We had a blast with Fresh Relevance last week at the top of The Shard in London! Mapp got to co-host a seminar on personalization and customer centricity in the digital landscape. The presentations were dynamic, engaging, and included lots of action-oriented content.

One of the presentations was from our very own Product Strategy Director, Ric Montvilla, who has been helping marketers navigate the complexity of the digital marketing technology landscape for the last 8 years. His presentation took the form of a story that reflects the ultimate retail consumer journey with customer centricity at the heart.

What Are The Challenges With The Digital Experience?

Marketers are under more pressure than ever. They are expected to be creative, commercially aware, and technically savvy. They need to innovate at scale without cannibalizing their traditional business models and revenue streams. What makes it even more difficult is that all tech vendors and agencies are promising to deliver incredible results, however choosing what to focus on next and moving the business closer to the true ’nirvana’ of customer centricity is the real challenge.

Research shows that 65% of consumers are disconnecting from blanket personalization strategies. In addition, 79% of consumers want brands to demonstrate they care before considering a purchase. As a result, marketers have to find new ways of differentiating to stay top of mind.

Customer journeys are not about someone having a need to buy a product or service. It also doesn’t end when someone has purchased the item. Great customer journeys are about taking someone that is agnostic to the brand and turning them into loyal brand advocates.

How Do You Implement The Ultimate Digital Experience (UDX)?

• Define your objectives: The starting point is to agree on your overall objectives and identify what would actually transform your customers’ lives and bring your brand experience to life.
• Prioritize the quick and easy wins: You need to prioritize and determine the most essential solutions. From there, identify which ones are quick and easy to deploy, and then execute.
• Validate your existing ecosystem and extend it if needed: Use your ecosystem of technology providers and agencies to help. Take a good look at what they have in their respective toolkits and identify any gaps in their offering that inhibits the ultimate digital experience.
• Invest in customer engagement, not technology: Find the right solutions that fill those gaps identified, and then map your ecosystem for success. New digital marketing platforms equip you with tools to automatically analyze and store incoming data, helping you to refine your messages, channels, and responses faster.

3 Takeaways About The Ultimate Digital Experience (UDX):

The Ultimate Digital Experience enhances the traditional purchasing path by adding value at every stage of the customer journey through personalized, relevant, content-rich, and orchestrated engagement at the right time and location.

As Ric stated at the event: “Remember the following 3 things about the UDX:

1. Not all channels are meant to sell. Identify the purpose of each channel for your brand to create loyal customer relationships.
2. Combining Advertising and Marketing is the largest and most cost-efficient quick win any marketing organization can leverage to differentiate themselves.
3. Great customer experiences lead to a greater affinity with the brand.”

The solution lies in breaking down the data silos between Marketing and Advertising (and all other departments) to optimize marketing spend and create seamless customer journeys. There are many things you can do as a marketer, but we truly believe this delivers the biggest advantage in the quickest timeframe and at the lowest price point.

To find out more about the Ultimate Digital Experience and how Mapp can help you set up your own customer-centric journey, schedule a personalized demo.