SOCIAL ERA understanding the customer
journey in the

Social is a silver bullet.
Do this and you will have overnight success. Social is about mastering the tools. 3 THINGS THAT I WON’T TELL YOU:

”“ Tara Hunt The Whuffie
Factor Social isn’t about the tools. If you focus on tools, you’ll look like one.

Hmmmmm…maybe this isn’t just a
bunch of malarky after all…

customer let’s start with the
journey

a story about meatloaf

AndrewDavis
http://www.akadrewdavis.com/ https://youtu.be/IDubyeOWLTk

the customer journey is: non-linear
highly personal interrupted constantly noisy a paradox of choice completely unpredictable in the social era,

myth #1: busy business people
don’t have time for the internet. fact: According to Google’s studies, 89% of B2B researchers use the internet during the B2B research process

myth #2: this is what
the CFO making the decisions looks like

fact: This is closer to
the truth and it’s changing rapidly. According to Google, nearly half of all B2B researchers are millennials + they heavily influence purchase decisions.

The Shift in the B2B
Researcher Demographic: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/the-changing-face-b2b-marketing/

Employee influence on purchase decisions:
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/the-changing-face-b2b-marketing/ 81% of non- C-Suite employees influence purchase decisions.

social era and wth is
the anyway?

HINT: I’m not talking about
social media, though that is part of it.

” “ Nilofer Merchant 11
Rules for the Social Era If the industrial era was about building things, the social era is about connecting things, people, and ideas.

RULES FOR THE SOCIAL ERA:
1. EVERYTHING is social 2. The lines between social and professional are blurred 3. The ‘consumer’ is no longer passive - they are PROsumers 4. Sharing communicates identity - people share what they want others to think they are 5. Relationships are more important than ever. Transactional interactions will be disintermediated by technology.

ARE YOU REALLY BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS?
TRANSACTIONAL Only interact when you want something (or when your CRM says to reach out). Focus on your value being coverage and price. Always Be Closing. Customer service driven. RELATIONAL Really become part of your clients/ contacts lives. Care. Follow. Listen. Focus on helping your clients figure out and achieve their goals. Always Be Listening. Customer EXPERIENCE driven.

“You’re not in the insurance
business, you’re in the EXPERIENCE business.” Competing on price, coverage and service is a race to the bottom and AI/chatbots/ algorithms will outcompete you there every day.

disruptions not to mention there
are a few

MILLENNIALS!

#insurtech

ACA? not even sure .

3 IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS: 1. If
you’re not at enough touchpoints along the customer journey, you don’t exist. 3. Insurtech will win in the race to the bottom of the price/ convenience war. Compete on EXPERIENCE. 2. You can’t say “we don’t need social” because EVERYTHING is social. It’s not a tool, it’s a cultural shift.

let’s lay some foundations to
becoming truly social.

traditional b2b tactics: Cold calling,
professional networking, joining local business groups, buying lists of prospects (to call and email), advertising seminars/webinars, encouraging referrals from clients and professional connections, golf? etc.

direct sales social is NOT
good for

relationships, but it’s really good
at building trust, bonds, confidence…

a universe of tools to
connect with your audience (or at least stalk them) if there was EVER a great use for social media, it is to learn more about your audience.

BEING SOCIAL STARTS WITH KNOWING
YOUR AUDIENCE

listeningshould be 75% of your
social plan.

WHO ARE MY CUSTOMERS? HOW
DID THEY FIND ME? (OR) HOW DID I FIND THEM AND HAS THIS CHANGED? WHY DID THEY CHOOSE ME? WHAT WAS THEIR JOURNEY? HOW HAS THIS CHANGED? have you asked:

”“ The aim of marketing
is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. Peter Drucker, Father of Management Theory

WE HAVE CRAZY POWERFUL DATA
AT OUR FINGERTIPS: 1. Social Media Platform Analytics 2. Social Intelligence Tools 3. Social Listening

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM ANALYTICS Social
media platforms offer up everything from demographics to deeper psychographics, interests, and incomes like Twitter analytics. https://analytics.twitter.com/

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE Social Intelligence tools
pull data from social networks to analyze interests and affinities of audiences. You can tell a lot about people by who they explicitly follow online. (mostly not free, but mind-blowing and make learning about your audience instantaneous)

People Who Follow CFO Mag:
….tend to follow multiple business sources (and entrepreneurs) and are interested in content on: Financial Analysis, Analytical Skills, Budgeting, Business Process Improvement/ Management, Risk Management, Mergers & Acquisitions, Leadership, Strategic Planning + Financial Modelling.

SOCIAL LISTENING There are several
free and inexpensive social listening tools that help you keep track of the ongoing conversation around #insurtech, #digitalhealth, #HealthIT, #HRtech and more.

3 IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS: 1. Listening
is the most important function of social. You’ve never had so much insight into your audience! 3. There are tons of free tools to help you figure out your audience. All you need to do to use them is to listen. 2. You need a strategy and that strategy will come from really understanding your audience.

CUSTOMER JOURNEY let’s take a
walk through the and see where else social can help you out...

1. I know you 2.
I’m looking for you 3. I’m comparing you to your competition 4. I’m buying from you 5. I’m using your product 6. I’m reviewing you THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY 1.AWARE2.SEARCH 3.DECIDE 4.TRANSACT 5.USE 6.ADVOCATE p.s. It is actually NOT as neat and clear as this, it just looks that way to be pretty to look at.

AWARENESS

AWARE Customer’s state: Isn’t looking
for you, hasn’t heard of you. Lots of other things on their minds. Another word for increasing awareness is ‘prospecting’.

ACTIVELY RESEARCHING POTENTIAL LEADS ON
SOCIAL Using social intelligence tools - like LinkedIN’s Sales Navigator - to identify and ‘stalk’ potential leads. https://www.linkedin.com/sales

SOCIAL THAT LEADS TO PROSPECTING
When online influencers share your excellent online content with their audience, creating a buzz.

SEARCH

SEARCH Customer’s state: Actively looking
and researching for a good option in your product category. It is better if you are already part of the consideration (built awareness), but there are other ways to get you in the search path.

SOCIAL HELPING YOU GET FOUND
WHEN THE CUSTOMER IS RESEARCHING Blog posts, YouTube videos, Tweets and other fresh content ranks very high in Google Search results. Zane Benefits is on PAGE 1 of a search for “employee benefits” because of their blog content. BLOG CONTENT !

DECIDE

DECIDE Customer’s state: Narrowing down
options to find the very best one. Most likely made her mind up, but may be swayed by reviews and differentiation.

MOST CUSTOMERS HAVE ALREADY DECIDED
BEFORE THEY CALL YOU “Today's business buyers do not contact suppliers directly until 57 percent of the purchase process is complete. The challenge for marketers is to be present in these channels at all times with content that educates buyers and helps guide commercial decisions.” B2B’s Digital Revolution, Think With Google https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/b2b-digital-evolution/

SOCIAL TACTICS THAT HELP SWAY
THE CUSTOMER TO CHOOSE YOU When it comes to making a decision, it’s not just about price. If you have social content (helpful videos and posts) and lots of people talking about you positively, it will help to steer the decision in your favour.

TRANSACT

Customer’s state: Time to purchase!
The customer is having their first experience with your product. TRANSACT

SOCIAL THAT CAN HELP THE
ONBOARDING EXPERIENCE Helpful content can make the difference between a new customer being lost and feeling educated. One of the videos in particular generated close to $30,000 of revenue. “And it all had to do with the fact that we were answering questions that, at the time, weren’t even on the NYS [New York State] Department of Insurance’s website,” (Ryan) Hanley said. State of Content Marketing: Insurance Contently, July 1, 2015 https://contently.com/strategist/2015/07/01/state-of-content-marketing-insurance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyrt84STlgE

UTILIZE

UTILIZE Customer’s state: They’ve signed
up. But how can you enhance their experience?

DEEPENING CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH CONTENT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXtlh_Ei5hc

ADVOCATE

ADVOCATE Customer’s state: They love
you (of course!), now how can you give them the tools to help them spread the word?

Every time you or a
happy customer posts online, you create another opportunity to appear along another customer’s journey.

3 Final Takeaways 1. The
customer’s journey is complex, non- linear, and CONSTANT. You never know when an impression can be made. 3. Dismissing social as part of your growth strategy, is dismissing multiple opportunities. Your competitors won’t. 2. No matter where your potential customers are on their journey, you can be there with social. Social is really great at building trust.

”“ Terry Golesworthy, President of
the Customer Respect Group Offering ongoing advice is now critical with today’s consumer choosing products and suppliers not on the advice of a single expert at a single moment in time, but on an accumulation of information from a variety of sources over a period.

Hmmmmm…maybe this isn’t just a
bunch of malarky after all… you?

THANK YOU! Tara Hunt, President
Truly Social Inc. http://www.trulysocial.ca http://www.youtube.com/tarahunt http://twitter.com/missrogue tara@trulysocial.ca