Already at number five? How did that happen? Oh well, might as well – so much to cover this week.
First off, a little follow up from last week. I told you I was starting on dynamic journeys (well, have been having internal discussions for quite some time; I’m starting to put something together for it) and that I couldn’t share anything before. Well – here is a little something.
Now, if you’ve ever seen a lot or a little of what I wrote before, you’re probably going to say “hmm… have I not seen this before somewhere from him?” and the answer is – probably, but not on this format.
🎼 Feeling unknown
And you’re all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I’ll make you a believer 🎼
The concept of unknown number of interactions making a journey, the concept of focusing on an interaction – not the journey, and the like for Greek letters and very confusing “functions” – sure, you’ve seen that. As you likely recognize the predilection for breaking things down into smaller portions, using “cute” names, and black background with white font (which, in my opinion, looks distinguished).
However, the breakdown of the interactions into four elements was a deep collaboration (meaning, he had the idea and I “improved” on it) with View Raj Balasundaram from Emarsys. Apparently, he has been thinking about this for a while also and he did some work on the classification of events and actions.
I agree that there are events that trigger decisions and decisions result in actions, I added the persona (which, truth be told he is not very keen on) to make it a bit more personalized and directly correlated with journeys. I think that it works well – don’t you?
But the main idea is that journeys can never be static in this model. Documented, static journeys are like the Thomas Guides maps of the 1980-90s, and dynamic journeys are like Google Maps (or Apple Maps – wait, not those…. We mean for customers to get somewhere without being confused. Let’s stick with Google).
🎼 I’m taking a ride with my best friend
I hope he never lets me down again
He knows where he’s taking me
Taking me where I want to be 🎼
While the Thomas Guides did get you from A to B, nothing saves you like Google Maps rerouting you in real-time to go around a closure or accident. Also, ever tried re-routing using Thomas Guides? You have to change pages! Google automatically repositions itself and sets a new route while making circles counterclockwise in his head with one hand, and clockwise in his stomach with the other…. In other words, it works like customer journeys in real-life. You do what you want, it adapts to you – not the other way around.
Second point – and I teased this one last week. I wrote on episode three about privacy how Google was missing the boat on that, and how we need to find a better model to preserve our privacy and work with organizations around that.
Well, a mystery guest sent me a note saying he had something to say – so I said to myself, “Self, why not make a video?” And I replied “Great idea self! Let’s.”
And we did.
Here is 20 minutes (could’ve gone way longer, trust me) about first- and third-party data and how we can improve that. My guest knows what he is talking about, trust me. It is a good conversation (and I mostly let him talk, that makes it even better). Who’s the mystery guest? Have to watch it, I guess…
🎼 It’s time to face the consequence
For delivering the proof
In the policy of truth 🎼
And – finally – our third point. I debated internally what to make this, considering you spent some time on my content already, want to make it about someone else’s content that I found interesting this week.
How about two?
The Nielsen Annual Marketing report has been making the rounds last two weeks and has some good stuff. First, and above anything else, calls for the “era of adaptation.” Pretty cool title if you ask me, but that’s why I am not in marketing (allegedly). Like that concept, but – main in the data part for me there is a very interesting tidbit. In section three, if you are following along in your readers, says
“Many marketers develop their omnichannel strategies to ensure that the customer buying experience is seamless across online and traditional store experiences. It’s time for them to take that a step further so that they’re thinking about creating seamless experiences for consumers from touch point to touch point—not just at the point of purchase. It’s a slight, but critical nuance, but it involves an array of layers of data and insight into understanding the full consumer journey—even those that don’t end in a sale.”
What?? Focus on something that does not give me money?? Why on earth??
Let me ask you something… think about any relationship in your life: siblings, friends, SO, your choice. Now think about how you learned most about them and who they were, what made them go, what issues they may have had, etc. What was that time? How about those times you spent during camping trips with your siblings talking before they went to sleep? Or maybe the time you spent with your BFF just chatting about nothings? How about when you drove cross-country in four days in that beat-up car with your college roommate idling the time away with chatter?
Any of those moments could be quantified as part of the relationship?
What makes you think consumers are different? People are people, so why should it be – sorry, Depeche Mode moment there. But true, people are people. Whether they be consumers, customers, siblings, or BAE.
Then, consumer consciousness. There are four Kolsky siblings, with me being the dumb one of course. One of the smart ones, my sister, works for Ipsos global and she sent me a recent report they produced on consumer consciousness.
Pretty heady stuff, but then again – I don’t look smart if I don’t pretend that I read some of this stuff. Apparently, there is a mathematical formula created for understanding consciousness and by breaking it down we can correlate it to consumer insights that businesses need to deliver better experiences (the report does not say that my single-track mind did that correlation). In any case, the reason I bring this up is because there is a part of the report that says:
“Integrated consumer data is not enough to create consumer consciousness. According to the Integrated Information Theory, a conscious network creates new information. That means that a conscious consumer system needs to use big data analytics, data science, smart curation, and advanced marketing modelling to find new, fresh consumer insights”
Boom goes the dynamite (one of my favorite clips in the world, never gets old, go to 2:25 if you don’t have the patience – but the entire thing is just pure gold)
Takes more than just integrated (or aggregated data) to understand consumers.
🎼 It’s a competitive world
Everything counts
In large amounts 🎼
Listen now – time to connect dots…
- Two weeks ago I wrote how cookies and tracking were going away
- My guest said the same today in the video above
- Just because we tracked the data and aggregated does not give us much without other elements like – best part ever – people who understand data and what to do with it, and people who understand more than data and how data plays in that world.
Or – simply said – data won’t give you much, if you don’t know what you’re doing with it.
‘Nuff said – talk to y’all next week. Please do let me know what you think of these video conversations and if you think maybe an audio only would be better? Or nothing at all? How do I continue these conversations?
As always, hit me on LinkedIn or at the “World’s Worse Kept Secret” that is my email address.
