Your Customer's Journey in the Social Era

SOCIAL ERA understanding the customer journey in the by: Tara Hunt, Truly Social Inc.

8 months ago, I presented a version of this presentation to your colleagues.

THEN(5 employees)

NOW(12 employees + still hiring!)

NEEDED: a good benefits package! p.s. In Canada, our average cost per employee per year is around $1,200 (compared to $9,727 in the US) and there are no rules about having to pay for health coverage (as we have free public healthcare), but it’s necessary to attract talent!

Stimulus / Trigger Growing team. Needed to think about employee retention and talent attraction! search asking colleagues reading reviews my customer journey

SO many questions! 1. What’s the standard insurance offered in my industry? 2. How much should the company pay for versus the employee? 3. Should we pay for family benefits, or have the employee pay for that? 4. What *should* the benefits cost? 5. 80%? 100%? Mental health? Life? D&D? So many different answers. So many different approaches. So much confusion! I googled everything. My assistant called around. I went back and forth to various Slack, Facebook, and LinkedIN groups...and finally...

FINALLY!our health benefits information session…!

of course, they’re pretty great at social ;P

did I choose Harry James Group because of their social media presence?

NOit was actually a referral after a search after another recommendation that led nowhere. ...but the content, itself, did make the choice pretty easy. welllll….

lessons learned: 1. There is little to no content out there that helps small businesses navigate this step 2. Knowing how the “system” works is confusing 3. Figuring out industry standards is impossible (and it most likely ranges a great deal in different areas) 4. Employees want everything, but don’t understand what they’re getting 5. The first person who had any information available that made this less stressful is where I spent my money!

customer let’s talk about the journey

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

Story: “I saw your big announcement” “...we work with several small businesses like yours who are growing. I believe we might have some ideas for you to improve your health benefit program…”

lesson #1: the customer journey is unpredictable and varied, so anything you can do to show up along that journey will help you lead to a sale.

the decision let’s talk about your customers: makers

myth #1: busy decision makers 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.

lesson #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 the foundation to becoming truly social.

there is a huge 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 the vast majority 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

THANKS TO SOCIAL, 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/

Facebook Audience Insights (free) In Facebook’s business manager, you can see all sorts of interesting information about specific audiences. Search: Job Titles: Business and Finance, Corporation  Location: United States of America  Age: 30+ 15,000-20,000 monthly active FB Users.

LinkedIN Insights LinkedIN has all sorts of insights into who is visiting your Company Page, reading or watching your content, viewing your profile, and more!

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS 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. (not free, but mind-blowing and make learning about your audience instantaneous)

Affinities for people who talk about (or read about) employee benefits: People who mention the phrase “employee benefits” on Twitter, have the following affinities: ● Health ● Insurance Industry ● Finance ● Health Care ● Affordable Care Act ● Management ● Law ● Entrepreneurship ● Leadership ● World News ● Science And Technology ● California ● Basketball ● Tennis ● Sales ● Local Business

And this is what they talk about... This is practically a roadmap for the kind of content you should be creating to attract your audience! Data pulled from the past two years across: ● News (55%) ● Twitter (38%) ● Forums (4%) ● Reddit (2%) ● Blogs (1%) 288,533 posts

You can even find the thought leaders they follow: There are lots of tools to find out who your audience follows. We use Klear to find out who is influential for a particular segment. This is just a snapshot of the CFO influencers.

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. Tweetdeck (by Twitter)

LinkedIN Sales Navigator Probably one of the most powerful tools available for social listening, LinkedIN’s Sales Navigator will tell you when people and companies you follow make any changes that may create opportunities for sales: ● Company growth ● People moving between companies + getting promotions ● Shared articles/posts ● Suggest new leads for you ● Mentions in the news ● And more!

lesson #3: Listening is the most important function of social. You’ve never had so much insight into your audience (and lots of free tools)! If you aren’t using social, you will miss out.

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 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. Get in front of your future customers early, so they think of you when they need you.

SOCIAL ADS/BOOSTED CONTENT Social ads will help raise awareness if targeted correctly to the target industry. The better your content and the more targeted your ads, the more bang you’ll get for your buck. http://seapointdig.com/impact-award/

EARNED MEDIA/CONTENT When online influencers share your excellent online content with their audience, creating a buzz.

USE SOCIAL LISTENING FOR PROSPECTING Get out there and start building those relationships early on...before they need you! Share your knowledge, follow prospects and interact (with value).

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.

GREAT CONTENT WILL RAISE YOUR SEO 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!

Case study: LinkedIN Articles

COMPARE

COMPARE 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.

BUYING

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

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

USING

USING 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

ADVOCATING

ADVOCATING 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 on your potential customer’s journey. to more strategically appear on that journey, you can *also* use social tools to find out where to be and how to do it right.

4. Social media and content is a great tool to use to get in front of your customer along their journey. 3. You find out how to find your customers by using social first, and foremost to LISTEN. 2. EVERYTHING is social. It always has been, but it’s even more now. The Final Takeaways 1. The customer’s journey is unpredictable, so being on multiple points of that journey is important.

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