MARKETING
Predictive Marketing : The Customer Journey
By Jonathan Phillip Kyetume
Consumer research has taken the center stage in strategic marketing planning . Now more than ever marketers are constantly questioned on measurable Return on Investment ( ROI ), hence the need for precision and accuracy regarding understanding our target consumers . Consumer research is a datadriven deep dive into the normal average daily life of your target consumer to develop a client persona . Analytics support an informed development of client personas which has numerous advantages that include but are not limited to improved targeting precision , guiding product development , supporting service improvement , and marketing budget efficiency .
HubSpot ( 2022 ) suggests that a comprehensive client persona goes beyond demographics and seeks to understand motivations , fears , pain points , cognitive associations , purchase history , digital analytics - and what they might need in the future . In line with digital marketing , the development of artificial intelligence and digital algorithms has supported data collection and analytics to support online behavior prediction . Client personas can be as robust as possible to ensure that all desired consumers are considered .
Distracted Consumer
Brands are constantly seeking to drive awareness , interest , and engagement . The war rages on further with constant disruption and the blooming creator economy . The shift in content creation and storytelling is moving at an extremely fast pace with brands struggling for consumer attention . Insights from the client persona development are essential in determining appropriate communication channels to ensure maximum reach or awareness .
Analytics provide us with key insights that support the entire product positioning , pricing , communication , and launch plans for new products . Brands must emphasize developing data-driven content marketing plans that align and resonates with the specific client personas to achieve the desired goal . Digital analytics greatly support programmatic advertising , especially when it comes to re-targeting for conversion in line with the desired ROI .
Customer Journey Mapping
In line with the desired goal , customer journeys are developed to understand and assess the customer experience across all brand touchpoints , both digital and physical . Customer journey mapping considers all aspects from awareness , interest , consideration , and purchase , to the post-purchase phase of the developed customer persona . Predictive marketing through insights and data analytics provides an avenue to predict the behavior of customers from the client ’ s perspective , this way we are guaranteed measurable success at the various phases .
Every brand manager dreams of driving as many clients as possible successfully through the customer journey stages with a goal of the growth of revenue , repeat purchase , retention , loyalty , word-ofmouth , positive reviews and achieving eventual competitive advantage . The success of a journey map greatly depends on the customer experience at the various touch points and will influence conversion and repeat purchases .
Unfortunately , we often ignore the internal component regarding constantly understanding , and analyzing staff pain points and motivators , especially in service-oriented organizations . There is a need to understand the concept of the customer experience eco-system for an allaround consideration of all stakeholders . Through structured internal marketing strategies , staff need to be supported and empowered to deliver the much-desired exceptional customer experience to achieve a competitive advantage .
Data can be obtained from various sources that include , website analytics , social media analytics , digital trend reports , secondary data , paid surveys . Again , key attention is needed in data collection to ensure that accurate and representative data is obtained , cleaned , analyzed and visualized to support strategic marketing decision making .
Predictive marketing primarily relies on consumer data so there are ethical marketing concerns that need to be addressed by all brand leaders regarding data collection consent , storage , distribution , and thirdparty access .
Jonathan Phillip Kyetume is a Marketing and Communications Specialist . You can commune with him on this and related issues via email at Jonathankyetume @ gmail . com .
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