March 15, 2019

Bang Digital host their Google Connect Event

March 15, 2019

Bang Digital host their Google Connect Event

Bang Digital host their Google Connect Event

On Thursday the 14th of March, we hosted our Google Connect Event on customer centric digital at UWA. Partnering with our friends at Google, the Bang Digital team, joined by our Google Business Manager Charles, presented on the importance of placing the customer at the centre of your digital marketing decisions. The presentation gave guests the opportunity to gain valuable insights and actionable strategies, which is so important in today’s digital landscape. This landscape has fragmented significantly and there’s been a major shift from traditional forms of marketing into the digital channels and all the complexities that come with it. So it pays to put the customer first. Read on to find out how.The presentationsTo give a bigger picture idea of customer centricity and the important role it plays in today’s online space, the presentation was broken into 4 parts:

  • Part 1: What it means to be truly customer centric as a business and how this can create immediate value. Presented by Renae Lunjevich (Managing Director & Founder, Bang Digital).
  • Part 2: How to understand your customer, personalise the experience and create a connection through automation. Presented by Geordie Frost (Customer Journey Strategist, Bang Digital).
  • Part 3: How to connect with your customers through a custom focused digital presence. Presented by Brad Farleigh (Digital Director, Bang Digital).
  • Part 4: Google in the age of assistance and they’re using machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver better connections for customers. Presented by Charles Lorigan (Business Manager, Google).

Part 1: What it means to be customer centricThe pace of technological innovation has accelerated and is empowering people. Customers expect more, complain more, are more willing to switch - and share far more about their experiences. But it’s worth the investment. In fact, increasing customer retention rates by as little as 5% will boost profits by at least 25%.So, what is a customer centric approach? It covers a combination of both external and internal focus:External -

  • Continuously listening to your customers and understanding them
  • Prioritising their problems, not yours
  • Personalising the experience
  • Communicating in their channel of choice
  • Analysing, learning and improving in a systematic approach

Internal -

  • Communicating your strategy internally
  • Building customer empathy into processes and policies
  • Motivating employees to stay engaged
  • Creating internal accountability to ensure that everyone stays on track
  • Prioritising customer satisfaction ahead of everything else

Part 2: How to improve performanceOnce you understand the importance of customer centricity, knowing the fundamentals first will help you to maximise the benefits of conversion rate optimisation (CRO). This includes:

  1. Understanding the customer and specifically, the customer journey
  2. Prioritising their problems, not yours through Experience Optimisation (EXO)
  3. Personalising the experience through digital personalisation and automation

Part 3: How to create a customer centric digital presenceSo now you know a bit more about customer centricity and how to maximise its benefits, how do you use it across your digital efforts? Some of the steps you can take to start translating customer centricity into digital performance for immediate results are:

  1. Understand your customers’ needs, i.e. mobile vs. desktop & cross platform, multichannel communication
  2. Analyse, learn and improve in a systematic approach, i.e. site speed and building the continuous feedback loop with reporting

Part 4: The age of assistanceBy this point, you might be asking - “Where does Google come into the equation?” Google are getting smart with data and using ML and AI to power all their products. Technology has changed everything. Today, poor user experience can make or break your business. In fact, 74% of consumers said they get frustrated when ads appear that have nothing to do with their interest. Furthermore, less than a third of brand experiences where described as helpful.Why? There’s too much data. Users’ online journeys have grown more and more complex with 90% of users switching between devices and platforms to perform tasks. Luckily, ML can be used to:

  • Provide real-time data by analysing 70 million signals within 100 milliseconds
  • Use insights from historical data to differentiate between interest and intent
  • Identify potential customers through pattern recognition and group them accordingly

Through signals, Google get to know their users beyond their basic demographic details and understand the deeper layers of who they are. And they encourage you to do the same by making the following switches:

  1. Channel-first to customer-first
  2. Intelligence at every step
  3. Transactions to relationships

The feedbackThe event was a smashing success and we’re thrilled that we were able to help those in attendance take the next step in their digital journey by opening their minds up to the concept of customer centricity. Here’s what a handful of our wonderful guests had to say about the presentation:“Thank you Renae, Geordie, Brad and your whole team for the event this morning. Charles was a fantastic presenter and it was a great insight into what I’m sure is just a tiny part of the exciting things Google are doing to change the way we interact with the world around us.” - Elise Goodin, Department of Fire and Emergency Services“It was a great event and really covered some good points about customer centric marketing - exciting stuff to work with! Everyone was really engaging and the structure was excellent.” - Jordan Slight, Cancer Council Western Australia“Thanks Bang Digital for inviting me to the Google Connect Event. Great insights. Great to learn more about customer centric digital from a great bunch of digital minds. And well done, because you yourselves are a great example of customer centric.” - Laura Haywood, Tandem Studio“Thank you so much to Renae and the Bang Digital team for a very insightful morning as we discovered more about customer centric digital. Definitely left feeling very inspired and eager to know more!” - Steph Sbrocco, Perceptions PropertyThank you everyone who came along to our event. We hope you got something out of it and look forward to seeing you at the next one. But if you can’t wait that long to discuss your digital marketing strategy, get in touch with the Bang Digital team today!