Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

Unit 3: Get To Know Your Customers

People say customer is God for any business. So how do you get understand your God ?

Its crucial to understand how to collect and analyze customer data in order to serve them better. To do that we can use analytics tool to collect and analyze data, study customer feedback and actually work on them, use AI to get better understanding and also use sales data to understand purchase patterns (you can get much more insights from sales data…obviously!).

Now lets understand different digital marketing channels.

1. Owned Channels  : Directly managed by brands. (website,blog,social media profiles)
2. Earned Channels : Includes organic social schares, media coverage, reviews etc.
3. Paid Channels   : Promotions brand paid for. (ads and sponsered content)
     Pay-per-Click : Adverstising model, where fee is based on number of ad clicks.

To know your digital customers there are a few concepts you ought to understand. This includes customer personas, customer buying behaviors, understanding customer journey, selecting digital marketing channels, and having a digital marketing strategy. Lets dive deep into each of them.

3.1. CUSTOMER PERSONA

Let’s understand customer segmentation before getting into customer personas. Customer segmentation is the process of dividing a broader group of people into separate chunks based on different characteristics like demographic, age, style, interest and so on. This helps brand reach the right audience for maximum impact during their marketing campaigns.

Types of customer segmentation includes

1. Demographic   : Focuses on customer age, gender, education or occupation.
2. Geographic    : Focuses on customer loacation (country,city or region).
3. Psychographic : Focuses on customer lifestyle, values, intrests and choices.
4. Behavioural   : Focuses on their behaviours (purchasing pattern, product usage, online activity).

Customer segmentation plays a major role is brands understanding the right audience, so that they can tailor their marketing strategy accordingly. Segmentation helps drive better customer engagement, improve advertising, personalize marketing message for your target audience and save time and resources by spending them on the right set of audience.

Now customer personas are like creating fictional profiles (just like imagining your characters when reading a book) of customer groups. It helps brands connect with an individual on a deeper level by understanding the customer. When you create book characters personas in your head, you know exactly who they are, what they do, what would their interest's be etc. Just like that customer personas have some key components listed below:

1. Who     : Brief description of customer including name, age, location, occupation etc.
2. Goal    : What do they want to achieve via the product/service?
3. Barrier : What barriers do customers faces when trying to achieve their goals?
4. Campaign message : Create a targeted message that adresses the persona's barrier by offerig a solution

3.2. CUSTOMER BUYING BEHAVIOURS

Analyze yourself as a customer. Do you behave the same when you purchase online and offline? I do not. Similarly your customers also behave differently for the most part.

Offline shopping gives customer a chance to interact with your products physically, understanding sizing(if it is relevant) and makes purchase based on in-store offers or personal product likings. Online shopping is majorly dependent on other customer reviews, your product ratings, product description, images and so on. Online shopping gives customer access to wider product ranges. Now apart from these two, there is a third category called showrooming. This means that the customer might check out a product offline but buy it later online for better price.

Customers often follow the same pattern while buying things. Understanding that and tailoring content for them based on their pattern help in better sales.

The 'See,Think,Do,Care' Framework

1. See   :  Customer becomes aware of a need or desire (usually through content exposure).
2. Think : Customers search for solutions to their needs, explores product option and finds a best fit.
3. Do    :  Customers think of buying.
4. Care  : Maintain healthy relationship with customer post purchase.

Key factors in customer decisions for the ‘Do’ stage

1. Four P's
   a. Product   : Does the product meet their needs?
   b. Place     : Is the product avaliable through customer preffered channel?
   c. Price     : Is it priced fair and competitively?
   d. Promotion : Are incentives available to encourage purchase?
2. Right time : Customers are likely to buy a product if it is available when in need.
3. Risk Redduction : Return or refund policies, guarantees etc help the customer reduce percieved risk and buy from the retailer.
4. Emotional Connection : Brands that evoke positive emotions increase appeal to customers(can be done through community, storytelling or nostalgia).

Evolution of customer behavior

Customer behaviors are constantly evolving due to changing expectations, technological advancement and changing values.

1. Convenience     : Customers prioritize fast shipping, easy returns and flexible payment options. 
                     Make purchase as easy as possible for your consumer.
2. Social Influence: Recommendations from trusted influencers, friends and online reviews shape decisions. 
                     Provide social proof.
3. Sustainablity   : It is a key factor in purchasing decisions.
                     Consumers prefer ethical and environment friendly practices.
4. Values          : Brands that has values similar to them are prefered by modern consumers.
5. Onmichannel Exp : Providing seamless experience between online and offline shopping hels your brand.
                     A unified omnichannel experience is essential to meet consumer expectation.
6. Customer Support: Builds trusts and strengthens customer relationship.
                     Offering quick and clear support encourages loyalty and repeat purchases.
7. Personalisation : Tailoring recommendation and offer to consumer preference.     

Understanding and reflecting on customer persona’s buying journey can provide invaluable insights.

3.3. MAPPING THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Let’s start by understanding customer journey and its importance. Customer journey is like a detailed overview of the customer path while interacting with a brand. Mapping this journey helps in understanding consumers better and identifying points to engage the customers the most. To enhance customer experience and to keep them on track it’s best to strategically place touchpoints.

Customer touchpoints

Touchpoints are when customer interact with a business.

Offline Touchpoint:
  Physical interactions in-store or during service (service counters, staff interactions).
  If done right offline touchpoints create a personel connection and builds loyalty.

Online Touchpoints:
  Occur across digital channels (ads, email, social media post, website).
  Consistency across these channels helps build a positive brand association and builds trust.

Key stages in customer journey

Awarness    : Discovery by customer, effective messgaing aligned with consumer goal captures attention.
Engagemnent : Engaging customers and builing trust by providing value through reviews, testimonials etc.
Conversion  : Focus on reducing friction between customers and your products/service, so that they can take valuable actions.
Retention   : Maintain good relationship with customer after purchase, building loyalty and driving engagement. 

Aligning touchpoints with your business goals

Every touchpoint in the customer journey is important and serves a different purpose. Aligning these to your business goals ensures a meaningful journey for the consumer.

Regularly reviewing and optimizing your touchpoints is also very crucial in helping you deliver the best experience.

Monitor Performance: 
  Regularly track the performance of each touchpoint and set a baseline to get an idea of your growth.
  Helps identify what's working and what isn't.

Adapt to changing audiences:
  Your target audience may change over time.
  Make sure to align your messaging and touchpoints to connect with the new audience.

Gather customer feedback:
  Customer feedback is a golden tool.
  Helps understand how your messaging is recieved.

Stay consistent across channels:
  Consistency across touchpoints helps build trust and reinforces brand message.

Find what you can influence:
  In customer touchpoint, find the place where you can create the greatest impact.
  Once that is identified, focus on actions to improve things. 

3.4. SELECTING DIGITAL MARKETING CHANNELS

We see businesses use digital marketing channels as a means to connect with the audience and engage them. You can do that for your business too. Digital marketing channels include social media, website, email, search engines, online ads and mobile apps.

Digital channels help you be discovered, build trust, share information about your product/business and connect with the customers.

How to select marketing channels?

The answer is not so simple! There are a number of factors to be considered before doing that. Your channels should align with business needs and audience.

Marketing goals : Marketing channel should align with marketing goals.
eg: If goal is brand awarness, then marketing channel could be social media (broader reach).

Customer Persona : Yor brand should be where your target customers spend most of their time.  
eg: Research avg age of users in social media apps and market to your target age group specifically.

Cost : Consider if upfront and ongoing cost of using a channel fits your budget and optimise accordingly.

Ease of use : Check how easy it is to handle different channels and select a suitable one.

Digital presence audit : Analyse current presence and focus your efforts where it matters the most.

Competitor's communication : Understand your competitors presence and highlight oppurtunities they haven't explored.

Now, that’s the end for Unit 3. Hope you learnt something new with me!