To paraphrase Tolstoy, “Not all consumers are marketers, but all marketers are consumers.” Every once in a while, in creating marketing content, campaigns, and strategies, we can lose sight of what’s really the deciding factor in terms of marketing success: the customer experience.
Marketers create the customer journey that fits their brand. We look at our competitors to see what they’re doing. We look at data and glean insights from this numerical story. It’s smart. It’s good strategy. And it can be a little too hyper-focused.
Our newest series, the Customer Experience Analysis, gives you a look at the journey from a different perspective, but one that is all too familiar to us: the consumer perspective.
Much like our User Engagement Teardowns, we put ourselves in the position of an engaged consumer finding a brand for the first time. We completed various actions over the course of three weeks (created an account, browsed items, favorited items, abandoned carts) to trigger messaging. The results are at the bottom of this post, free and ungated for your viewing pleasure.
The Customer Experience From the Customer Perspective
In the graphic linked below, we have outlined the experience with UK-based online retailer ASOS, identified strengths and opportunities, and provided a few takeaways that you can start implementing into your strategies today.
All told, the breakdown of messages from ASOS over the research period was as follows:
- 27 total marketing messages
- 14 emails (12 promotions, 1 welcome email, 1 cart abandonment email)
- 13 mobile messages (11 push notifications, 2 in-app messages)
Whether you’re in e-commerce or retail or neither, the takeaways from our analysis of the ASOS experience relate to most marketing strategies. For example, incorporating browsing behavior into promotions or even browse abandonment campaigns personalizes the experience and promotes customer loyalty in the long term. By integrating this data into campaigns, you open the door for relevant content, which can be a key differentiator as 72% of consumers only engage with marketing that is personalized to their preferences.
With that said, these analyses are not a comprehensive look at a brand’s journey. We’ve included enough actions in 3 weeks that we can get a good look at a majority of the journey, but there are aspects that we have not covered. For example, ASOS sends restocking messages when favorited or abandoned items have been restocked. In our research we happened to not select items that were out of stock, so these messages did not come through.
By shifting the perspective to that of the consumer, we hope this series helps spark ideas to bring your customers an even better experience.
