What is Your Customer Value Optimization Strategy?
Wow! Next week CEO, Christine Kelly is going to the Traffic & Conversion Summit 2015 in San Diego, CA. In preparation for this amazing learning and development session, Viral Solutions is aiming to provide relevant, real-time, and rockstar information to help you and your team nail your digital marketing efforts. To aid in this experience, this post is designed to help you understand the foundation of digital marketing, customer value optimization. As such, the remainder of this post will discuss what, why, how, and when aspects of customer value optimization.
What is customer value optimization? Customer value optimization (CVO) is what you do to provide specific value to your customers, and the method by which of delivering that value in the most effective manner. Basically, you're in the business of solving a problem(s). Your ability of solving problems is your value. Ask yourself how well you, your team, and/or organization solves problems? What do you do that makes your method of solving a problem different than others? What is it? How does that method fit with your product or service market? Does it scream “awesome”? Do customers even know the process or unique selling position of why your product or service solves their problem(s) better? This is where customer value optimization is designed to help you align your “magic” with the “problem” and create the greatest value for customers.
Why does customer value optimization matter? If there is a gap between what you do, why you do it, and how your solution is better for the customer, then there is a disconnect of understanding between you and prospective customers. An unnecessary disconnect. You are in the driver's seat of creating your customer value optimization. You message matters. It is the footprint that you leave about your problem solving capabilities and/or whatever type of product or service you provide that solves a want, need, or problem. If a customer cannot get the gist of what makes your business better than the other option, they're never going to know, and if a competitor does it better, the competitor is going to have better results. This is a wasted opportunity to neglect fine tuning this process for your company. So, ask yourself how well do you deliver customer value? Perhaps, ask your customers about that as well via a survey or some other form of communication. You could use that data to identify outliners and common reasons why customers chose your organization. This may help you to wrap your head around “why” people choose your organization, especially, if you're unsure about your exact customer value why people choose your firm. This will help you to know “why” your current customers buy. Likewise, if you track your opportunities, it may be helpful to reach out and identify “why not” . This will also provide you with information to help you truly identify your customer value and connect the actual delivery of that value. This matters because it helps to confirm or disconfirm what you say is your customer value and the actual delivery. Talk is cheap. Action is real. The ability to connect the value and action, helps you to truly see if the foundation of customer value optimization is superior or inferior.
How can customer value optimization be delivered? The Digital Marketer noted that the first step is to identify the product or service market. Which
requires understanding your USP as identified in the previous sections. That way when you position your product, service, and/or organization, your message strategy is presented to the right audience. Next, you need to identify how you will actually deliver that message. This is also referred to as selecting your traffic source, i.e. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, SEO, Email Marketing, Blogging, Adwords, or Social Media. Next, you need to craft your lead magnet for each of your selected traffic sources. What lead magnet? Yes. What is it that you put in front of your audience to get action? Do you have any lead magnets? Yes? How are they working? No? Why not? In addition to your lead magnet, have you create a strategic action plan that fits with your audience, i.e. trip wires, follow-up series, offering core product(s), and profit maximizer? Do you have a strategic digital return blueprint that brings your audience back to you? These questions are all areas to consider within your own digital marketing strategy. Perhaps, you have all of those areas and they are rocking out completely and making it rain for your organization. Or perhaps, that strategy is in need of improvement because your digital marketing outcome is in a drought.
When to start your customer value optimization?
Today. Even if your action is looking at your calendar and identifying a time that you can truly sit down, review, and analyze your digital marketing results. Think about your core unique selling position, your message of that value, the delivery of that message, the results of that message, and the overall experiences with your customers – do the experiences align with your USP and is it truly providing value to your customers? Yes. This takes time, money, and other resources, but you can do it. For more questions about creating this strategy, certainly feel free to reach out to our Viral Solutions team that can aid you in unlocking the “magic” of the current situation and aid you in building an effective digital marketing campaign that fits with providing customer value.
Katie Doseck PhD
Chief Visionary and Strategic Ace Up Your Sleeve | Viral Solutions LLC