Customer Journey Builder

Number One complaint from those of you in the reading audience, when I harp incessantly on the need for a Welcome Program:

• "That's going to require too much customized work, and frankly, we don't have the resources to do that, sorry."

Bleck.

This Email Service Provider (click here) allows you to Create Customer Journeys. They show you how to do it in the article ... just go read it (click right here folks).

When you respond with "well, they cater to small businesses and as you know we're a unique $40,000,000 omnichannel print-centric brand", then I'd counter with the concept of getting your existing ESP to replicate what is shown there. And if they can't replicate the software and functionality for you, it's time to change your ESP, don't you think?

I watch what my online clients do with email, and I watch what established companies with print/retail history do with email, and my goodness, there's a pretty big gulf between the two. A Welcome Program requires you to do some work. Go do the work.

P.S.:  I had a client ask me the following question ... "why can't you just come in here and do the work for us so we don't have to even think about it?" Ponder the essence of the question ... the client was saying that a Welcome Program was important, but wasn't something the client wanted to think about. Just let that thought sink in for a moment. 

You are an important person. You matter. You WANT to have to think about things, because that means you understand your business better than anybody else, and that allows your career to progress at a faster pace. Your company will make more profit. Your salary & responsibilities will increase faster. Please, you want to have to think about things! Thinking is good.

P.P.S.:  A marketer recently wasted a month of my time with proposals and counter-proposals, before choosing a competitor over me. And while that happens in this business, he said something to me that made the time spent worthwhile. Here's what he said:

• "If possible, we want to outsource everything we do. We'll pick the product, sure, but we just don't care about marketing because it's pointless. Marketing can be outsourced to the cheapest provider, and that's how we thrive."

Why share that? Because a Customer Journey Builder means that you have to do some work, but the trade-off is that you aren't the person who wants to outsource everything. Again, you want knowledge ... not of a process but you want knowledge of a customer. And you can't have knowledge of a customer if you outsource the knowledge of the customer to somebody else.