#MakeYourCustomersHappy
Thanks to my lovely colleagues at Humix, I got an invite to the Emerce Conversion event at Pakhuis De Zwijger in Amsterdam. This event was the perfect opportunity to boost my knowledge on conversion optimisation of digital channels & get new insights on how to improve the results we aim for.
Emerce Conversion featured 25+ international speakers in one day with a variety of cases and panels on stage who shared everything about optimising your conversion of digital channels.
The event’s subtitle is Culture of Experimentation, which was also the main point of focus for a lot of speakers and therefore a key take-away. One of the speakers who really stood out to me was Karl Gilis with his talk on How can we survive in the era of AI, voice & hyper-personalization.
At iDA Mediafoundry we’re pretty good at being on top of the digital (channel) trends. 🚀 However, we also firmly believe you should never stop learning. That is why I have written out the 2 major take-aways (& pro-tips) that stuck with me from the Emerce Conversion event: #makeyourcustomershappy & a culture of experimentation.
Hope these tips inspire you to put these best practices to good use in your company!
1. #makeyourcustomershappy
Karl’s talk was — aside from very lively, entertaining and funny — also a great learning point. He states that the biggest threat to companies these days is not digitalisation (as so often said by CEOs and managers of old-ways-of-working companies) but not being customer centric.
Customer centricity is not a new idea, and 80% of companies say that they already work in a customer centric way. However, only 8% of clients agree that companies truly are customer centric. 🤦♀️
But what does customer centricity really mean?
A good way to start would be to get in-depth knowledge of your customer. And by this we do not mean the socio-demographic crap that marketers have memorised by heart.
➡️ ️What we really want to know is WHY people want to buy from you and what they FEEL when they’re on your website.
A whopping 68% of customers that didn’t convert, say they left for the competition because they had the feeling you, as a company, didn’t care about them.
In other words — they don’t spend money with you because they feel the competition is giving them a better customer experience.
Fast adaptation to customer centric thinking might therefore be quintessential if you want your company to still be around in the next x years.
Sounds easier said than done, right? Luckily for you, Kris shared 4 tips on how to grow your business & customer happiness:
❓ A. Ask the right question at the right time. E.g. have a survey or chatbot pop up on your website when they’re on your landing page for a while but haven’t signed in/purchased/whatever action you want them to do. Ask them what is keeping them from signing up/purchasing right now? The answers are most valuable to update your website’s content or functionality.
👌 B. Bring people in a yes-flow. Zoom in on the problems of your customers and why your product or service is the best answer to their problem. You can bombard your prospects with technical facts, options, colours and more, but what they really want to know is “how will you fix my problem?”
🤗 C. Use the word YOU in your copy. It is all about the customer, so make it feel like it is about them! By putting the customer at the centre, you make it about them. Also apply this pro-tip in your SEA text and other content.
🤷♂️ D. Make sure the message is clear. Website designs can be very minimal these days and we often have the misconception that less text is a better user experience. Wrong. It is not about how much text there is or isn’t, but about how easily the customer understands the message you bring.
Now, with the customers’ needs covered, we’re ready to tackle our next best practice: experimentation!
2. Culture of Experimentation 🧪
Customers’ preference is continuously changing, so try and keep changing with them. Good is never good enough and you’re never done when it comes to creating a better customer experience.
That is why you should adopt a culture of experimentation within your company, and don’t be afraid to think big! Go beyond just A/B testing. Brainstorm until you have 60 variations and try the 6–10 best ideas. If you keep going for the ‘low hanging fruit’, you’ll never get to truly new and innovative concepts.
Keep rolling out new and improved versions. The more you test, the more data you have, the more ownership you have. Deploying these new findings will make the experience for your customers or end users better and better. 📈
Research, data and ownership will also be helpful when you’re convincing your management to fund future marketing campaigns. When the numbers speak for themselves, your management will be much more inclined to listen.
In conclusion we could say that customer centricity is really all about being and staying human, whether it’s your small businesses’ website or a big corporate B2B landing page. If you put your customers’ needs and questions first & keep experimenting, we’re sure you’re well on your way to #MakeYourCustomersHappy!
