We talk customer journeys and communications with Reckon’s Marketing Campaign Specialist

We sat down with Reckon’s Marketing Campaign Specialist, Jess Portelli, to chat about customer journeys, communications, email campaigns, and how to get inside the mind of your customers…

As Marketing Campaign Specialist, Jess is primarily responsible for campaign execution, customer journeys, and website content management.

Hey Jess, so what was it that drew you to get into marketing?

“For years when I started out in the workforce, I worked in customer-facing and customer service roles, gathering a thorough understanding of a consumer’s wants and needs from a product and experience perspective.

With that experience I wanted a career where I could use that understanding of human behaviour, while also incorporating along a good chunk of creativity in the role.”

With that experience, how does a marketer get into the mindset of customers? Any suggestions for small businesses out there?

“I think there’s strong analytical and emotional parts to this. There’s a lot of value in conducting market research and analysing data surrounding different markets and fully understanding the right target market for your product/business.

Something we do really well here at Reckon is periodically checking in with our customers, asking them directly what they want to see and what their experience is like with Reckon, through surveys and group interviews.

Gathering such insight provides us with vital information on what we are and aren’t doing right – from a marketing and product perspective.

However, the more you can understand and share other’s feelings and put yourself in their shoes, the more you can develop more effective communications and marketing strategies. Identifying pain points and desires of a customer is crucial to delivering a successful message.

To small businesses I would always suggest that you make testing your best friend. For example, you can start off with conducting simple A/B tests across your different communication channels. This will provide valuable data into your market and engagement levels.

Knowing what catches your audience’s attention is going to increase cut-through and save you and your business time and money.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to communicate with your customers! Send a survey, ask for feedback – there’s no shame in asking your consumers about their experiences with your brand, product and service.”

What’s a customer journey and how would you start to implement a fruitful one?

“A customer journey follows the steps that a customer takes from their initial point of contact with a business, to their purchase point and beyond.

It’s usually a combination of website, emails, SMS, and potential in-product touch points.

The best place to start would be with mapping out the journey and identifying all of the touchpoints for your business. Keeping your market in mind, you want to look at how and when certain touchpoints can be most impactful.

By implementing a fruitful customer journey, you can improve customer satisfaction, increase customer retention, and ultimately drive business growth.”

Once a business has a basic customer journey, how would they optimise it and increase engagement?

“Once again feedback and testing are going to be your friends here. Engagement data is so powerful when it comes to communications. Making small tweaks here and there, such as a different subject line, can make all the difference in your results.

Something you always want to consider is relevancy. Avoid going too rogue with particular comms if they aren’t going to spark interest in your market.

Also, think about how reactive your market might be to not being sold something at every touch point. For example, when emailing a customer, think about including educational pieces, blog posts, tips and tricks etc. Remember that engagement, retention and providing value are just as important as sales!

What are some key considerations when creating email marketing campaigns to produce sales?

“I always consider what I call a ‘level of aggression’ when creating sales campaigns. I don’t believe that one size fits all in this field and that you really must consider the emotional factor when communicating your offer.

For example, if you have a campaign around a software product that is being discontinued and you want the customer to move or upgrade to a different product, that message is going to be a lot softer in tone, as you want to focus more on offering the customer a solution to a potential problem.

The other example could be an aggressive retail offer of 50% off store-wide which is going to have a much louder tone about it to spark excitement and urgency.

The more you can understand how the message is going to be received by the recipient, the more chance you have of generating sales from it.”

Are there any good guides or rules for how often you email a customer and what to include in terms of copy?

“The frequency that you send emails all depends on your brand, offering and audience.

Sending too many emails can lead to market fatigue, while not sending enough can lead to customers forgetting about your brand. It’s essential to test different frequencies and find out what works best for your audience. Look to your data!

A good way to keep customers engaged without spamming your whole database is by segmenting your email list based on customer behaviors, interests, or demographics. Segmentation can help you send more relevant and targeted emails to your customers. This can lead to higher engagement and fewer unsubscribes.

The copy in your emails should be concise, engaging and focused on providing value to the customer. It’s essential to use a clear and compelling subject line that grabs the attention of your customer and avoid spam filters.

Don’t forget to include a call to action! A CTA must be prominent and encourage the customer to act, as well as being appealing and easy to click. Make sure this CTA leads to a landing page or similar, not just your homepage.”