Metrics are your marketing strategy scorecard. Track the right UX and CX KPIs to truly understand your customers' experiences of your brand

Metrics are the ‘scorecard’ of your marketing strategy. When these metrics, also known as key performance indicators (KPIs), are moving upwards, you’re winning the marketing game. When your CX KPIs are trending downwards, you’re on the losing team (at least for now). You probably know your conversion-related KPIs by heart: metrics like conversion rate, revenue per visitor (RPV), and average order value (AOV). And on the acquisition side: cost per acquisition (CPA), return on ad spend (ROAS), and marketing qualified lead rate (MQL). But, to get a clear sense of what matters most in your customers’ minds, you need to include CX KPIs (customer experience) in your scorecard mix. These CX KPIs measure your prospects’ and customers’ perceptions of your brand, judged after several interactions, or ‘touchpoints,’ with both your online and…

First my wallet, now my phone, are stacked with customer loyalty cards, emails, and apps. But what do customers want in loyalty schemes?

The customer loyalty market is in a state of flux. While physical cards decline amidst low-contact social distancing, notifications and emails from my favourite brands are more targeted (and appealing!) than ever. With marketing budgets tightening, customer engagement is a wise area to defend. Recent studies show it can cost up to 5x more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. [si_monthly_campaign_blog_cta_banner id=156432] Loyalty schemes are expensive to implement, promote and very costly to manage, both online and offline. But are they making a difference? Do they increase customer engagement, and what can we learn from the best examples?

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Managing customer loyalty schemes

Whether it's an in-house managed scheme or being part of an external…

Five steps that you can take to gain insight from your customer feedback and prepare for your recovery

Just as no one could have predicted this year’s events, no one knows exactly what a post-Covid world is going to look like. One thing we can be sure of, however, is that some change is on the cards. The longer this situation plays out, the more we’re all seeing shifts in consumer behaviour, product demand, customer relationships, and priorities – even the term ‘essential’ has taken on a different meaning for many of us over the past few months. Changes in your business are happening right now. It’s time to react to your consumer’s behaviour, gather all of data that will help you take the steps to recovery, and make sure your customer experience (CX) is ready and suited to this new post-Covid customer base.

1.     Evolve with your customers – find out what’s…

Increasing competition across all industries means that customer experience is more important than ever if you want to stand out for the right reasons

Customer experience (CX) is more important than ever. With competition increasing, the digital world making it easier to make purchases and consumers less likely to be swayed by brand loyalty, CX can make all the difference between a conversion and a lost customer. This is why businesses need to look at and improve the customer experience they offer in line with current consumer expectations. Failing to do so could leave you well behind your competitors, even if your product is more advanced. To better help you understand what CX in 2020 looks like, we’ve gathered some recent statistics from customer experience research. These stats should help you benchmark your performance, better understand current consumer expectations, bear in mind where CX is going in the future and stay one step…

Chart of the Week: 97% of consumers have abandoned a purchase because the service wasn’t convenient enough, showing that e-commerce needs to compete on more than price.

Convenience is the backbone of e-commerce and a huge reason that online shopping has boomed over the last few years. Shopping online offers the convenience of purchasing items when and where it suits you, via a payment method of your choice while also having your item delivered via a method that suits you. It’s no wonder then that convenience is changing the way people shop and how they view certain shopping options, as the National Retail Federation’s latest research shows. This is why e-commerce brands need to consider more than the quality and price of the products they are offering when it comes to showcasing their proposition.

Inconvenience causes cart abandonment

When it comes to the most important things to consumers when online…

Customer listening is now essential

Ever talked with someone who doesn’t seem to listen to you or let you get a word in edgewise? Pretty annoying, right? The same is true in digital marketing. In order for you to market and, ultimately sell better, you need to listen as much as you talk. Only then can you capture the critical customer feedback you need to inform the tactical tweaks and strategic transformations you need to make to take your business to the next level. The best way to do this is by listening – at first manually if that’s all you can afford to do – but eventually in a deep, analytics-based way. This is the realm of customer listening (CL) platforms.

What’s a Customer Listening Platform?

A customer listening (or CL) platform is a SAAS-based app that allows you to listen to all the streams of customer data you have available so you…

IKEA isn't just innovating in their design process, they are innovating in their customer research approach too

Global home furnishings and meatball brand (IKEA sell 150 million meatballs a year), IKEA of Sweden already innovate in their democratic design approach when producing new products, but now they're taking a leading approach with their customer insights: chatbot surveys. The IKEA concept already works to make their products attractive, functional, sustainable, accessible and affordable. IKEA are the masters of efficiency and it seems that they are working with their research agencies, to take this approach to customer insight. The world of market research and insight has somewhat an obsession with innovation, researchers are always looking for new ways to gain insights, hence big data, online communities, shorter surveys (though I question whether many are actually getting shorter). But in the day to day, researchers tend to stick…

What to measure when conducting customer surveys

The customer has to be at the heart of your strategy. That's so elemental it hardly merits saying. But how do you accurately build up a picture of your customers desires, wants, and needs? Customer surveys offer a valuable way of connecting with your customers and understanding them better. But, often it's extremely hard to get your customers' attention for periods long enough to get detailed results. After all, we're all busy. Let's face it, how many emails asking you to give your feedback have you ignored in the past week? More than the number of surveys you've answered in all likelihood. If you need tips on how to get more from your customer surveys, this infographic from appuri offers four ways you can improve them. Also, see our new Quick Win for members on Customer Satisfaction Surveys and measuring NPS for more detailed recommendations on best practices for…

Chart of the day: Data, analytics, and insight are critical to business success. Insight and data are empowering growth.

Marketers understand the important of data and businesses understand how data drives growth. The research by Mediasense, in association with Ipsos MORI and ISBA, asked respondents what factors they thought would be critical to business success in 2020. Almost 8 in 10 (78%) thought data, analytics, and insight were the most critical factor. Content marketing was down compared with 2015 data whilst SEO was found to be one of the least critical factors, but scores for SEO were not as low as Pay per click and community management. Source: Media2020 report  Sample: 250+ senior marketers Recommended resource: …

Chart of the day: Market research budgets have been cut whilst marketing budgets are being sustained

Market research (increasingly referred to as "insight") budgets are taking another cut this year, according to research by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, whilst marketing budgets overall have not grown. As few as 8% of respondents signaled growth in their insight budget whilst just over 26% of respondents indicated marketing budget growth. The analysis shows it's the worst prediction for market research in over four years of data collection. One reason for the fall in budget could be that businesses are using non-traditional research methods, doing fewer large-scale annual research projects and instead focusing on more cheaper, innovative techniques, such as the use of research communities, online focus groups and cheaper providers such as Survey Monkey Audience, Ask You Target Market and Toluna Quick Surveys, rather than using…