INTERCONNECTED

TRANSFORMING CHANNEL STRATEGIES INTO A HOLISTIC MARKETING ECOSYSTEM

Channel strategies are inherently isolated and outdated. Customers aren’t spending time in a single app—they’re weaving through a tapestry of touchpoints every day. To keep up, brands need to shift away from thinking about fragmented digital locations to embracing a cohesive strategy that thinks about all of their marketing as an ecosystem, with multiple user journeys.

CUSTOMERS ARE EVERYWHERE—BE THERE

Envision the customer experience as a fluid journey that accompanies them through various apps and interconnected touchpoints. A basic version could look like this: someone might see your brand on Instagram, click through to your website, receive a personalized followup email, and is invited to chat through text messaging.

It's not about throwing money at everything under the sun until your customers are overwhelmed and saturated them with your ads—that builds resentment—it's about thoughtfully ensuring that you're there with them whenever they want to engage with you, and that you're adding enough specific value that they actually consider doing so.

TRAILHEAD MARKETING—MULTIPLE INTERCONNECTED USER JOURNEYS

User journeys should be as dynamic and varied as your customers themselves. Think of going on a hiking adventure. Even when hiking the same area, you can start from multiple places, take diverse paths along the way, and end up in several scenic destinations. Your job is the same as the park ranger's—building the paths, mark the trails along the way, clear the debris to make it easy, and post maps at the trailheads so that customers feel confident to choose their own journey, mirroring the complexity and richness of their lives.

At UNSHUT, we've pioneered this concept of of "trailhead marketing," offer a network of user journeys that intersect and diverge, providing flexibility and self-personalization. This strategy doesn't just enhance engagement; it allows us to learn about each customer, and it ensures that each journey feel unique and tailored to their preferences, creating a deeper, more meaningful connection.

A LABORATORY FOR INNOVATION

Your marketing ecosystem is more than a collection of touchpoints—it is a living laboratory that provides endless opportunities for experimentation and innovation. The more touchpoints you have, the more places you can A/B test various hypotheses. Every interaction provides an opportunity to test and refine your messaging and approach, without any one interaction being too crucial or precious to change.

By continually experimenting with different imagery, tones, messages, and even formats, you can discover what truly captivates your target audience. As a bonus: this iterative process will also foster an internal culture of continuous improvement and adaptation, keeping your brand more likely to stay relevant and impactful for years to come.

AUTOMATED, PERSONALIZED CUSTOMER JOURNEYS

Automation is the key to creating scalable, personalized customer journeys. Everything from fast brand-safe content generation with tools like Adobe's AI to the automated connections behind the scenes, as users interact with your brand, every touchpoint should naturally lead to the next, revealing more about each person's preferences and behaviors and allowing for increasingly personalized experiences (and for you to own that valuable data, versus an external marketing data firm).

As always, think holistically—where is the user starting their journey? What does that potentially tell you about them? From that point forward, what options do you present them with? What can you tell from them by the choices they make? Where do they finally convert? What do you learn about that? And finally, how can you find out their sentiment towards your brand along the way? Sure you can ask them directly, but are there smarter, more subtle ways of finding that out? What language do they use? What keywords offer insights into their perception of your brand?

As customers progress, your automation should be fine-tuning their journey, enhancing both relevance and engagement. By the time they reach the conversion stage, you have a nuanced understanding of their specific needs, enabling a tailored approach to significantly boosts conversion rates.

EMBRACING THE ECOSYSTEM

Embracing this approach to marketing will transform your isolated strategies into a dynamic holistic worldview that adapts to individual customer needs. It offers a living laboratory for experimentation, provides extensive opportunities to learn about your audience, and enables highly personalized, valuable content delivery. Most importantly, it offers direct insights into how your brand is perceived, allowing you to refine your approach continually.

By adopting "Trailhead Marketing," you create seamless, engaging customer experiences that drive long-term loyalty and success. Make no mistake: the future of marketing will be built upon this foundation of interconnected touchpoints. Do the hard thing now, and become an expert for the days to come.