Demand Generation is shifting to support and optimize the entire lifecycle. Not long ago, demand generation marketers focused solely on capturing as many new leads as possible. While it would be naïve to assume that marketers would turn away new business today, their attention has shifted to customer retention and brand loyalty/advocacy. Without question it is just as (if not more) important to retain existing clients as it is to capture new leads.
Along with the expanding role of the demand generation marketer there has been a change in the way marketers think about how they communicate. We’re moving away from segmenting marketing into two categories; business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C). Over the last few years, the idea of human-to-human (H2H) has become a popular mantra for a fundamentally simple idea. Marketers need to make it simple for the individual to understand what they’re selling, to share their experiences, and to feel cared for.
People want to be heard – listened to.
People want to be respected.
People want to be valued beyond the transaction.
In an effort to put the individual first, marketers are beginning to think about the entire experience and the unique journey of their leads, customers, and advocates. Relationship experience is comprised of every interaction the individual has with a product, a company, or part of an organization. The individual’s relationship experience journey begins long before he/she becomes a customer and long after they leave.
Whether engaging via desktop, mobile, social or in-store, their experience should be one that feels less like a path to purchase and more like a first date that went unbelievably well. The type of date where you leave excited about 10th date—so well, that the business and individual, can’t imagine being with anyone else.
It means every digital tactic must be executed in the pursuit of getting to know the individual, so that every message intrigues, appreciates, and continues to draw them into a personalized experience. Remember: they make the rules! In order to keep up organizations must have context awareness, methods for capturing insights, triggers for acting upon it, and a repository for storing it.
The Separation is in the Preparation – Russell Wilson
