D365 Customer Insights - Journeys: real-world benefits - INSTANT COMMUNICATIONS
A MINI SERIES - The real word beneftis
Marketing is vast in it’s definition. It is the individual or team(s) that are responsible for Brand, Promotion, Competitor Strategy, Consumer Messaging, Advertising and more. They are the team that is essentially responsible for determining WHO to target, WHEN to communicate, HOW to get the message across, WHERE the message should be placed, and WHAT that content needs to be. The role, whilst very rewarding and with it’s many perks, comes with its challenges
This mini series of blogs will focus on the real working world benefits that D365 can have on the marketing department and wider business as a whole. Last week i discussed the harsh reality of data reporting; there is so much a marketeer needs to report on, how you tell the story easily? Where do you begin? PowerBi offers endless capabilities for the marketeer to do so. You just need to know what you want to report on, and the PowerBi Templates offer an opportunity for business to have somewhere to begin and be able to be clear on those all important requirements.
This next blog will begin to look at the next harsh reality of the marketing role and how D365 MARKETING D365 CUSTOMER INSIGHTS JOURNEYS can help alleviate some of the pressures experienced.
HARSH REALITY THREE : MODERN DAY CONSUMER
I want you to take a moment to pause. STOP. THINK.
Before you make a purchase from a company…. what are the steps that you take?
Not sure what I quite mean? Let me give you a few key statistics and real-world examples:
89% of UK Consumers read reviews regularly online when shopping before making a purchase
Think about it. If you go onto Amazon to but a product, what is the first thing that you do? I know what I do! I scroll to the bottom and i look at the quality of the product, the seller, the value for money. I look at the images. I make sure the product is ‘what it says on the tin’ so to speak.
If i plan to vist a new restaurant, a new hotel , go on holiday….. I look at TripAdvisor. I read the reviews. I want to know the in’s and out’s. Is it going to be worth my time and expense.
This weekend, I seen an advert on my Instagram Stories for Elf on The Shelf 24day Kit. (Yes i know… Christmas is near… Scary Thought). But anyway, this Elf on the Shelf Kit looked amazing. The lazy guide for elf on the shelf. But i had never heard of this company. So what do i do? I go to TrustPilot and look at the reliability and credibility of the site.3/4 Consumers use a comparison website
People want information fast. They don’t want to spend hours scrolling through sites to find the best company to buy from, whether they’re wanting Price or Quality or looking for Quantity and value for money.
If my phone contract is up for renewal, i am on EE and i am looking at all the different mobiles and all of the different Sim options side by side. When i find the product i like, i am then comparing price across different providers, for the best deal.
If my car insurance is up for renewal, i am sitting on GoCompare or Compare the Market. Why fill in a form 50000 times, when you can do it once?92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends
When was the last time you bought something new? How did you learn about the item?
I bought my Parlux 300 Hairdryer after complaining to one of the girls that it took me over an hour to dry my hair, and her recommending it to me.
I visited a restaurant in Liverpool City Centre after a friend having a good meal, and recommending it to me.75% of consumers say word of mouth plays a key role in purchasing decisions
I renovated my house last year. I got Tradesmen in, after talking with people who had had work done in their house. You know the conversations and how they go… ‘Your bathrroms nice, who did you get in?’ ….
I need a gardener, i ask a few people who tends to theirs?
I need my car fixing; i know which garages are known for trying to pull the wool over your eyes, and which garages will genuinely help.
My point being is the modern day consumer is informed. They do their due diligence. They Google everything that they believe there is to know about a company, and then in turn believe they think they know everything about a company. It leads to an expectation. They purchase a product or a service based on TRUST.
TRUST has become the new currency of commerce.
D365 MARKETING D365 CUSTOMER INSIGHTS JOURNEYS EMPOWERS MARKETEERS TO BUILD ON THAT TRUST AND MEET MODERN DAY CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS
HOW DOES D365 CUSTOMER INSIGHT - JOURNEYS MEET THE MODERN DAY CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS?
INSTANT COMMUNICATIONS!!!!!
Consumers expect updates, we expect confirmation and if we have submitted information or clicked a ‘Download’ button, we expect it straight in our inbox… do we not?
Real time Marketing offers the ability to send customers down a series of communications based on a customer action rather than a segment.
Customer Journey Triggers a a flexible way to cature important moments ad interact instantaneously.
We can trigger a contact down a customer journey based on :
Record Creation
Record Update
The best thing about this more recently, is that we can create Custom Triggers. Any custom table that we create, we can create Triggers off the back of that, and this allows us to access the Custom Table data in our Email Communications. This is particularly helpful, where there is a one-to-many relationship, and you need to surface record specific information within the email. (More on personalisation next week!)
Real-time Marketing Custom Trigger Example - Real-world use case
Some of you may be aware i have a background in the employer branding industry. I was a Research Analyst, for a fantastic Employer Branding Agency Ph.Creative!
One of the things that i learnt whilst working on projects, is that Candidate End-to-End Experience can be poor. Candidates may find themselves having to chase for an update on their application for a job role, and sometimes if you don’t keep on top of those communications, you can lose the candidate to a competitor.
Anyway, sticking with this HR scenario as an example:
Custom Trigger : Record Created
Every time someone applies for a job vacancy, HR want an email to be sent to confirm receipt of their CV.
Now, in this particular trigger, you will notice that we are able to set the Audience for the application record. In this case, I am choosing the Candidate. But it may be that there is also a Recruitment Agency associated to the record, or a Senior Manager associated to the record too, who needs to review the application.
The trigger is ready to be used in a Customer Journey., and we can apply extra logic to this trigger activating if needed (More on that in a future blog post!)
Custom Trigger : Record Updated
Now let’s say HR would like an email to be sent to the Candidate when they decide whether to Invite them to an interview or not.
HR would update the record. What we can do here is create a Custom Trigger on a record being updated, and we can be specific on the attribute that is being updated.
In this example we can say only Trigger if the Invite to Interview field is being updated.
Again, when we add this trigger to a journey we can apply more logic for the trigger activating such as the option set value. (More on that in my future blog post)
Hopefully, the above examples have shown how we can communicate with individuals instantly using Trigger Creation.
But there are so many more examples where people almost expect communication, or where a business would benefit from instant communication, such as :
An event registration
Wi-fi sign on
Abandoned basket at checkout
Event Attendance
Feedback Survey
Next week i will take the harsh reality of modern day consumer expectations one step further and explore Email Personalisation.
