Understanding the Customer Journey in the Social Era
When John Behn reached out to me to speak at the United Benefit Advisors annual conference, I was excited. After working with the amazing folks at PWL Capital for the past year and a half, I feel like I have a good grip on how social and content worked well into a financial services marketing plan. But then I asked UBA to get me in touch with some of their members and, after they did, I got a little nervous.
I generally do this for every presentation I create: speak to a few potential audience members to make sure that I create content that is tailored to their specific needs. Just like I preach to my own clients, I endeavour to know my audience so that the content resonates a bit more with them. The issue here was that, of the people I was put in touch with, only one of them was interested in my subject matter at all. The others sounded like they were going to skip my presentation altogether! The phrase “not at all a priority,” was uttered more than once.
After those conversations, I knew I had some work to do to be relevant to them. I had to make sure I tied the information back to what this audience is most interested in: becoming strategic partners with their customers.
It’s a good thing I have spent the past few years focused on how social connects with a high net worth, professional audience, and an even better thing that I have data and stories that show the results of these efforts are worthwhile.
The above presentation is the result of rethinking my approach. First, I had to let them know that I wasn’t there to “sell social media as a silver bullet” to them. Then I had to paint the picture of the reality: everyone from interns to CFO’s is going online to research pretty much everything — even B2B. Even health benefits. After I established the need to pay attention, I showed the audience how social can help you get in front of the customer all along their online journey.
At the end of the talk, I had several audience members come up to me and tell me that I was the first one who made this information clear for them and that they have a better idea of how (and why) they’d invest more effort into social and content.
Mission accomplished. The deck is focused on health insurance benefits, but hopefully, it speaks to a broader audience. Let me know if you have any questions.
