Consumer Marketing Podcast: The Discipline of Lifecycle Marketing
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Benjamin Gilbert on the One-to-One Consumer Marketing Podcast hosted by Spectrm.
“In this episode, we discuss the biggest shifts in digital marketing, including more customer centricity, and how, despite market changes and challenges, foundational marketing principles will keep you continuing to grow. We also address the areas to focus on for increased customer retention, how to scale your personalization efforts, the danger of chasing trends and channels, and why you shouldn’t be afraid to challenge the status quo.”
Here are the top takeaways from the interview.
#1 Gather data on current trends and channels for better testing.
“It all starts with data. … Being able to say, we have, based upon our data, the opportunity to test this particular channel. You might take a subsegment of your customer base, test a little bit, and then based upon those results, that’s when I think the larger buy in comes. It’s really hard to convince those who hold the purse strings to give you a lot of money to test something new unless you’ve got some data to back it up.”
#2 Instead of chasing trends, understand what your customer needs.
“Don’t chase trends. Understand those trends, but more importantly, understand your customer and how you can be authentic. One brand may be doing something that’s really exciting and wonderful, and you can learn from that, but it doesn’t mean you have to be a lookalike to that brand because it may not necessarily work for your customer or your business. So it’s really important to be authentic.”
💡 Tactical advice:
“Strategically understanding the goals of what you’re trying to accomplish helps you pinpoint those really relevant KPIs. Whether that’s looking at a retention rate, whether that’s looking at engagement rates, whether you’re needing to use something like scoring, and then being able to connect that. What data do you have to be able to truly understand what you’re trying to accomplish and how that relates to your customer?”