Aligning Market Insights & Trends to Customer Strategies & Priorities

Customer Strategy Best Practices, Tools, Techniques, Examples

  1. What is the size of the potential pool of new customers and which are the best customers to acquire?

  2. Which customers are your most profitable and how do you get other customers to grow and become part of your top ( and most profitable) customer segment group?

  3. What is your current customer share of wallet (SOW) as compared to your competitors and what does driving small incremental increases in your customer SOW do to your overall revenue?

  4. What are the shifting attitudinal and behavior patterns of your customer market and how do you develop a strategy that ‘gets in front of’ these trends?

  5. What are the shifting customer demographics of your marketplace as well as the underlying shift in spending habits

  6. What are the changes in customer preferred marketing channels as well as trends that might impact customer loyalty strategy


Customer Strategy: Market Insights and Trends Drive Customer Strategy, Programs
Market Insights and Trends Drive Customer Strategy, Programs

 

The above charts illustrate why it is critically important to have clear and accurate insights into your new customer market potential/pool as well as the current customer base and their share of wallet.

The chart above (right side) illustrates which customers drive the current percentage of revenue in order to understand how customer priorities and strategy should be defined.

Customer Strategy: Critical Insights: Top Customer, Top Profitable Customers and Customer Share of Wallet vs. Competitors
Critical Insights: Top Customer, Top Profitable Customers and Customer Share of Wallet vs. Competitors

Market Spend Insights Can Be Transformational in term of goal setting

The above graphic illustrates how share of wallet changes drive bottom line revenue as well as converting customers into more loyal top customers.

Customer Strategy: Customer Attitudinal Trends Insights Are Critical to Customer Strategy
Customer Attitudinal Trends Insights Are Critical to Customer Strategy

Understanding your market & customer behavior insights is crucial to your company’s survival

The above graphic demonstrates a deep understanding in the shifting attitudinal and behavior patterns of the customer market

Customer Strategy: Customer Market Buying Power Insights are Crucial For Developing a Coherent Customer Strategy
Customer Market Buying Power Insights are Crucial For Developing a Coherent Customer Strategy

The above chart illustrates a company capability to understand shifting demographics as well as the underlining shift in spending habits per demographic group

Customer Strategy: Understanding Key Customer Behavior & Preferences is a Customer Strategy Imperrative
Understanding Key Customer Behavior & Preferences is a Customer Strategy Imperrative
Customer Strategy: An Alignment of All Customer & Market Insights to Maximize Market Dominance & Profitability
Customer Strategy: An Alignment of All Customer & Market Insights to Maximize Market Dominance & Profitability

Once Customer and Market Insights are fully embraced, an Effective Customer Strategy can be developed that includes optimizing market channel selection, as well as contact and loyalty strategy program components

Blog Summary: In order to achieve the above insights, your company must develop and deploy the following strategic capabilities and delivery programs:

  1. Market sizing & trend insights

  2. Customer revenue and profitability insights analysis

  3. Customer share of wallet and competitor spend insights delivery capability

  4. Market trend & consumer attitudinal and behavior change longitudinal analysis

  5. 360° customer needs and preference cultivation that enables a personalized customer experience strategy and delivery (i.e. preference portal customer selection of preferred channels, content types, offer types, frequency of content delivery by content type.)

Below is a list of companies where I have helped develop these programs and are considered world-class in Customer Strategy practices:

  • Johnson & Johnson

  • Capital One

  • Amazon

  • American Express

  • Kelloggs


For Additional Information on This Topic

Organizations that successfully align market insights with customer strategies are often better positioned to anticipate changing customer needs, identify emerging opportunities, and develop more effective business strategies. Market trends, customer behaviors, competitive activities, and industry developments can provide valuable information for refining customer priorities and improving decision-making across the organization.

The most successful organizations continuously monitor their markets and use customer insights to guide strategic planning, product development, service delivery, and customer experience initiatives. By combining market intelligence with a deep understanding of customer expectations, organizations can create more relevant value propositions, strengthen customer relationships, and improve long-term business performance.

For additional information on market research, customer insights, and strategic decision-making, review these resources:

Organizations that consistently align market insights, customer priorities, and business strategies are often better equipped to improve customer satisfaction, strengthen competitive positioning, and achieve sustainable growth.

Marketing Master Calendar Development Best Practices

Best Practices in the Development of a Marketing Master Calendar

Best Practices in Marketing Master Calendar Development: Master Marketing Planning Calendar
Integrated Marketing Planning Calendar

Having developed numerous marketing master calendars for Fortune clients world-wide, here are top 10 lessons learned & best practices for developing a marketing planning master calendar:

1) All involved marketing & supporting departments must have input into the development of, and be fully represented on the master marketing calendar.

2) All the departments represented on the calendar in must understand their responsibilities, deliverables, due dates, inter-dependencies with other departments as well as the metrics that they are being held accountable for in each step in the process.

3) Process Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) shall be in place for each process handoff such that the overall calendar timeline retains tactical delivery integrity.

4) The calendar must be chronologically intuitive (flow left to right for each sequential major marketing event).

5) Process details must be developed for each major milestone represented on the marketing calendar.

6) A process step owner must be identified for each process step with clear articulation of their responsibilities.

7) Calendar post-event reviews must capture marketing event & campaign lessons learned, planned vs. actual metrics, customer feedback, etc.

8) An actively managed marketing best practices knowledge base must be maintained to capture & propagate captured calendar relevant & other best practices & lessons learned to all stakeholders.

9) Marketing executive sponsors & steering committee members must play a role in the development & execution of the master marketing calendar.

10) Periodic calendar process reviews must be conducted to ensure the calendar & critical processes on the calendar are as efficient & effective as possible.

The following are Master marketing calendar and planning best practices examples that I developed for several Fortune 500 clients as represented by this one (of several examples):

Best Practices in Marketing Master Calendar Development: Annual Master Marketing Planning Calendar
Integrated Marketing Planning Calendar

A Best Practice Master Marketing Calendar Represents All Major Events, The Critical Timeline and Major Calendar Development Participants and Stakeholders

 

Assessment of Current Marketing Capabilities
             Assessment of Current Marketing Capabilities

A Very Honest Assessment of the Current State Marketing Capability along with Gaps and Development Needs is Critical for Future Process Improvements

IBest Practices in Marketing Master Calendar Development: Long and Short-Term Calendars
               Integrated Marketing Planning Solution

A Future-State Solution Vision Must Be Established in Order to Achieve Future State Capabilities

Best Practices in Marketing Master Calendar Development: Business Outcomes
        Marketing Business Outcomes Meeting Summary

For Each Meeting on The Marketing Master Calendar, Critical Outcomes must be determined for each Calendar Development Meeting Along with Identification of the Meeting Key Owner

Marketing Master Calendar Development Stakeholder Responsibilities

Every Stakeholder and Responsible Leader Must Be Represented on Marketing Master Calendar Development Meeting Master List

Best Practices in Marketing Master Calendar Development: Marketing Channel Strategy
                  Marketing Planning Event Cadence Map

Clearly Defined Responsibilities and Outputs Must Be Defined for Each Marketing Calendar Channel

Best Practices in Marketing Master Calendar Development: Marketing Roles & Accountability
                       Marketing Roles & Accountability

Clearly Defined Accountability Must Be Defined for Marketing Calendar Development

Best Practices in Marketing Master Calendar Development: Roles & Accountabilities
Marketing Roles & Accountability for Each Functional Area

Clearly Defined Accountability Must Be Defined for Marketing Calendar Development

Best Practices in Marketing Master Calendar Development: Roles & Accountabilities
Clearly Defined Accountability Must Be Defined for Each Functional Area

Clearly Defined Accountability Must Be Defined for Each Functional Area (left Blue Boxes) in the Marketing Calendar Development Process

Best Practices in Marketing Master Calendar Development: Critical Success Factors
                Marketing Critical Success Factors

Critical Success Factors Must Be Identified in the Master Marketing Calendar Development Process

Best Practices in Marketing Master Calendar Development: Plan Summary & Next Steps
         Marketing Meeting Summary & Next Steps

Summary Actions & Next Steps Must Be Identified in the Master Marketing Calendar Development Process

For Additional Information on this topic reference the following:

  1. American Marketing Association Planning Resources. URL: https://www.ama.org
  2. Content Marketing Institute Editorial Calendar Resources. URL: Content Marketing Institute