Part 2: New Frameworks for Marketing in the Digital Economy
5 The New Customer Path
Understanding customer path is imperative for all industries. What is important is to build quality touch points and it has to be quality versus quantity. Touch points is the way you connect to your customers, critical areas that the customer values. Mapping customer path or journey is a tool to strengthen channel presence. By knowing how to create awareness, how they research, what motivates the guest and what can be the out of the box experience of guests at the resort would help modify a strong differentiator. In order to leverage on communication, there has to be a peer to per communication, the resort should consider building a better mind share, heart share and market share that will build brand loyalist. This will maximize operations efficiency and effectively, addressing the needs at the resort by attending to the immediate requests of the guests that will create a good story that will be shared to his/her direct network of friends and families. Stories worth sharing like, how they were able to recover a lost key or cell phone after an outing/camping.
Understanding How People Buy (from 4As to 5As)
In keeping the resort relevant, there is a need to track customer behavior and this is possible by following the 4 A’s frame work. As suggested it stands for Aware, Attitude, Act and Act Again. It was formerly an AIDA customer path concept that is modified to track post purchase customer behavior as well. At the resort Awareness starts with learning about the resort from friends. Attitude will address the like or dislike of a potential guest. The questions below research may help them decide if they will like it or not. Act is the new purchase. The questions below are decision factors in buying or booking a reservation. Act again is the out of the box experience, a determinant if they will recommend it to others or will they go back and visit the resort once again to share the experience to those who have not tried it or even to the same people because they liked the service.
The 4 A’s frame work also discusses the funnel and the conversion ratio from awareness to repeat guests. A certain percentage for example who are aware will be drilled down to those who will research or show interest, then down to a smaller percentage who will purchase or book and then act again is relatively lower than those who are likely to come back from the first visit. Once the resort is recommended or a guest came back then loyal advocates are earned. In Shift 1, a customer path must adapt to issues in connectivity and increased influence of social media FB page and Ads. This may be represented into a sample marketing funnel like in website as digital channel like the figure below:
Shift 2, the new customer path should be aligned to building guest who are willing to be brand advocates and not just focused on building a repeat or loyal guests, they should be satisfied enough to spread the word. Moreover, the new customer path should take into account connectivity among customers through forums or beach related FB groups to deepen their awareness via direct communication. A positive communication is very important to deepen relationship of the resort to its potential guests.
The Shifting Customer Path in a Connected World
In shift 3, guests at the resort connect to travel advocates and travel bloggers and heavily read reviews online. Guests nowadays are willing to share their experience online from the time they have researched, experience customer service or reservation experience down to the treatment of resort staff. The conversation with the brand and its representative can challenge how the business do things the normal way, it may weaken and strengthen the brands image as well.
The 5 A’s on the other hand added “Advocate” at the last column. Aware is where they resort guests have been exposed to the brands name, have heard it somewhere or from someone. The brand is recognized in the field of tourism, resorts and beach camping. Appeal is amplifying the short term memory, this is where response is seen as they take some necessary steps to know more about the product, and the more curious the more effective is the brand appeal. Researching due to curiosity is the Ask factor driven by curiosity, they call friends for feedback, crowd sourcing in FB, read online reviews or even call the reservations office for more info and inquire for package rates. A combination of offline and online strategies will help guests to make decision based on others suggestions and comments. Act in this new shift is not limited to purchasing, it is also the holistic experience from the time they call to inquire down to going to the resort. The guests are keen observer of how the brand character is portrayed by the employees, how their thoughts are being addressed and needs being delivered. Advocate is retention, repeat guest visits and making them love the service that they will go back and become evangelists, the offline strategy of sending out a simple questionnaires after the outing of asking “if they will recommend, why and why not?” could be a good strategy to build more brand ambassadors.
However, the path in 5A’s is not traditional straight forward flow, some guest that we may consider brand advocates may not necessarily experienced the resort, these can be our distant relatives or even family loyalist who may also spread positive brand image. It may also be spiral in the sense that not all who have inquired will book or those who have experienced will try other resorts. Return guests does not necessarily need to go from awareness stage and will just loop to the feedback and act and book again. This non-traditional flow may be an avenue to discover rooms for improvement.
1. Driving from Awareness to Advocacy (the Ozone 3)
Marketing 4.0 focuses on Owned, Other, Outer as referred to the Ozone 3. In old marketing concept this is the Owned, Paid and Earned Media concepts respectively. The most important of all is getting brand advocates through “the outer” concept which is created by a good brand appeal. Maximize “the other” which refers to channels which creates curiosity that makes potential guest ask and inquire and create awareness through “the owned.”
In application, the resort could have the ff own, other and outer to drive advocacy.
OTHER |
|
OWNED |
|
OUTER |
|
Messaging
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|
Integration |
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2. Summary: Aware, Appeal, Ask, Act and Advocate
The 5A’s is designed to determine the ways on how the guests can reach you, how you can tap the interest and desires of your target market. This also can help you improve your conversion rate once you have identifies critical patterns that might hinder them in booking at the resort. This would also tell you the importance of having loyal advocates and not just stopping at the end sale but on how to amplify word of mouth by getting others to recommend you. This is a critical concept in making a marketing plan and business strategy. This could also identify problems and complaints of guests by combining online and offline platforms. This is a good tool to raise awareness and curiosity and further improve brand image. The 5 A’s aids in developing connectivity among potential guests from awareness to advocacy. Gaining advocacy is the identifier of a successful marketing campaign. Reaching out and gaining earned media who will speak highly of your product or services.
A. How can your brand identify and leverage the most critical touch points in the customer path?
The resort can maximize and leverage on tapping the customer buying patterns or the frequently asked questions, the barriers and other issues should be addressed to boost the resort’s full potential, this can help in creating more advocates by leveraging on channels which are means of communication between the brand and its guests. It can also be used in competitor analysis to develop a better brand differentiator.
B. How can your business improve brand favourability and optimize marketing efforts by evaluating the three main sources of influence across the customer path?
The three (3) influences can be used in integrating the zones that will benefit from one another. “Owned” linked to “Other” zone will drive page view that will boost search engine rankings in your owned website, owned FB page that is maximized using boost ads can drive engagement and conversion. “Other” zone like blogs, paid email in return can create additional awareness to support your “owned” zone like website FB page, Twitter, Instagam by having a link from the blogs. Blogs normally are the basis for product reviews and it is a great help to leverage on this, the links going to the “owned” will greatly benefit since “owned” are avenues to showcase your brand. However, the greatest favour is by designing owned zone to guide “outer” zone and by setting a good story board, pictures or example to the public through “owned” YouTube channel. This may increase vblogs which could come from the “outer” zone. In addition to that integrating you tube links to emails when customers’ requests for quotes will increase awareness and page views, this videos can set expectations and could entice them to create their own version. Zone integration and better customer path analysis will drive more leads and value to the company. All zones complement each other, and it is crucial to have all three.
6 Marketing Productivity Metrics (PAR Purchase Action Ratio and BAR Brand Advocacy Ratio)
1. Introducing PAR and BAR
Purchase Action Ratio (PAR) and Brand Advocacy Ratio (BAR) are the main metrics that are needs to be tracked these days. Far from the usual social media metrics and digital channel metrics, this gives a broader sense of how well companies convert in terms of Sales and Positive influence. BAR focuses on Advocacy while PAR on purchases. There are numerous metrics like Search Engine Conversion Ratio, Social Media Engagement Score, Visitor Conversion Ratio for website, Social Media ROI, CPA, CPM, CPC, Bounce rate for emails, Unsubscribe rates and the list goes on. Thus, the most important ingredient to a success of a business is the Purchase conversion (PAR) and the No. of people actually recommending you (BAR).
In application, in 3,336 quotations made, 801 booked and 8 recommended the brand (this is based on original data for 2016) PAR is 801/3,336 = 24 % (low) because the ideal is at least 80% and the BAR is 9/801 = 1.12% for the resort.
2. Decomposing PAR and BAR
To determine profitability of a company, ROE may be a considered metric to summarize Profitability (as measured by net profit margin), Asset Use Efficiency (as measure of asset turnover) and Financial Leverage (as measure by equity multiplier). The goal is to have a higher ROE which means high profitability, maximized assets and high leverage. However, high leverage can be narrowed down to determine over leverage and under leverage.
Breaking PAR and BAR can give additional insights that aids the company to understand better when some data may be missing. Other formulas may be, PAR = Act/Total Market Share + Aware/Total market or Customer/Total Market Share / Aware / Total market or simply Market Share/Brand Awareness.
With PAR, market Share is always half % of brand awareness and this is a determinant on how marketers should be careful in spending.
Low conversion rate |
Means |
aware to appeal |
Poor customer attraction and low brand positioning due to poor marketing implementation. Attraction level is close to 1. |
appeal to ask |
Low customer curiosity, customers are not compelled to ask questions |
ask to act |
Low commitment, people talks about the brand but do not buy, guests might find the service to be disappointing. |
act to advocate |
Low affinity, experience at the resort was not great and not worth sharing or recommending. Goal is to increase compassion level. |
With Bar, shows the outcome, the ideal bar score is 1. The goal is to go through the entire 5A’s without dropping out.
Low conversion rate |
Means |
5 A’s any given stage |
A bottleneck, reduces productivity of the entire customer path, determines touch points that needs improvement. Altering bottleneck improves PAR and BAR. |
BAR = (Appeal / Awareness) ( Ask/Appeal) (Act/Ask) (Avocates/Affinity)
BAR |
Means |
LOYALTY |
IMPROVE ON |
APPEAL |
Poor customer attraction and low brand positioning due to poor marketing implementation. Attraction level is close to 1. |
ATTRACTION |
· Repositioning · Marketing Communication |
ASK |
Low customer curiosity, customers are not compelled to ask questions |
CURIOSITY |
· Community Marketing · Content Marketing
|
ACT |
Low commitment, people talks about the brand but do not buy, guests might find the service to be disappointing. |
COMMITMENT |
· Channel · Management |
ADVOCATE |
Low affinity, experience at the resort was not great and not worth sharing or recommending. Goal is to increase compassion level. |
AFFINITY |
· Loyalty · Program |
3. Driving Up Productivity
The driving force to increased productivity is improved awareness. Digital Channel is the latest and less costly way of driving awareness to your brand. Connectivity through social media and other digital platforms may trigger conversation and give information to those who have not heard of the product yet. People tend to listen and watch through YouTube to learn about a product, they read reviews on blogs and read comments and recommendation. It is said the previous chapters that customer tends to trust strangers posting reviews more than what the company website says or company advertisements. Leveraging on guests conversation online. Online content cannot be directly controlled by the company same with how we cannot control the sentiments that are being posted on social media Facebook page, we don’t practice deleting negative comments or harsh feedback because it is rude to the guest, we just address this and as much as possible settle things in a private chat room then if possible to request the removal of such comment. Customer conversation may reduce cost of advertising online and other costs and the challenge is to have positive advocates and positive mentions. However, this should not be the only medium to maximize companies advertising potentials, it is still best to have your own digital plan which has online and offline strategies to tap target market. Brands cannot solely rely on “outer” zone to build a good brand reputation.
To drive productivity to the resort here are the ways to leverage on a strategy.
1. Increase Attraction – Our value proposition is that we provide a pampered camping venue that is suited for all ages. Quality prime grade Kawayans and a decent restroom, we are also a good venue for team building and weddings. We have community building, we provide a camping ground as big as 4 HA, we engage in environmental activities and the list goes on and this set us apart from other camping sites. These information should be set clear to the market and communicated properly. The company also practice a culture that best fit the tourism industry, brand character and a brand voice and we stick to it as much as possible.
Sample of our brand voice is cool, calm, and collected and could make you feel relaxed and stress free; it talks like a best friend or a good companion; it is warm and welcoming; it treats its guest like a family member. It has an on-the-go attitude; it is ready to accept visitors and guests anytime 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is expressive of individuality and encourages simplicity and freedom.
Brand Character:
1. Young, Adventurous & Romantic (trendy and has respect for nature)
2. Reasonable & Compassionate (competitive pricing)
3. Adaptable & Fit for all season (can customize packages)
4. Friendly & Sociable (easy to talk to)
5. Generous & Kind (do not hesitate in giving upgrades)
6. Helpful & Reliable (give exceptional assistance and value added services to guest)
7. Polite, warm hearted & Environmental friendly (engage in environmental protection activities and rehabilitation)
The resort interact with guests like a family member and interact talk as a friend.
2. Optimize Curiosity – When guests have high expectation, it simply means that they have not researched well enough to know what the resort can offer and this also means that they have little curiosity, when expectations are not set properly, there are disappointed guests who may write a negative review. Optimizing curiosity means creating truthful content and spreading the correct information about the services and products. Content marketing in blogs, press releases, info graphics etc. plays a vital role in this part, it has to be creative, enticing and not to lengthy nor misleading. These content should also be ”searchable and shareable”
3. Increase Commitment – An efficient inventory, reservations and after sales or loyalty program system are just a few processes that can be utilized to have an efficient and effective operation. Increasing commitment means having the sense of urgency and speed in providing available rooms and answering customer requests and inquiries. Maintaining 100% response rate on FB page is a good example. We make sure that the process are streamlined to achieve a hassle free transaction from the time a guest inquires till after the outing with our after sales program system. Commitment is also maximizing the inter connectivity of all digital channels.
4. Increase Affinity –Post purchase is very important in increasing loyal advocates. At the resort aim to be a part of the family outing even at the planning stage. Reservations officers talk like they are actually with them during the outing and make it sure that the people who are trying to customize a package will arrive at a very convenient yet reasonable outing package. We also empathize with the guests when tripods get lost, cameras buried in the sand, wallets misplaced. We ship these to them and guaranty security and do the extra mile to deliver in person. We would want to remain consistent without brand character of upholding values of honesty and integrity. Gamification is also done in Instagarm contests and we reward the winners by sending them the price and a handwritten personalized note from the owner.
A. How can your business adopt the new metrics of PAR and BAR to measure marketing productivity?
It is shown in the given example in no 1. Question that we can compute for BAR and PAR, we need to continue on this because PAR is heavily linked to the financial health of the company by giving metrics that is relation to actual sales or bookings. Both are measures of productivity of spending and brand awareness. It is logical to say that it is impossible to have bookings without awareness of the brand first. PAR is a purchase action measurement while BAR tracks advocacy that results to sales growth.
B. How can your business trigger favourable customer conversations in order to drive awareness without increasing the marketing budget significantly?
Leaving a positive impression from the beginning, from the time they called to inquire would be an advantage, not to sales pitch but to make them feel at home. Talking like you are a member of the family or group of friends is a way on how they can spread good news about your company. They would say that you are approachable, nice, helpful and friendly is a good trait that not all customer service representative has. Not sounding like robots or information hub. This is what I always remind my staff. Be a part of the outing. Be there when they need ideas, be there, meet the person behind the phone, meet and greet everyone, make them feel important, give additional perks that they did not expect. Have the initiative to reach out and picture the scenario based on expectation and reality without exaggeration. Telling the truth and the downside of some things is also practicing honesty and customer will appreciate it. The awareness will be from “word of mouth” and this is free.
7 Industry Archetypes and Best Practices (Channel, Brand, Sales and Service Management)
1. 4 Major industry Archetypes
Archetypes |
Definition |
Application in the resort |
Door Knob (needs to improve affinity levels by building post-purchase engagements) |
High commitment low curiosity level. Purchase is frequent and habitual. Usually the top of mind for its distinctive feature. Purchase is instant. |
e.g. Consumer packed goods, e.g. Chooks to go chicken sold at the resort
|
Gold Fish (needs to optimize curiosity) |
High curiosity level, mostly B2B. Customer frequently ask questions about the product before purchasing, collective advice is favoured. |
e.g. HR looking for company team building venue e.g. Family outing (though not a b2b this is stated in the book) |
Trumpet (needs to strive a perfect bow tie pattern) |
Required high affinity levels, trust the quality of brands, there are advocates even if they have not experienced the brand. Strong reputation for quality |
e.g. Banana boat ride and Jet Ski ( most luxurious activity)
|
Funnel (needs to improve commitment and affinity levels) |
Most purchases are well planned, customers are highly involved. They purchase if they like what they hear from the conversation, overall customer experience matters. |
e.g. Family and group outings e.g. Wedding Venue and Reception. |
Bow tie (the ideal, maximize potentials) |
The ideal customer-path pattern, people aware of the rand recommends the brand because of stellar reputation. |
e.g. Repeat guests and advocates who have not even tried the resort.
|
2. 4 Marketing Best Practices
HIGH BAR |
HIGH BAR |
LOW BAR |
LOW BAR |
Narrow BAR range – customers recommend Success is often determined by channel proximity and accessibility KEY SUCCESS FACTOR: Channel Management
|
Wide BAR range
KEY SUCCESS FACTOR:
|
Wide BAR range Customers do not recommend brands Customer advocate leading brands KEY SUCCESS FACTOR: Service Management |
Narrow BAR Range Tight competition Customers do not recommend Word of mouth is useless KEY SUCCESS FACTOR: Sales-force Management |
Other insights:
- Keeping Brand Advocacy Ratio (BAR) high which means customers are willing to recommend your products and services.
- When median BAR is high the tendency to recommend more than one brand is high.
- Keep on building Brand Advocates that can give positive “Word of Mouth” for your brand
- Develop Social Media Marketing along with building brand advocates
- Keep building your brand reputation and achieve a high BAR
- Develop a “pull” marketing approach is best with high BAR
- Develop a “push” marketing approach with low BAR.
- Use Channel Management, success is linked to channel proximity and accessibility to target market
- Drive customers to online and offline strategies and this is always best when combined.
- Keeping customer intimacy is the key to an excellent service.
- Give recommendations to your patrons and develop an Omnichannel
3. Summary: Learning from Different Industries
Innovation disrupts almost all industries. All companies should be mobilizing for change and adapt to the shifts and changing trends of the market and its connectivity. The 5A’s was a great eye opener and tool to analyse customer path behaviour and to identify touch points relevant to the business. The BAR and PAR are metrics that the company should look at every now and then aside from the many metrics the PAR and BAR are the most crucial these days. Applying and understanding the 5A’s is a sure way to improve attraction, loyalty, affinity and commitment.
A. Which archetype best describes your industry?
While everyone is trying to have a Bowtie pattern, I can see that in our industry the most applicable is the ”funnel” for families and group outings and the “goldfish” for corporate team buildings B2B functions. So what is it for me then? Now I can see where I could leverage and where I should focus my effort on.
B. What are some of the key improvement opportunities for your business based on that archetype?
The FUNNEL needs to optimize curiosity while The GOLD FISH Pattern needs to optimize curiosity. For the FUNNEL, Most purchases are well planned, people call, email and send FB inquiries to inquire, and customers are highly involved because everyone has to agree with the travel destination chosen. They purchase if they like what they hear from the conversation, they should be enticed and excited enough to book an accommodation. The overall customer experience matters a lot, they write blog about their outing, if not they give review ratings in FB, Google or in Tripadvisor.
For the GOLD FISH, Human resource personnel as one of the target persona has a very high curiosity level and do an extensive search over the net for the most affordable and practical team building venue that fits their budget and where they can make their desired team activities happen. This is mostly B2B relationship. The Human resource officer frequently ask questions about the product before purchasing, collective advice is favoured as well and blogs also helps in leveraging in this target market.
C. What is the key success factor in your industry? How can you learn from other industries?
The key success factors include customization and human interaction via phone, a distinct brand voice and character. We treat the guests as family members and take into considerations their requests, sentiments even if it means that we need to go out of our way to serve them. Like for example, we don’t have a trike service, but if the guest request at the wee hours of the night, we can make it happen. We also value honesty and Integrity as our core culture. We make sure we hire employees has the same values. We work not as a team but as a family and treat guest as a family as well.
Other industry has a different Archetype, but I was able to connect some concepts and I have learned what a retail industry needs that it needs to improve affinity levels by building post-purchase engagements, it is high commitment low curiosity level. Purchase is frequent and habitual. Usually the top of mind for its distinctive feature. Purchase is instant and this can be applied in the resort business souvenir shop or retail shop selling basic needs. I will see how I can build post engagement with our services as well like the massage or boat rides etc.