The typical customer journey is dead.

Why? Because our customers have changed. Perhaps like toddlers – they are now always on, demanding 1:1 attention and have higher expectations of us. And what does this mean for us? Well, purely that we need to come up with a strategy to ensure their needs are met. Or face the wrath of toys flying at us from the pram…

A contact strategy is the best way forward for this, essentially a series of planned communications with clear KPI’s, it can ensure we’re sending the right message to the right customer at the right time.

There are particular areas you can plot this for:

1. Global – this is taking the bull by the horns. Looking at, and mapping the customer cycle as a whole – including all media.
2. Programmatic – OK, maybe you instead want to focus on newsletters or perhaps offers. Programmatic is purely focusing on a category.
3. Audience/Segment – Rather than looking at your entire base, perhaps split it down and look at a strategy for one group?
4. Department – with many companies there is an increase of working in silos. So don’t despair if the social team need to do what they need to do, just focus on what you can do.

That’s great…but how do you actually do it?

Yes, this can seem a bit daunting, but there’s some easy ways to plot this:

1. Be the customer – do what you need to do; meditate, actually perform the customer journey, talk to your peers, but regardless – get the customer in your mind, and keep them there throughout!
2. Map the customer lifecycle – now map out the customer lifecycle – understand the options, lulls and emotions they may go through
3. Highlight the key areas – you could be at a serious risk of sending daily communications if you don’t do this step. No one wants a clingy friend, and likewise we need to ensure we are aware of the key moments to communicate
4. Prioritise – Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your contact strategy. That’s OK though. Rank the key areas by impact vs effort and start with communications which will have a high impact with little amount of effort.
5. Tailor to the individual – finally you have a plan! However, it all looks a bit generic! So see how and what you can tailor to the individual

OK – that’s all done now, but how do I ensure it succeeds?

It’s all about results, so how do we know if this is working?

1. Establish clear KPI’s – this should be done before you set up your contact strategy, but essentially you need to know what you want to achieve. If you don’t know what you want to achieve…well…it’s a bit difficult to measure
2. Implement a control cell – keeping a segment of people who are not part of your contact strategy is vital to measure the impact of what your sending.
3. Review your communications – just because you’ve mapped the communications doesn’t mean you can now walk away and leave them – keep an eye on them and change if necessary
4. Test, test and test – always look at how you can further improve and refine your strategy so it works the best for you

Blog written by Caitlin Hubbard, CRM Planning Manager, Amaze One