David Raab’s post of Dec. 15th, Marketing Automation Interface Should Focus on Customers, Not Campaigns (http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.com/2011/12/marketing-automation-interfaces-need.html) is right on the money. Here are some quotes from his article that scream out to me:
Marketing automation vendors are using “The same flow charts that Frank Gilbreth introduced in 1921”.
The old ways do not work indeed! Diagramming is too complex for users. This inherently limits the complexity that can be automated. A simpler diagramming method is required, one that is closer to the user. What is required is an interface that reduces complexity and provides the ability to focus on simple program flow with simple branching. This is precisely what Customer State Marketing does.
David writes, “… think outside the flow chart”. A properly designed Customer State Diagram (CSD) is an improvement over traditional float, dataflow diagrams and Business Process Modeling diagrams for describing and automating marketing behavior.
Once again, to take from David’s post, “The biggest problem with flow charts is they are inherently two dimensional”. A CSD introduces the state dimension to the automation design toolkit. Simple scenarios can be sequenced to cover a multitude of customer states (e.g. new customer, regular, VIP, at risk, online shopper…). Each scenario can be designed to respond to events (e.g. buys, blogs, purchases in store, online…) and take cross-channel action (e.g. send email, send DM, send mobile, tweet, update database…) according to the state of the customer at the time of the event.
It is possible to model for responses of first time customers versus repeat customers, VIP customers and customers that are at risk. It is possible to easily model an ongoing reactivation program when a Regular customer stops buying for a month by automatically moving them to an At Risk state that provokes a cross-channel promotional cascade. By focusing the design process on discrete customer states and state transitions it is possible to model responses to complex customer behavior across an ever growing number of channels.
Customer State Marketing takes the customer’s perspective. Individual customers move in an erratic fashion that baffles marketing automation systems that operate in a linear fashion. Customer State Marketing responds according to the current state of the customer, not according to the marketing automation sequence.
Back to David, “A customer-centered approach would develop rules for each situation rather than stringing together rules for many different situations”. This is exactly what Customer State Marketing does. A scenario for new customers, a scenario for VIP at risk customers, a scenario for a viral contest, a frequency cap scenario, a frequency optimizer scenario, a scenario to lookup an external database key, a scenario to consult a recommendation engine – each scenario is simple to design yet the whole describes a very complex marketing ecosystem that can be a game changer for the smart marketer.
The kicker is that the productivity gains for the Marketing Ecosystem designer are phenomenal! In a week I do what used to take me a month or more to accomplish. See http://blog.whatsnexx.com/2011/11/all-in-a-days-work-the-speed-of-customer-state-marketing-automation.html
Happy Holidays to all!
Jacques.
