goal is to galvanize and inspire workers - from store clerks to senior execs - to adhere to the vision by unveiling it as a story drawn from, say, the Mahabharata with well-known characters like Krishna that they can all relate to.”

Mythological marketing is about discovering your true self, understanding the traits that form people and embracing the emotional side of our world. A ‘whole brain’ approach that helps customers believe they are not just purchasing something, but they are taking part in a story. The oldest and most engaging story ever told.

Cover Photo by Austin Neill on Unsplash

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Generation Z – Understand And Engage The Mobile-First Customers

Posted on by Neosperience Team

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We have barely started to understand millennial customers, and it is already time to move on. Say hi to the Generation Z, the first ‘truly mobile-first’ generation of customers, set to disrupt (again) the way you plan and execute your business.

Till now, the GenZ has been overlooked in marketing research, because younger customers did not have the same purchasing power of the previous generations. The spotlight was on Millennials, but things are swiftly changing.

Just so we are clear:

  • The Generation Y, what we call Millennials, includes those born between the early 1980s to the mid 1990s.
  • The Generation Z, also know as Post-Millennials or iGeneration, includes those born between the mid 1990s to the early 2000s.

Millennials have captivated marketers and researchers for the past five years or so because they have represented the final transition from an analog to a digital world. They were - and still are - the first digital customers, with a very peculiar mindset and unprecedented needs and desires.

The digital customer is, still today, the primary focus of business planning, but there are new kids in town, and you should not ignore them. We are talking about almost 60 million teens in the US alone, that translates into more than a quarter of the entire US population.

While the two generations have some traits in common, in fact, they also show different behaviors and approaches when it comes to technology. The GenZ grew up submerged in a digital world, shaped by mobile devices. They do not know other world but this.

Millennial customers were mobile pioneers, but today’s teens are mobile natives. A huge difference. They live in symbiosis with their smartphone; they rely on Google, social networks, and communities for all daily activities.

They are not shy about buying online from their mobile devices and, even when they go to the retail store, they walk in expecting something fresh, innovative, engaging. A powerful customer experience, in a few words.

This generation of customers brings to completion the evolutionary trajectory started with the Millennials. They had phones when they were in elementary or middle school, and that shift is already shaping customer journeys that you need to study and understand.

Your business will be affected by their behaviors sooner or later. They are young but, even today, they spend something like 44 billion dollars annually (in the US alone). This figure is set to grow exponentially in the near future.

The first step to understanding the post-millennial customers is to compare them with the previous generation. Last year, in an article published on The Huffington Post, George Beall tried to identify how the GenZ differs from the GenY. What came out is something that you should bear in mind when you plan your next marketing moves.

Among other things, post-millennials teens are:

  • Less focused: They process information faster thanks to mobile apps, and their attention span is significantly lower than other customers.
  • Multi-Taskers: Whatever they do, they do it using multiple devices. This behavior is critical when you try to frame their purchase behaviors.
  • Less price-obsessed: They favor the experience over the bargain. Price is steadily losing weight in the list of factors that influence the purchase.
  • More demanding: “They expect businesses, brands, and retailers to be loyal to them. If they do not feel appreciated, they are going to move on. It is not about them being loyal to the business.” (Marcie Merriman, Ernst & Young)
  • More social: born and grown with a smartphone in their hands, they are strictly linked to their social communities and communicate mainly through mobile apps (Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram).
  • More global: Millennials were the first global generation, thanks to the Internet, but the GenZ is even more ‘global’ in their thinking, interactions, purchase behaviors.

Putting all the pieces together we see that the smartphone is the pivot around which the whole existence of teenagers revolves. A further confirmation comes from a recent report by Google titled “Generation Z - New Insights Into The Mobile-First Mindset Of Teens”.

The first finding is precisely the importance of phones. Getting a phone is a life-changing event, up there with graduation and driving license. While teens have more devices than ever at their disposal, the smartphone is the most used. Moreover, they usually get it earlier than previous generations (the median age is 12).

 

GenZ - Cool Brands(Click on the picture to enlarge)

The smartphone acts as a bridge that connects the offline and online experiences of teens. Visual contents, messaging apps, social networks, and video games create the environment in which they share their life and find entertainment. Fun - or maybe not fun at all - fact: Nearly 3 in 10 teens say they text with people who they are physically with at the time.

Another research finding states something we have already said: GenZ is a mobile-first shopping generation. Teens have a peculiar idea of what is ‘Cool’, they know what they want, and they buy it online. Video games, books, and apparel are the most common products bought online.

What is really interesting is that they buy online not only because it is more convenient and they can find better deals, but also because they can see multiple brands and retailers without leaving home, and they can choose faster than going to the physical store.

All in all, 53% of those between 13 and 17 years old mostly use the smartphone to make online purchases. If you are a retail brand trying to establish your position in a hyper-crowded market, you might want to take note of this new habit.

The technology is ‘how’ they make purchases, and the ‘Cool Factor’ is the foundation of ‘why’ and ‘what’ they choose one product over another. What aspects make a product cool? The word-of-mouth (offline and online) is still the main factor affecting the choices, and the new forms of advertising come right after.

The third factor, though, is what draws our attention: Something is cool if it is personalized to me. Millennials have been called the Me-Generation because of their self-obsession; with the GenZ, this trend is expected to undergo a fast track.

Personalization is the foundation of cool contents, products, and experiences. Something is cool if it is unique, impressive, interesting, awesome. If they perceive that it is tailored to them, on their dreams and desires.

They expect big things. Your challenge is to live up to the standards and exceed their expectations. After all, these young customers represent the future of your business. A future that is already here.

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What Drives Customer Loyalty? Look Beyond Traditional Programs

Posted on by Neosperience Team

What are the drivers of customer loyalty? One of the major challenges brands face today is to create meaningful, satisfying experiences for their customers. Experiences they will love so much that they will come back again and again.

The spread of disruptive technologies undermines the ability to conquer and retain customer’s heart using traditional loyalty programs. When technology changes, so do the drivers of trust and engagement. Are you willing to look beyond the usual way of doing things?

In the last few months, we have witnessed a wave of new, interesting researches on the issue of loyalty and its impact on what we call “the relevance of a brand”. Creating and retaining a customer base that is faithful to the company is the top priority. There is a direct link, in fact, between loyal customers and their profitability.

Back in 2015, we wrote a piece about customer retention, and how to improve the way you plan and execute your strategy. A few statistics, taken from that article, still give us valuable hints:

  • The probability of selling to an existing client is between 60 and 70%;
  • The probability of selling to a new customer is just 5-20%;
  • It costs six times more to attract a new client than to retain an existing one;
  • A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10%;
  • A 10% increase in customer retention result in a 30% increase in the value of a brand.

It is easy to see why investments in loyalty are booming. According to a recent report by Accenture Strategy, not coincidentally titled ‘Seeing Beyond The Loyalty Illusion’, “more than 90 percent of companies currently employ some form of customer engagement or loyalty program. In the United States, alone, loyalty program memberships grew at a rate of 26.7 percent from 2012 to 2014.”

While the investments are growing, however, customer satisfaction remains an overlooked and underestimated field of study. This casual approach leads to an inevitable conclusion: the costs are increasing, and yet most loyalty programs fail to deliver valuable engagement or actual business results.

If something is not working, you put it down, right? Not this time. Traditional programs do not work, but they are still there; because sometimes it is easier - in terms of money and time - to keep them than shut them down. It is hard to admit a failure. So, billions are spent each year in traditional incentives, collections of points and non-cash rewards.

What is the result of this effort? Back to Accenture Strategy:

  • 71 percent of customers claim loyalty programs do not engender loyalty;
  • 77 percent of customers retract loyalty more quickly than they did three years ago;
  • 23 percent of customers show negative or non-existent reaction to companies’ loyalty efforts.

All in all, the propensity to switch from one brand/product to another “is six percentage points higher among customers for whom traditional programs have a negative or negligible effect.”

This gap is destined to increase now that millennials - the first true digital native generation - are showing their full potential, becoming critical to driving revenue growth. The digital customers:

  • Take faster purchase decisions - The attention span lowers to 8 seconds.
  • Live online and offline at the same time - The customer journey gets disrupted.
  • Reward the most innovative brands - ‘Mobile-first’ becomes ‘Mobile-only’.
  • Show different purchase patterns - The 4 Ps of marketing change forever.
  • Choose experiences over products - The customer experience becomes the key.

Of course, retention is a long-term run, not a short term activity. However, given the premises, how can you react if loyalty programs cost significantly more, and deliver significantly less? How should you adapt to avoid that the value of loyal customers slips through your fingers?

You have to look beyond usual, and you can do it starting with your customers. ‘Engage’ and ‘Convert’ still are two critical keywords in the age of digital transformation, but they are now complemented by a third - and increasingly important - element: ‘Understand’.

To keep it simple, you will never engage and monetize your customers if you do not know them in the first place. Knowledge is the foundation of today’s marketing. You must know who your customers are (Demographics) but also what moves and motivates them, what are their main psychological traits. Why they do what they do (Psychographics).

Loyalty is more than merely collecting points for every purchase. Loyalty involves an emotional investment, a personalized relationship, a relevant connection.

Even when you employ new technologies in your programs, you must remember that technology is the means by which you create value for customers, not the ultimate goal of the entire strategy.

“We get tons of information from customer service, but it Is really important to know how to use that information and not just take it at face value. It Is necessary to interpret customers, not just take them word for word.” (Maryam Mohit, Vice President of Amazon)

In recent times, customer research and analysis have gained brand-new momentum. The most innovative companies have realized that the in-depth knowledge of clients is mandatory, in order to exceed their needs and provide the best customer experience.

All the data in this world, though, will not help if you keep focusing on the most obvious findings. Today more than ever, you have to understand and drive the important clusters of emotions that either destroy or drive added value and create loyal customers.

A wrong approach to customer research translates into wasted opportunities (and budgets). The investments grow but not the understanding of how customers behave, and why. Loyalty still matters but you need to move beyond the old rules, and rethink the way you build and deliver engagement through your entire brand essence.

In other words, you need to find the new drivers of customer loyalty, those that fits perfectly with your customer’s profile, habits, and behaviors.

According to the American Marketing Association, “there are five variables that have been uncovered to be potential drivers of brand loyalty; several have multiple indicators that are combined.” These variables are:

Dependable - When your brand can exceed expectations and create consistent experiences across all touch points of the customer journey.

Better - When you establish your brand as the best solution to fulfill customers’ needs, when and where it matters most.

Social media - When your brand is able to speak your customer's language and connect with them delivering engaging, personalized contents.

Light emotional connection (LEC) - When your brand can close the link to your customers as human beings, not just mere consumers.

Heavy emotional connection (HEC): When your brand can tap into your customer’s heart and mind, leveraging inspiration and emotional advocacy.

Study, analyze, act: this is the proper sequence. Today, loyalty is not just a program; it is a full-time commitment at all levels of your organization. If you make the necessary adjustments, you will unlock the power of technology, to create business value, sustain growth and gain competitive advantage.

Interested in Customer Loyalty? Check the following posts:

CUSTOMER LOYALTY - WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT?

5 THINGS SPORTS CAN TEACH YOU ABOUT LOYALTY

GAMIFICATION - ENGAGE CUSTOMERS PLAYING WITH THEM

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