Today, we do not go online. We live online. Even when we do not use the smartphone, it lies there in our pocket, ready to get into action. This simple fact implies the radical change of our behaviors, as human beings and customers.

The customer experience is always also a mobile experience. One would be led to believe that such a revolution has influenced the way businesses operate, yet most of the times it is not so.

Many companies, in fact, still lack the vision needed to embark on the journey of the digital transformation properly. All too often mobile is seen as an afterthought rather than the cornerstone of the customer experience.

This approach is common to those organizations that are accustomed to conducting the “business as usual” and not for the future, to quote Brian Solis. They walk through the fog without landmarks on the horizon.

When you choose not to evolve, you think you can still market your products and Brand the way you used to. The truth is they cannot survive for long if they keep thinking and acting this way. Something disruptive happened along the way. The mobile disruption happened.

The traditional business patterns inevitably lead to a disconnected and inconsistent experience across the customer journey. You will end up showing different identities online and offline, making the relationship with your Brand a nightmare for customers.

What happens on your digital properties should have the same level of priority with respect to what happens elsewhere (namely, in your physical store). And yet, the mobile experience is still too overlooked.

In a recent data collection report published on Think With Google, a few stats brilliantly sum up this contradiction:

A negative experience on mobile can alienate the customer preference. What does it mean for your business? First of all, that the entire process of customer experience management should have a common direction, whether it is digital, smartphone, point of sale, social media.

“It is less important for a shopper to be present in-store than for the store to be present wherever and whenever a shopper needs them.” (Google)

Google is right at the center of this mobile revolution. Everything started with the definition of the Micro Moments, driven by a specific intent, that can shape the decisions and preferences of customers.

The evidence that the most relevant Micro Moments today happen on mobile devices has then brought Google to change its core business, the search engine, in three steps:

• The mobile-friendly algorithm, that has caused panic and forced thousands of companies to run for cover and adapt their presence online in the name of a smooth mobile experience.

• The AMPs (Accelerated Mobile Pages), that have started the process of separating the desktop and mobile experiences, inducing marketers to invest - time and money - in properly formatted mobile contents.

• The mobile search index, the inevitable consequence of the new philosophy. The Internet is definitively divided into two separated experiences, with the mobile index destined to become the primary reference for Brands and customers.

Now you know that you have to embrace the winds of change, but where and how? According to Google, there are three areas you should invest in to improve mobile experiences.

HELP ME FASTER

Today, the scarcest resource is not money, it is time. The attention span of your customer is quite low, and your competitors are ready to fill any opportunity you leave unattended.

Thanks to the smartphone, we can take informed decisions faster than ever, and so customers shift their thinking from “Who does it best?” to “Who does it best, now?”.

Your speed is essential at any stage of the customer journey.

KNOW ME BETTER

You will never be able to engage customers and earn their trust and loyalty if you do not understand them in the first place. Knowledge is power, and you have all the data you need to accomplish this hard task.

Understanding your customers means not only mapping their journey and behaviors. It means also using the small data to define their peculiar emotional and psychological traits (Psychographics).

WOW ME EVERYWHERE

Customers expect a consistent experience every time they interact with your Brand. Consistency is one of the key pillars of the customer engagement and becomes even more critical in times of mobile disruption.

If you see the word ‘experience’ come out very often it is because the difference in the digital markets is not a matter of quality or price. You are no longer competing with other companies in your industry. You are competing with the best experiences your customer has ever had.

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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.

“Once you stop learning, you start dying.” This famous quote by Albert Einstein is still relevant to understand a major truth of the digital era: the only thing that is constant is change, and so you should never stop learning if you want to stay relevant.

Of course, this applies both to companies and individuals. Inspiration is all around us and it will empower you to gain competitive advantage, if you can get out of the comfort zone. What better way to improve than by reading a smart book?

The American political journalist P.J. O’Rourke once said that you should “Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” What’s not to love about this sentence? Learning is such a critical process that we have chosen it as one of the steps in The DCX 7-Steps Checklist, a guide that’ll help you build an amazing customer experience.

The problem with reading, today, is that we are all caught in a fast-paced world with a short attention span. Too many things happen around us, so many sources to check and so little time to do it. We are quite lucky, though, because someone else has done the hard work for us. Authors that have tackled the challenge to help digital leaders to keep up with the evolution of marketing and technology.

The more provoking is the book you read, the more you will be forced out of your comfort zone. Once you question your beliefs and layered knowledge, then you are ready to move forward. It is not just theory: In the era of the digital transformation you can’t hack your growth if you still rely on the old-fashioned way to do things.

You need innovative approaches to old questions. How can I grow my business? How can I overcome the challenges of the digital transformation? How can I engage and monetize my digital customers? How can I convert random customers into loyal brand advocates?

If you are looking for an answer to these - and many more - business problems, you might find useful insights through the pages of these five books every digital marketer should read.

EVERYBODY LIES, BY SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ

Part technology research part psychological study, this book offers an illuminating look at what the Internet can tell us about who we really are. Everyday we create a vast amounts of information with our web searches, and all thiese data reveal truths about ourselves and our world that we did not even imagine.

What percentage of white voters did not vote for Barack Obama because he is black? Do violent films affect the crime rate? How regularly do we lie about our sex lives? The answers to these - and many more - questions are hidden behind what we type on Google in the safety of our room.

HARNESSING OUR DIGITAL FUTURE, BY ANDREW MCAFEE

Co-written with Erik Brynjolfsson, "Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future" is one of the most exciting books of 2017 so far. This is a must-read analysis of the effects of the digital disruption, a guide for the digital leaders, marketers and CEOs who truly want to understand the power of exponential.

To survive the big wave of digital shifts, in fact, "we must rethink the integration of minds and machines, of products and platforms, and of the core and the crowd. In all three cases, the balance now favors the second element of the pair, with massive implications for how we run our companies and live our lives."

PRE-SUASION, BY ROBERT CIALDINI

Robert Cialdini is the renowned author of Influence, a bestseller dated 1984. At the end of 2016 we have finally seen the long-awaited sequel, titled Pre-Suasion. This book is destined to become even more relevant than Influence because it comes out in a era when marketing and psychology are more intertwined than ever.

What separates effective communicators from truly successful persuaders? Using a rigorous scientific approach, Cialdini "shines a light on effective persuasion and reveals that the secret doesn’t lie in the message itself, but in the key moment before that message is delivered."

HOOKED, BY NIR EYAL

We always emphasize the importance of a well planned, meaningful customer experience on the road to business success. But there is a plain fact that none can ignore: If people don't like the product you sell, your strategy is more than likely doomed. So, how can you develop and market a product or service that customers will love?

Nir Eyal tries to find an answer in his book "Hooked: How To Build Habit-Forming Products". Want to be the next sensation? Try with the Hook Model, "a four-step process embedded into the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer behavior."

ORIGINALS, BY ADAM GRANT

"Originals - How Non-Conformists Move The World" is yet another brilliant take on how we can generate new ideas, improving the world in the process. Sharing powerful and surprising business stories, Adam Grant offers groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and improving the status quo.

The book "
explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent."

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If you need more food for thought during your Summer vacations, you can also download The Mobile Engagement Playbook, a collection of relevant insights that'll help you to overcome the challenges of the digital transformation and grow your business exponentially.

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?

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?

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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.

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.

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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.

The annual Internet Trends Report is easily one of the most anticipated presentations of the year. Compiled as usual by Mary Meeker, the report is the best way to keep the pace with the digital transformation and understand what is going on in the business world.

The Internet Trends 2017 Report comes in the form of a gigantic 355 slides deck, covering everything tech: global trends, online advertising, gaming, cloud computing, and digital healthcare. Ready to check the major takeaways?

Even though the report (that you can find below) may seem daunting at first glance, Mary Meeker, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, and Byers, has the ability to provide a complete overview of the evolution of technologies, markets and organizations.

The first interesting insight: both the smartphone and the Internet penetration growth are slowing down, a sign that the market is finally reaching the saturation. The global smartphone installed base equals 2.8 billion, a +12% year over year (it was +25% in 2015).

The time spent using the Internet on mobile devices, however, keeps on increasing and confirms that the smartphone is not just a channel anymore. It is a proxy of the customer. Everything we do (search for information; make weighted decisions; purchase products or services; share experiences), we do it using our smartphone.

The second major takeaway is about advertising. Sometimes we hear dark prophecies that envision the death of online advertising, but the data tell another story. Online ads evolve, become more measurable and actionable, and still represent a growing market (+22% in revenues in 2016).

The most promising new formats are those that create a bridge between the user and the Brand, exploiting the qualities of the smartphone: product listing on Google search result page; targeted pins on Pinterest; contextual ads on Facebook; geo-targeted local ads on Google to drive foot traffic to stores; incentive-based video ads; dynamic in-app ads.

As a matter of fact, the evolution of advertising is driven by mobile and is eclipsing the share of TV and desktop advertising. The downside is that the growth has been captured mainly by two players: Google and Facebook (85%). We witness a concentration of power that leaves very few opportunities to the competitors. Take it or leave it.

The way the companies communicate evolves with technology, and so do the customers. In example how we use the mobile device: Voice is beginning to replace typing. In 2016, 20% of mobile queries were made via voice, thanks to an accuracy that has reached about 95% (Google voice recognition).

We are surrounded by smart devices that can communicate even without human intervention. They gather data and sometimes can anticipate our needs and requests. Being able to interact with these technologies will open a whole new world, both for the company (voice orders, notifications, and recommendations) and the customer (simplified experiences and fastest path to purchase).

Another takeaway is about social media and their power to improve the customer experience and support. We already know how valuable is the proper management of this channel in a world that is more and more ‘visual’. Social media can provide the opportunity to strengthen the relationship between people and Brands.

The main objective is to drive accountability and foster real-time online conversations, and the emergence of conversational interfaces (chatbots) is the key technology. Machine learning and small data, connected to the social profile of customers, open the door to a deeper understanding of the customer, rooted in the psychographic dimensions.

We want to highlight one more insight, this time about the revolution in healthcare. There is no doubt that we are moving towards a digital-enabled healthcare. Again, the spreading of mobile devices (wearables) has paved the way for the rapid growth in sources of digital health data.

60% of customers are willing to share their health data with the likes of Google. The result is the proliferation of digitally-native data sets. A whole new market that generates scientifically relevant insights, and profoundly impacts on the delivery of therapeutics and healthcare.

Read the full Internet Trends 2017 Report:

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.

Is Brand Loyalty still relevant for customers? In a market where the limitations of space and time are canceled by technology - and we can buy everything we want directly with a tap on a mobile screen - does it make sense to talk about loyalty?

The answer is ‘Yes’ to both questions. Customer Loyalty is still relevant, but it is hard to get and even harder to retain as the competition is so tight. This is the starting point of The 7 Pillars Of The New Customer Loyalty, our new checklist that will help you improve your strategy and evolve to stay relevant.

As said, loyalty is still important and will continue to be in the next future. Indeed, in times when we have become accustomed to brand switching and polygamous loyalty, the ability to attract and retain the attention and engagement of customers is even more critical.

The reason lies not only in the economic value of this long-lasting relationship - loyal customers buy more and more often - but also in exponential effects regarding competitive advantage (i.e. the sharing of 'positive vibrations' in their communities and social networks).

If the intrinsic value of the customer loyalty remains unchanged, however, the same can not be said of the relationship between companies and people. This connection has been deeply altered by the advent of the digital technology, that has shaped the market scenario in which we have been immersed for more than ten years now.

Not to mention that the pace of this change has further accelerated with the advent of the mobile devices. In a few years, in fact, the smartphone has become the primary point of reference we all turn to when we need information and make weighted decisions.

Whether it is a car purchase, a comparison between two TV models, a holiday booking, the choice of the perfect outfit for the evening, or the sharing of our opinions, the answer is always there, in the palm of our hand.

If we turn the focus on the Brand, the story remains the same: the smartphone is the primary means of spreading contents and messages. When it comes to digital customers (Millennials and Generation Z above all), there is no engagement and loyalty strategy without mobile technology.

We want to emphasize the fact that technology is, as always, a means and not the ultimate goal of your strategy: the solution is not to recreate, in the digital context, the old dynamics of engagement and fidelization typical of the offline world (a virtual loyalty card, to name one).

The reason is that today people do not just want to buy products or services. They want to live experiences. At the heart of any loyalty strategy, there should be the awareness of the value of customer experience as the primary factor of differentiation on the market.

According to Gartner, 89% of companies expect that the decisive battle for relevance on the digital markets will be fought in the field of customer experience. It is not a coincidence: people already consider the experience more important than price and the product itself.

In order to grow your business, you must build personal relationships with customers. Focusing on the experience is the only way to move from a utilitarian loyalty (I spend, and you give me a tangible prize in return) to an emotional loyalty (I choose you because I feel I am an integral part of the Brand).

The evolution from a traditional fidelization to the 'new customer loyalty' is not easy or immediate, but it is necessary if you want to survive in an ecosystem increasingly saturated and competitive. To move towards the future, you must first take a step back, admitting that you do not know your customers, despite the Big Data and your CRM.

The amount of information about customers that the technology makes available to companies is of no use if you do not know what to look for, how to move from macro to micro, and ultimately how to get an intimate understanding of the person.

Before even thinking about customer engagement and loyalty, you have to understand people. Choices are mainly driven by emotional elements, so you need another key to read the traits of personality, behaviors, attitudes, thought patterns, and prejudices.

We are talking about the final step from the study of the Demographics - which tell you who the customers are - to the Psychographics - which tell you what they think and what they want.

Only by studying these essential hidden traits you will be able to gather and select the data you need to personalize experiences and messages. Understanding is the basic requirement to convert customers into Brand Ambassadors.

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

You can download it for free at the following link: