Andrew Frawley, President of Epsilon, has written a book titled, Igniting Customer Connections: Fire Up Your Company’s Growth By Multiplying Customer Experience & Engagement.
The book provides expert insights about connecting with customers effectively across all channels and over time. The core premise is an evidence-based approach called Return On Experience x Engagement, or ROE2, which delivers a new way to inspire and measure customer connections—and improve business results.
In the preface to the book, Frawley writes: “Marketing Is On Fire.”
Here’s an excerpt from the preface:
“You are a marketer. So am I. And I’ve been one for more than 30 years, giving me a unique perspective on our business and the marketplace. This book, however, is not an anecdote-filled memoir, because the old ways of marketing are over. And I’m not interested in revisiting them. I’m much more fascinated by what’s happening now–and excited about helping our industry rethink some of its core tenets. I want to help marketers be more effective, drive profitability–and earn new respect within their organizations. And I want to help solve the #1 challenge that every marketer faces in our chaotic, lightning-fast marketplace–how to deploy your marketing resources to create an emotional connection with customers and engage them in new, effective ways that achieve impressive, repeatable results.
During the past few years I have seen clients fundamentally change the performance of their marketing by simultaneously focusing their strategies on improving how customers engage with their brand and how they (and the broader base of consumers) experience the brand. They’re not just observing this connection. They’re proactively allocating marketing strategies and dollars to improve engagement and experience – and ultimately, improving business outcomes–including sales, share of wallet, and brand equity–dramatically.”
Frawley, who will present a showcase session at the 4th annual Engagement & Experience Expo in Dallas on Nov. 10-12, participated in a compelling interview with Loyalty360 to discuss his book and the state of customer-centric marketing.
Merging Together
Frawley: We have advertising and mass marketing. We have a highly targeted world of direct mail and email. What we are really seeing is those areas are merging together.
You can have a highly engaged customer who has a deep emotional connection with the brand. When marketers connect those two things, they see a dramatic improvement in performance.
Struggle to Understand Customers?
Frawley: It is a barrier in some cases and an opportunity or catalyst in other cases. Consumers expect to have real-time interactions that are responsive and recognize who they are and their circumstances.
One of the core premises in the book is about Atomic Moments of Truth. Companies need to think about their interactions and supporting technologies and business processes. How do you engineer your systems to live in that real-time world and intercept those Atomic Moments of Truth and provide an informed reaction and deliver a highly engaged piece of content?
Book Builds on 30 Years of Experience
Frawley: The book builds on my experiences in the past 30 years and it’s something I hope that gets marketers of all sizes thinking about. Figure out what content will create that emotional linkage to the brand.
We did proprietary research across three industries. The notion is if you can connect engagement, experience, and emotional events, price and customer satisfaction go away. Marketers have to look differently at how they’re spending dollars to create those customer interactions.
Millennials
Frawley: Millennials have a unique set of characteristics as to how they engage, focused on mobile devices and giving them opportunities to provide more information about themselves. Transparency and social networks are big in this segment. We definitely treat Millennials differently than we treat other segments.
Measurements
Frawley: There is an attribution problem in having the ability to track people across devices. This makes the path to purchase complicated. For example, in email, open rates are up and conversion rates are down. Smartphones are opening messages, but not converting.
Pick your own attributes of emotive aspects and engagement that drive business and brand equity.
Tough time to be a CMO?
Frawley: It’s a complicated time. CMOs have to collaborate across their organizations, with leadership, and with outside partners in a way they never had to before.
A key piece of advice: So much of historical thinking in marketing has been campaign-centered through TV, direct mail, versioning for markets and demographics, and that we’re going to have four big campaigns a year.
In my mind, that concept is completely obsolete now. We have clients that have thousands of campaigns running all the time. Shift the focus from four or 10 or 20 campaigns a year to thousands happening all the time. That changes technologies, changes measurement, changes process, and how you create content. It’s the culture CMOs have to live in, which is a successful one to live in now. That really raises the bar for marketers. They have to think in the channels and integrating real time.
Customer Philosophy
Frawley: The central premise is communicating with customers in a new way where they’re highly engaged and have emotional connections with brands. Doing those things improves performance. Focus on engagement and experience together through the lens of Atomic Moments of Truth. When we can do that, we fundamentally change performance.
Defining Customer Experience/Customer Engagement
Frawley: To us, engagement is the opens, the clicks, the likes. The more physical interactions you have with brands. Understanding who you are and how you interact across channels.
Experience is what are the things that will make you enjoy the brand? More aspirational and what your peer network likes and aspires to.
About the Author: Mark Johnson
Mark is CEO & CMO of Loyalty360. He has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs.