The Modern Marketer's Customer Journey Challenge

In 2017 the benefits of a well-defined customer journey strategy are clear: increased CTRs, acquisition, retention and customer satisfaction. However, this wasn’t always the case. The always-on customer journey is a relatively new concept for marketers -- the DMA UK, for example, has only included the “Best Customer Journey” award in their annual awards night since 2012.

The Growth of the Customer Journey

This age of customer journeys arose alongside the growth of mobile apps and real-time technologies. These powerful tools gave consumers access to a profusion of digital touchpoints in the palm of their hand. This made the consumer increasingly weary of traditional marketing methods and set a standard for consistent, cross-channel and personalized engagement that marketers must deliver.

Engaging customers with compelling, contextually relevant experiences is the new competitive high ground. According to Forbes, 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience, tremendous revenue potential for brands. Regardless, marketers are struggling to deliver the superior CX that consumers expect throughout the lifecycle. Only 1% of customers feel that their brand experience expectations are consistently met.

Where are Marketers Falling Short in Delivering the Customer Journey?

From our experience as leaders in customer journey management, we’ve identified three key obstacles that keep marketers from embracing the customer journey opportunity. Brands are:

1. Too focused on individual touchpoint optimization instead of the overall customer journey

Many brands spend their marketing dollars on improving one particular consumer touchpoint. For example, if they note a high conversion volume via email, they may invest all of their budget into this channel.

2. Crippled by siloed data

When channels, advertising and data are disconnected and siloed, brands cannot combine and interpret data about a consumer across the platforms on which they interact - missing the opportunity to use critical info from one channel to deliver the right message in another, or simply ensuring the right message goes out on every channel.

3. Scared of wasting investments in existing infrastructure

Brands are often hamstrung by existing infrastructure and expensive marketing investments. This mix of various legacy systems -- old, new, traditional and digital tools -- are each from a different vendor and were never designed to work together. Brands do not have the time, budget or appetite to rip it all out and start over again.

Customer Journey Delivery is Possible

If you’re seeking a competitive advantage in today’s market and can identify one of these challenges at your organization, now is the time to act. You can deliver the end-to-end customer journey across many touchpoints without ripping and replacing your legacy tech investments.

Kitewheel will be sponsoring the Best Customer Journey category at the 2017 DMA UK Awards. We’d love to connect with you about the awards, overcoming these common customer journey implementation pitfalls, and adopting the customer journey at your company.