How Customer Data Platform is reinventing customer relations

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Natalia Gaal

Using a Customer Data Platform is helping companies to focus obsessively on their customers and benefit from their engagement.

You need to know your customers—this isn’t any news. It doesn’t matter if you want to make them more engaged, optimize your budget for campaigns, or improve your ROI.

Customer accurate information is at the heart of every company and should be treated correctly to generate powerful outcomes from your marketing efforts.

If you don’t have a consistent understanding of your consumers, then all your strategies will likely go down the drain.

But how exactly do you get to act like you know your customers? The answer is simple: by managing their data.

To treat data thoroughly and reach your customer relationship goals, you might come across the need to use the right technologies. This is when the Customer Data Platform (CDP) walks in.

A customer data platform monitors and tracks multiple data sources to bring relevant information to a single hub that is easy to access and understand.

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Once implemented, CDPs collect, integrate, manage, and analyze customer data continuously. These automated processes help many teams to focus on solving complex problems that require a human brain. At the same time, a Customer Data Platform brings current, real-time data to be leveraged and turned into marketing master plans.

Why do companies use Customer Data Platforms?

Is there a reason why companies implement a Customer Data Platform in their business models? Yes, many.

According to Gartner, plenty of marketers look to customer data-driven strategies to deliver growth. For example, marketers invested two-thirds of their budget in supporting relationships with their customers in 2017 and 2018.

Still, they have found the technology they were using to be frustrating—until CDP’s unique upshots came out as a solution to their problems.

A Customer Data Platform reaches out for several channels and concentrates real-time data in a single place your team can access whenever it is convenient.

This stimulates a collaborative work environment and speeds the pace of operational routines. Customer Data Platforms are also known for making marketers’ lives less complicated since automating workflows would take too many working hours to be accomplished.

The other reason companies use Customer Data Platforms is that they are much more than a simple database. According to the CDP Institute, the ideal Customer Data Platform should contain five essential capabilities:

Absorb data from any source
Give full details of ingested data
Store data without end and frequently
Create unified profiles (such as personas)
Share data with any system that needs it

All of the five skills above drive brands into having a vigorous understanding of their customer base by collecting and analyzing reliable data across their marketing channels.

What types of data does a Customer Data Platform assess?

The types of customer data assessed by a CDP can be quantitative and qualitative.

In other words, by using a CDP, you will be able to figure out:

How to identify your customers, using personal data
How to interact with your customers, using interactional data
How customers expect to be impacted by experiences, using behavioral data
How your customers perceive your brand, using attitudinal data

The datasets above are being generated at all times in any digital environment and should be combined to create an unbeatable and absolute customer understanding.

But how do CDPs gather such different information?

They reach out to analytics reports, engagement measures, support occurrences, eCommerce metrics, and customer feedback (to quote a few), to maximize your knowledge and equip you with fast, accurate moves.

This is the main reason why CDPs are revolutionizing the way brands communicate with customers and vice-versa. They are an unlimited and underlying base for companies to create remarkable customer experiences and increase customer engagement in a way we have never seen before.

The effects of CDP in customer experience

A Customer Data Platform grants companies an invincible competitive advantage: passionate customers who keep being fed with reasons to remain brand loyal.

Historically, we can see customers have adopted technologies faster than the brands they interact with. This made companies try to embrace digital transformation technologies focused on customer experience to reach out to consumers where they are and how they want.

Expanding your brand’s online presence to talk to customers in multiple channels isn’t enough, in any case. Any company can create an Instagram account and interact with its audience then and there, right?

However, the ones that truly stand out are focused on delivering personalized, relevant, well-designed interactions that take place as soon as customers want.

Tailored customer interactions should happen anywhere, at any time. This is the main reason why organizations around the world are digitizing their business models. According to the Boston Consulting Group Research, personalization will drive an $800 billion revenue shift to the top 15% of companies that work best on it, in only three industries.

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I know what you’re thinking: that’s much profit for a small number of companies—and yes, it is. Even so, it sounds like a warning: companies that aren’t ready to turn personalization ordinary in their marketing campaigns, will be left stranded.

As you know, doing a great job on personalization is all about knowing everything there is to know about your customers and quickly activating your knowledge when needed.

Can you notice any coincidences between this goal and the usage of a CDP?

How CDPs are reinventing customer relations

Suppose you’re leading digital initiatives to deepen the relationship between your customers and your brand. In that case, you should pay attention to the changes CDPs are leading in customer management and how it differs from other popular marketing tools.

A Customer Data Platform is way more complete than a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.

CRM will tell you how to personalize and improve existing customer relationships. Meanwhile, a CDP will do that and indicate how you can promote products and services and what you should do to attract new customers.

With the new untapped potential CDPs unleash, companies are increasingly confident in meeting market changes and customers’ preferences. Hesitating in our competitive world is no longer an option, and data-driven marketing plays a vital role in feeding companies with unequivocal customer interactions.

Ahead, we have numbered a few ways Customer Data Platforms reinvent customer relations to inspire you and your team.

1. CDP enables segmentation opportunities

While it simultaneously optimizes strategies, a CDP provides companies with a 360-degree view of customers to act on an essential customer experience requirement: segmentation.

Segmenting customers by specific traits, behaviors, attitudes, and others is a fantastic opportunity to create tailored marketing touchpoints throughout their journey and attract them with meaningful content.

When based on data, segmentation is an unmatched growth engine that encourages customer loyalty and enhances profitability.

2. A CDP gives your interactions a personal touch

Similarly, you can not spell personalization without customer data.

Owning a Customer Data Platform will help you quickly access reliable information to customize customer interactions, making your consumers feel special, and long-term relationships feasible.

Many companies are using CDP for Customer Data Management. See below how their tactics connect with top-level personalization:

3. A CDP enriches customer relationships

There isn’t enough emphasis on how knowing your customers is essential for customer relations.

People expect to be treated accordingly to their visions as much as they wish to connect emotionally with brands. A single miscommunication can harm brand-customer relationships irreparably.

As soon as you have a panoramic view of your customers’ habits, preferences, needs, and issues, you should feel more confident in building specific touchpoints that elevate the customer journey and make customers want to hang around you for longer.

Owning a Customer Data Platform will also measure your customer loyalty programs’ effectiveness and help you find what groups of customers deserve attention according to their life cycle.

4. A CDP is agile

Agile methodologies are the perfect response to a world that is changing every day, every hour. CDPs consider our ever-changing environment and let your team access specific data whenever it needs, contributing to an agility mindset.

Agility layers can be used to shape CDP frameworks that adjust to your company’s infrastructure, turning data sharing into a reality. CDPs also absorb data from other internal systems, like CRMs and Data Management Platforms (DMPs), you might already have.

Apart from that, CDPs update in real-time. This allows you to assess micro-moments data and instantly operationalize it.

5. A CDP ingests data from any source

Your customers are everywhere these days, right? You can find them on social media, navigate your website, read your emails, download your app, and take a look at your physical store. The interaction possibilities between your customer and your brand are countless.

If truth be told, it truly doesn’t matter where your customers are and what they’re doing. Whether they’re reading your blog or using your chatbot, data is being generated at all times, collected from simple interactions to complex operations.

A Customer Data Platform reaches out to any source of information, from Live Chats to SEO, from blogging to Twitter, from customer loyalty to affiliate marketing programs to provide your company with everything you know about your potential and current consumers.

6. A CDP elevates digital transformation

Simply, a digital transformation process should rely on—and a lot!—on a Customer Data Platform.

By watching digital-native organizations, it becomes clear that many technologies can be embedded to digitize businesses.

However, it is worthless to implement technologies that don’t accurately connect with customers’ needs. Digital transformation starts and ends with the customer, transcending traditional marketing, sales, and customer service roles.

That being said, without a reliable Customer Data Platform, companies who are digitizing their operations will mostly fail to unleash the real potential of a digital transformation.

Digital-native companies have already built their business model based on data collection and responding to customers’ needs with high-level experiences.

These companies combine traditional marketing strategies, such as loyalty programs, with groundbreaking digital initiatives that connect with customers in real-time and engross their engagement.

Remember: It is crucial to direct your digital transformation efforts into interactions that engage your audience, and a Customer Data Platform is intimately related to that.

It taps into your databases to unify relevant information and operationalize customer knowledge, delivering targeted experiences that will delight and retain your customers.

It should also be stated that CDPs assist companies in taking a step back and revisiting their processes to leverage technology cleverly.

For example, Netflix was quick to turn its service into a scalable streaming platform that replies to customers’ demands. The now-sector-leading company could only reinvent itself because it took a very attentive look at customer data and responded accordingly.

Align your digital initiatives with the power of a Customer Data Platform

While IT staff has been skeptical for a while, digital leaders worldwide have been engrossing CDP in their workflows and getting amazing results from data management automation.

Not only has perfect treating data been helping these leaders come up with customer-centric solutions, but it has optimized their budget and turned manual work more effective.

Forbes Insights highlighted that 44% of surveyed organizations stated a Customer Data Platform is helping drive customer loyalty and increase ROI.

Arena serves customers from 120 different countries and sees firsthand how the fast-paced digital environment influences global market changes day after day.

That is why we work to build awareness for digital leaders and marketers to embrace Customer Data Platforms in their full potential and boost customer engagement.

In case you need to further your research towards the CDP role for the upcoming years, download our Customer Data Platform 2020: the future of marketing and sales ebook and take a deeper dive.

What Omnichannel is and Why it Leads Customer Experience

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Natalia Gaal

Omnichannel puts the customer at its ultimate core. This integrated and all-places strategy personalizes touchpoints in the customer journey to offer the most effective shopping experience anytime and anywhere.

It is fair to say omnichannel is the perfect response to a new customer-centric culture. Here’s everything you should know about it.

Taking care of customers according to their expectations is the greatest of brands’ responsibilities. This concern has made marketing, technology, and sales teams work together for years to increase customer satisfaction in different channels.

From mobile apps to desktop blogs, from e-commerce to social media and physical stores, customers expect the same service excellence in any place, at any time.

To reach that excellency level, companies these days must assemble and harmonize various components, such as data, multimedia marketing, and multiple sale channels, to get to their audiences at the right time and place, and intently offer the best of the best experience.

That’s when omnichannel walks in.

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What is omnichannel?

Omnichannel is a marketing and sales strategy that combines and crosses different channels to provide an outstanding and personalized shopping experience. By blending several elements into an integrated whole, omnichannel removes the boundaries between digital and physical spaces, optimizing brand messages, general communication, and, most importantly, customer experience.

Already a reality in some great retailers, omnichannel brings together e-commerce, shopping apps, blogs, social media, marketplaces, ads, and physical stores to improve the consumer lifecycle and customize its touchpoints, whether they’re digital or offline.

In order to be omnichannel, brands need to mix products, marketing, sales, customer support, supply chain, and more, to make their deepest reasoning clear: Put the customer in its ultimate core and let channels combine (and recombine) to deliver consistent and efficient shopping and communication initiatives.

Some omnichannel examples are:

Being able to buy a product that isn’t available in-store, using an app
Purchasing on e-commerce and collecting at the store
While collecting, being swiftly introduced to new launches that really interest you
Abandoning the cart and getting an email with the offer of a new, exclusive customer loyalty program that follows up to the abandoned product
Getting a shipping notification via e-mail and SMS

Omnichannel vs Multichannel

We can say every omnichannel retailer contains multiple channels. That makes omnichannel essentially multichannel, but the contrary isn’t true. Therefore, these terms can’t be used interchangeably.

The main difference between these “channel” concepts is that omnichannel integrates its operations while multichannel components act separately.

In a multichannel strategy, there isn’t mutual communication. In fact, it is common for multichannel retailers to face lack of information exchanges and a sense of competition between their channels.

When it comes to branding, multichannel sends out the same message in all channels and to all consumers, regardless of the lifecycle stage they’re at.

This combined with the fact multichannel doesn’t allow personalized experiences contributes to the idea that multichannel focuses on products, not on user experience.

Meanwhile, omnichannel not only integrates channels but collects and transforms customer data into personalized interactions with their consumers base. It means that, unlike lack of communication, an omnichannel brand message quickly adapts through the customer journey and remains relevant.

It doesn’t matter if the customer is online or not: The same unique message will be sent. Most businesses invest in multichannel today, although we should mention that omnichannel consumers spend between 15% to 30% more than multichannel consumers.

It is also important to distinguish omnichannel from cross channel. Cross channel strategies also integrate channels to offer more comfortable and agile shopping experiences. However, omnichannel stands out for being the only method to assess consumers’ behaviors, habits, and preferences to create personalized touchpoints.

Why should brands be omnichannel?

You probably know how exigent the modern consumer is. Technology has put a personal device and free access to information in customers’ hands, and people have grown fond of browsing and comparing. Technological and ever-changing lifestyle also makes customers enjoy shopping experiences that are flexible, trustworthy, and responsive to their needs. Buying when and where they want is a basic requirement for customer experience and care.

Another detail you should pay attention to is that people have enough time and information to consider which is the best product or service. And, thanks to content marketing, there is a huge number of tools that tailor customer journey to this new demanding and multi-connected profile. Brands work hard to make the most out of marketing in social networks, blogs, messaging applications, and more.

Still, content isn’t all it takes to engage people: Companies need to focus on customer behavior.

And, if you’re curious about it, you should definitely check these Google; and Salesforce; insights:

68% of shoppers purchase movies, books, and video games both in-store and online
66% of shoppers prefer online shopping to find items, compared to 27% who prefer offline
55% of buyers say that retail experiences are disconnected from channel to channel.
59% of shoppers prefer to shop online to get better prices
83% of U.S. shoppers that visited stores had used online search before going into the store

That being said, brands should be omnichannel because customers are omnichannel. They don’t split a brand’s perception into offline and online. It means that, if their experience is damaged in any channel, frustration will lead buyers to switch to another brand. Recall that 58% of consumers will turn to competitors if they face a single bad customer experience.

However, omnichannel benefits are not exclusive to shoppers. Companies that integrate sales, logistics, technology, and marketing channels also benefit, as they make consumers happy and likely to buy more – who doesn’t want more revenue, right?

In addition, satisfied clients talk about their experiences with friends and family and help brands increase their customer base.

Omnichannel strategies also cut costs by rethinking opportunities based on consumer habits. Another advantage is that unifying communication promotes a more consistent brand image and encourages synergy between operations. Often, it is cheaper to adopt omnichannel and optimize strategies than to open more sales channels.

Finally, we should mention that being all-places – as latin Omni suggests – makes your brand capable of solving multiple use cases, whether online or not.

How does omnichannel work in e-commerce?

Omnichannel has a huge impact on e-commerce. Known for its convenience, e-commerces allow customers to buy anywhere, at any time, and provide relevant information about products and services that interest them.

The omnichannel mindset turns e-commerces operations more efficient. Its approach aims to provide online shoppers with seamless and continuous buying experiences.

Digital components that absorb customer data through e-commerce purchases can be easily accessed to create a well-built consumer understanding. The goal here is to identify what methods will bring better results and which channels are more effective to engage and delight the customer.

Another possibility is that e-commerce can lead to many other shopping opportunities. Think about the number of shoppers that buy online and decide to collect their products in-store.

How great would it be to offer specific products once the customer arrives? Or, to look at it from another perspective, think about what will happen to e-commerces that won’t let shoppers choose how and when to get their hands on their purchases. Will they fail to deliver convenient experiences? They surely will.

When correctly implanted, omnichannel e-commerces strategies will quickly identify customer touchpoints that will lead to specific solutions – and, as a consequence, to more engagement and brand loyalty.

The effects of omnichannel in customer experience and culture

Omnichannel is all about customer experience. Its core is to deeply understand buyers’ needs and embrace them, all while respecting their time and delivering meaningful messages.

Whether online or offline, omnichannel interactions should cause a sense of identification and present a brand that gives buyers the chance to access their preferences.

The real impact here is that, by understanding people’s needs, omnichannel is extremely powerful to generate follow-up interactions and engaging buying stages.

All data available must be used to create a context for future touchpoints in multiple shopping environments. And the secret to the omnichannel done right is that this context must be continued, wherever people are.

Customer experience must be continued, otherwise, brands fail to engage and retain. If your consumers don’t identify with the message you’re sending through your channels, then they’ll look for other messages they can connect with.

That’s why you have to step back and focus on the fact that, for your channels to be truly omnipresent, you firstly need to perceive the habits and preferences of your target audience.

If you think omnichannel only personalizes messages and experiences, you better think again. Being able to collect and interpret universal customer data is a fascinating way to go a little further and customize offers and even products.

Let’s move on to some examples of how to do that!

Be inspired: real omnichannel experiences

Sephora: My Beauty Bag

Born with digital DNA, the giant beauty Sephora created a special feature to connect clients to their favorite products. Named “My Beauty Bag“, the feature – which is also an app – is part of the Beauty Insider loyalty program, and allows customers to access products and past purchases whenever and wherever they want.

While using My Beauty Bag, clients can, whether in-store or not, search for the right shade of lipstick, rebuy old purchases, and recommend products to friends. Sephora’s stores are equipped with tablets that make it possible for consumers to log-in immediately and add new items to their bag or “loves” – previously known as Sephora’s shopping list.

My Beauty Bag enables shoppers to collect favorite products, organize them in one place, create wish lists, keep track of both online and in-store purchases, and track rewards.

Burberry: Series B

Based on customer data, Burberry created a new series of limited edition products that remain available for only 24 hours on the 17th of every month. The timing here creates hype and a sense of urgency for customers to reach out and buy the exclusive and recently launched products. Purchases can be made on Instagram, WeChat, LINE, and even in the Korean Kakao platforms.

This type of strategy was essential to increase consumer engagement and create anticipation, and it paved the way for the development of new activities across multiple channels that focus on customer experience and interactions.

Amazon: Amazon Prime and Amazon Go

Even if a huge number of companies worldwide won’t have as many resources as Amazon has, there are some key details to pay attention to in their omnichannel strategy that can inspire other businesses, especially when it comes to data unification.

With the mission to be the world’s most customer-centric company, Amazon has been investing in omnichannel for years now.

When Amazon Prime membership arrived, it called public attention by offering free shipping. It saved time and was convenient. As time went by, other benefits were provided, such as unlimited video and music streaming, discounts, and even a wardrobe, that allows customers to try on items online before purchasing them.

Omnipresent, Amazon decided to expand to physical dimensions and launched Amazon Go, a convenience store where customers don’t need to wait in line.

Through the Amazon Go app and artificial intelligence features, clients register everything they’re putting into the cart and leave the store as soon as they want. There’s no need to pay in the cashier. Their receipts appear in the app and money is charged from the Amazon account.

This new type of purchase is called “Just Walk Out” and embeds different AI technologies and data to provide the best shopping experience. Omnichannel at its best!

As you might have noticed, omnichannel is intimately related to customer experience and retention – and brands that ignore its potential are most likely to fail in maintaining competitive advantage.

Want to learn more about engagement and make your customers brand loyal? Access our Customer Experience Guide!

What is Product-Led Growth: the PLG Complete Guide

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Natalia Gaal

Use product-led growth to reduce friction between the customer and the path to acquisition. Learn how to improve sales, cut off expenses and generate retention.

Your sales team has just got bigger, and it’s not because of new staff members. It’s the Product-led growth, or PLG, making your product become the seller itself!

Since customer experience is now mostly responsible for acquisition, buyers tend to prefer discovering value by themselves rather than having someone create scenarios for them.

Find out now how product-led growth and its fundamentals can be a powerful game changer for you.

What is Product-Led Growth?

Before diving deeper in this guide, you must have in mind that product-led growth creates a straight line connecting your customer and the acquisition moment, eliminating possible gutters and bumps throughout the way. PLG establishes a clear and smooth path towards value generation.

That said, this (not so brand) new business methodology allows customers to build their own product worth through customer experience (CX) instead of sales-leading them from Point A to Point B, like other business strategies.

By creating a truly meaningful experience, customers can now produce their own validation when it comes to the product. As a result, upgrades become a natural, no-brainer step of the way.

You build the experience focused on solving your end user’s pain. Now, your product has become the primary driver of acquisition.

The Importance of Product-Led Growth

Product-led growth is not just a business approach, a trend, or a marketing wave. PLG is an alignment between team strategies. It promotes a stronger integration, leading to a wiser, more polished and solid placement.

I bet you have seen this many times: sales and marketing operating so individually and distant from the product, they seem to be telling totally different stories.

Product-led growth tells: “Hey, marketing, your customer has just used Service X. How about triggering an upsell according to the interest flagged?”. Then, marketing can say: “Sales, here’s a hot opportunity for you to offer a personalized follow-up to this user”.

You create a cohesive storyline for everybody!

And you do that by offering real-life experience instead of just putting out their white papers telling how you can solve their pain. You are all focused on how your product can genarate demand.

Bill Macaitis, former CMO of Slack, says: “I tell my team members that their gold standard is not whether customers bought a product, but did they recommend us? It’s a higher bar and a different standard. We also don’t see marketing’s role as getting customers in the door and then wiping our hands and going on to the next one. Marketing’s role is about recommendation”.

Through PLG, every single collaborator has its focus on product, enduring and enhancing customer value. The demands are real, folks! They need to try before they buy.

Product-Led Growth Background

These definitions presented so far might seem pretty disruptive and innovative, but it’s not, actually. In fact, PLG is a result of the constant development of strong product-based companies.

The name Product-Led Growth gained visibility around 2017 when OpenView Partners brought up some discussions that created some of the guidelines fostered until these days. But it actually started at the beginning of the last decade.

Here goes a brief contextualization of Growth eras we’ll explore appropriately ahead.

Product-led growth puts all divisions of a company running on the same track. But before it happened, Sales-led growth (SLG) was the one in charge for most of the strategies.

That means field sales, high-touches and a dramatic amount of money spent on customer acquisition were considered top priorities.

Then, as the way customer experience improved and Marketing-led growth (MLG) took the spot for a while. MLG brought the idea of inbound marketing along with the purpose of reducing customer cost acquisition.

But since 2017, Product-led growth has constantly proven that the efforts must be pointed, like a prism effect, towards one thing: the product itself.

Take Dropbox as an example. A decade ago, they were using the product to generate leads and drive business –– even if there was no such thing as “product-led growth” yet.

Dropbox

It has been said earlier that product-led growth is not as brand new as it seems. There were a few pioneers in PLG, such as Slack, Mailchimp, Typeform and, the one to talk about, Dropbox.

Dropbox is one of the best examples to understand PLG on a regular basis and to actually see the benefits. In less than 10 years, they have reached $1bi in revenue!

They started as this simple, initially free, but with pretty interesting features storage platform. Dropbox rapidly became one of the best tools for file sharing, going viral worldwide.

To take advantage of the massive visibility, they gave the user a possibility to earn more space by sharing a referral link. As a result, they got thousands of new users and enhanced the experience of those existing ones.

The community had so much value there, Dropbox became an essential part of users’ lives. The upgrade to a paid version was just a matter of time. It was organic. No friction is needed.

Netflix

Let’s take Netflix as an example now: an excellent model of a company conscious of digital changes, aware it was not a matter of “if” they had to innovate, but “when”.

They have been in the business for quite a while now, and we can have some great tips on their product-led growth.

When you first met their streaming platform and signed up for a free month trial, no sales rep had you on the phone or flooded your inboxes with probably annoying messages trying to convince you why you should have the paid version.

Instead, Netflix opened up its entire catalog for you. No restrictions, no limits, just the complete experience there for you to taste!

During the free month trial, as you binge-watch their shows, they kept “magically” suggesting more content related to your preferences. And that was definitely not a random thing.

Netflix’s PLD reads all your interests and builds an entire scenario exclusively for you. Your experience was enhanced by data they collected from your behavior, like DNA.

And that’s exactly what product-led growth also can do for your company. It turns your product into a powerful source of primary acquisition.

Why should you use a Product-Led Growth Strategy?

In a progressively expanding market, product-led growth shows you don’t need to overspend in advertising costs, new team members or any other decision that might become a trap due to desperation to achieve better results.

It also reveals where you actually need to invest money, time and effort. Through PLG you’ll see it’s needed to redefine design paradigms and explore new demands when it comes to product thinking.

From now on, products must be self-sufficient! Customers want to self-educate themselves more than ever. They want to build their own way to experience products. That leads to a hands-on moment, and that is when “try before you buy” comes into the scene.

The Evolution of Growth Acquisition Strategy (GAS)

An action plan to acquire, retain and grow customers are the fundamentals of a Growth Acquisition Strategy. Those pillars enable a better definition of product distribution and the most appropriate channel to do it.

Definitely not a strategy to be set and forget, PLG requires a collective alignment to break team walls and synchronize the moves.

We had briefly mentioned before the eras, but now it’s time to dig in. Keep up!

1st Era: Sales-led Growth

The main difference between Sales-led and Product-led growth is how the first one had its focus on cold-emailing and calling, outreach and sales lead scoring based on aspects like the industry, titles, teams’ sizes, etc. Back then, it had nothing to do with the product itself nor the experience.

Sales-led qualification didn’t try to actually prove any value. Instead, they were 100% committed to convincing the customer about their product by simply telling. Buyers didn’t have tangible proof of the benefits.

It’s also important to mention the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) during sales-led growth times since the entire onboarding had to be procedure by the seller itself, customer by customer.

That approach could be long, tiring and really expensive. The purchase had to cover all those expenses out, or else all the work and effort wouldn’t pay off.

2nd Era: Marketing-led Growth

With the advance of the internet, consumers were able to get more information for themselves during the buyer’s journey. That empowered them to be much more in control of the process.

The primary driver of acquisition here was to obtain leads and nourish them. That’s what we call Marketing-led growth (MLG).

Marketing-led taught consumers about self-education, generating qualified demands. As a result, you had a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). Inbound marketing was the pivot to build MQL, have scaled demand and give the chop to high customer acquisition costs.

It also had a medium/low-touch approach, opening room for more polished and personalized conversion methods. Sales now became an inside operation, having their role placed mostly at the end of the funnel.

Looks like a great change compared to the previous growth model, right? But MLG had some death traps that frequently led to a high rate of unclosed deals. According to ProductLed, these were the top 3 reasons conversions became a serious issue:

It encourages marketers to gate content to hit their MQL goals.
It focuses on content consumption as a leading indicator of intent.
The entire process rewards creating friction in the buying process.

The result was a major disconnection between marketing and sales. This business model segregated profit centers and costs centers, creating a weak organizational ground.

Product-Led Growth Taking Over Tech Companies

Understanding and embracing product-led behavior is key. The End User Era is real, and so are new demands. But a turning point here is to take a step aside and analyze how this can be applicable to you and your reality.

It’s not about becoming Dropbox, HubSpot or anything else. Of course, it’s totally fair to emulate their steps and get inspirational, but your successful story can be authentic to your story.

Small, medium and big technology companies, across all product categories, realized that product-led growth is much more than a disruptive strategy. The way people use and buy your software has changed, and so has your go-to-market playbook.

B2C Product-Led Growth Companies

Business-to-Customer (B2C) companies on their way to a strategy rely on the product as the primary driver for acquisition need to remember one thing: their end customer is a real person, and the need to build a personalized experience based on that rule is crucial.

Most of those end users don’t want to go through a lengthy sales process to find out if there’s a fit or not to the product. They want to try it now, selecting their own criteria to make the pavement towards a unique experience and satisfaction.

A report from Forester found that nearly 75% of B2B buyers rather buy through an app or website than having a salesperson guidance. That’s because 80% of people tend to do business with companies that offer personalization.

And that is why the following names became heavy players when it comes to B2C companies on product-led growth, according to ProductLed.

It’s curated feed, personalized user onboarding, and inherent virality make Pinterest a poster child for product-led growth—and in 2019, IPO’d with a $12.7 billion valuation.

Typeform

Launched in 2013 as a free beta, its conversational approach to data collection and beautiful, easy-to-use form builder helped Typeform go viral. They closed a $35 million Series B in 2017.

Warby Parker

The digital-first eyewear retailer raised a $75 million Series E in 2019, thanks in part to its omnichannel consumer experience and free Home Try-On program (aka free trial).

B2B Product-Led Growth Companies

Your Business-To-Business (B2B) message needs to be communicated not just to executive users but to end users as well. Rethink the design of your website. Ask yourself: “Am I making the sign-up stage the easiest process here?”

Make your product become your marketing channel, enabling chances to virality through referral paths and user reviews. ProductLed also highlighted how these groundbreaking B2B companies helped their consumer realize fast the value of their products

Airtable

Reported $20 million in revenue in 2018 and created Airtable Universe to scale the inspiration of use cases, a responsibility usually held by customer success.

Slack

43% of the Fortune 100 pay for Slack and are loud advocates because of their company-wide devotion to its great experience.

Figma

Closed a $40 million Series C in 2019 thanks to its product-led approach to solving designer pain points like project organization, file management, and real-time collaboration.

Product-Led Growth as a Market Entry Strategy

It’s important to acknowledge the existence of buyers who rely on sales support. They need more when it comes to making their decision. It might be a complex process, but there lies a precious opportunity to collect data, enhance lead qualification and improve the chances of conversion.

Follow your prospect’s steps: understand what they are using, where, what part they’re getting caught up. With this quality of information, your support can touch precisely their pain point and offer the greatest solution.

That is a masterful way to create a personalized customer experience!

Product-Led Growth Key Metrics and Principles

We mentioned earlier about team alignment. Check it out how it really works on a daily basis. It is very important to create homogenous communication. The bond of this integration is common language and reporting system.

What are PLG Metrics?

For your surprise, you might have been tracking some of the product-led growth metrics. Many used in SaaS metrics are very helpful to PLG. Although, they have different levels of relevance in a scenario ruled by product-led growth approaches.

How to Measure Product-Led Growth

Before we start listing just a few of them, it’s important to emphasize that each metric below can be leveraged differently by your teams. Carefully analyze how they fit for you and use them as a customizable framework.

Time to Value (TTV)

This one measures how long it takes your customer to realize your product’s value. The goal here is to reduce this time and make users feel that “aha!” moment as soon as possible.

TTV is also used to understand how much time users spend from acquisition to activation.

To do this, you must focus on the onboarding experience around the key actions correlated to activation: invites, referrals, data sharing, integration, etc.

Expansion revenue

Here, you’ll measure revenue from existing customers due to upsells, cross-sells, add-ons, etc.

The market commonly sees expansion revenue as a new acquisition strategy. Although, the best players in business recommend that at least 30% of your revenue should come from there.

Product-Qualified Leads (PQLs)

The leads right here are those who’ve already experienced your product, had the “aha!” moment and already know its value from a free trial of a freemium account.

To define this metric you need to create some events to track if they’re ready to move on to the next stage. These events could be related to usability, sections visited, or previously defined behaviors that flag an opportunity.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Now that you know how long it takes for your consumer to realize your product’s value, the events accomplished to prove they’re ready to acquire, now is time to understand how much revenue your business receives from a single customer throughout this relationship.

CLV is one of the most accurate, high-level indicators to show business health. To calculate it, you must divide the total expansion revenue by the number of customers.

The Benefits of Product-Led Growth

Through a low-touch/touch-free approach, frictionless customer acquisition, team alignment, synchronicity, and so many others, there’s only one thing expected from all this heavy work: money!

The power of product-led growth leads to financial productivity – a higher revenue per employee. And that is possible because of the product driving force during acquisition, engagement, retention and expansion.

As the product itself does much of the marketing, sales and customer experience work in a PLG strategy, a massive cut in customer acquisition cost and shorter sales cycles.

In addition, a higher revenue diversity comes up as a strong suit for PLG, minimizing the consequences of losing accounts and enhancing growth.

Wes Bush, a renowned PLG pioneer, says that “product-led businesses tend to scale faster than their competitors in two powerful ways”:

Wider top-of-funnel: A free trial or freemium model opens up your funnel to people earlier in the customer journey. This is powerful because, instead of prospects filling out your competitor’s demo requests, they’re evaluating your product;

Rapid global scale: While your competitors are busy hiring new sales reps for each region under the sun, you can focus on improving your onboarding process to service more customers around the world in a fraction of the time.

Product-led growth has proven over the years its power to be financially productive and operates to leverage data produced by-products to improve sales. Us from Arena wants to help you get there on product-led growth. And it’s going to be right now!

Talk to an Arena consultant and understand how our data solutions can assist your marketing strategy.

Liveblogging: a Successful Engagement Strategy

Posted on June 10, 2020 by Natalia Gaal

Liveblogging helps companies to generate a high-quality content experience that widens their audience and increases true engagement in real-time. It is the right tool to empower the ownership of audiences, automate content distribution, and boost revenue.

In today’s breaking news cycle, there’s no room for being slow and buggy. More than ever, people want to know what’s going on as soon as occurrences take place. Besides, physical space is no longer a barrier. Immediacy and urgency must be answered with instant involvement, no matter where people are. That means that, if you’re making your audience wait, you’re in trouble.

If your company provides any type of content in this fast and ever-changing environment, you already know what’s obvious: in order to make readers spend more time on your website, you need to be relevant and deliver news in a more dynamic way.

And that is why your company should have a live blog strategy.

What is a Live Blog?

A live blog is a customer engagement platform that allows companies to bring together different forms of content to create high-quality and real-time experiences to their audience. This kind of platform makes it possible to embed videos, images, texts, and audios from live streaming and social media channels into short blog posts to involve readers in events that matter to them.

By having a live blog strategy in our current on-the-go environment, organizations can use a smart variety of tools and sources to cover a particular event and engage users that are watching remotely.

Watching isn’t everything users do, though, and that is the cherry on top. Live blog followers can actually feed the stream with their comments and reactions. They can interact with other people, including those who are airing the event – journalists, reporters, expert commentators, or public figures that shed light on their topics of interest.

This makes a live blog experience highly personalized and interactive, and very different from television linear-watching or outdated written posts.

In a nutshell, live blogging is to broadcast real-time occurrences through short, simple, more frequent, and efficient posts, whatever the channel they’re in.

Sneak a peek at how companies have been using live blogs through the ages.

In order to broadcast conferences, technology companies started live blogging in the 2000s. Since then, it has become a popular and essential way for journalistic platforms to provide information on digital channels chronologically, keeping people updated. The Guardian itself has said that live blogging has transformed journalism.

Nowadays, companies from different cores and departments are using live blog to engross their content strategies. From sporting events to elections, from protests to music festivals, live blogging is already a reality when it comes to event coverage.

Why Live Blog?

As much as people currently spend more time engaging with highlights on social media, their thirst isn’t easily quenched by scrolling feeds on Instagram and reading breaking news on Twitter. Social media and traditional blogging aren’t enough to genuinely engage audiences anymore.

Instead of simply reading the news and watching videos to absorb information, people want to live experiences and be part of them, even if they are sitting in their living room or working at the office.

In this context, a live blog strategy helps organizations to reach wider audiences and build authority towards topics they are interested in. It matches what customers are looking for: simplicity and easy access, all in a single place.

Consider this: you’re covering an important event and are about to live blog an exclusive interview with a popular figure in your niche. As soon as you broadcast, your readers will watch it in real time, send their questions, and discuss the interview with each other.

As you post a great news-driven package with videos, texts, and more regarding the occurrence, not only you’re giving your readers a glimpse; most importantly, you’re giving them the chance to live the experience with you.

By allowing your audience access to discuss and witness all the real-time content you’re providing, you drive conversation and traffic to your website and create a sense of community for people who are watching. If they have a good experience keeping track of a live event on your blog, they will see it as the go-to place to get useful content. Eventually, they will come back to check what’s new.

Besides helping you to establish authority as a reliable source of information, a live blog strategy boosts your audience. And, as you already know, an engaged audience is more likely to stay on your website longer.

Academic researches show that people all around the globe are growing supportive of live blogging. Plus, they make it clear that live blogs are here to stay. A survey conducted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, in 2013, found out that readers like live blogs better than static content they can’t interact with – not to mention survey takers also believe real-time live coverage to be more reasonable and neutral than written posts.

The Internet has made it easy for any company to broadcast important moments and stories to update and engage customers. That being said, live blogging is a huge opportunity for big, medium, and small-sized companies to give their audiences original and meaningful content while attracting and engrossing the public.

A live blog also has the potential to empower your company’s editors and optimize editorial work. Two people may live blog simultaneously, communicating with each other and taking online interaction to a new level.

With so much information being published every second, every day, your editors better have a concise publishing tool to bring data together and widen discussions, letting users engage with their posts.

There is so much untapped potential that can be taken advantage of by a live blog strategy, especially in the pandemic context we are witnessing. It represents an evolution in digital communication strategies and its power is evident, from politics and business to fashion and music.

Now that you know the importance of live blogging, let’s get a little more in-depth on how to use it for your content strategy.

Using Live Blog for your content strategy

When done right and smoothly, live blogging can engage your community as few things can. Live blogs have an amazing power to connect, share, analyze, educate and advertise. It is the perfect opportunity to answer to five essential questions towards any occurrence: who, what, where, when, and why.

So as to use Live Blog correctly in your digital content strategy, you need to pay attention to some details in the first place.

A live blog strategy demands a huge amount of focus while the event takes place. Still, you should be prepared way before the event starts. In the first place, choosing the right events to live blog is essential. The experience needs to be valuable to your customers, otherwise, you will be wasting money and time.

Secondly, a bunch of matters should be taken into account after you’ve chosen the ideal event. How is the internet connection and infrastructure where your editor is planning to broadcast? In those minutes where little is happening at the event, what material will you show your audience? How will you keep the attention of your public and increase their engagement after the streaming?

Keep in mind that you need to have a content strategy for what you’re communicating before, during, and after the event.

Last, but not least, it is equally determining to find a platform that fits your company’s needs and is easy for your customers to use. Live Blog platforms should be secure and able to go off without a hitch, aligned with high-level customer experience.

It also should be versatile and ready to run on multiple operating systems, working just as well on both mobile and desktop devices, and offer personalized setups.

You can add live chats so your readers will engage in quick-paced conversations and spend more time on your website. You can create polls to know that their opinions are. You can cover breaking events as much as events that are unfolding during a longer period of time. The possibilities are endless.

It all depends on how your company communicates with your audience and what concerns will be addressed by the real-time content you will stream. A live blog strategy can be a powerful engaging tool during official announcements, when related news break, in Q&As, and even in product launches – Apple being the biggest example on how to use live blogs for launch talks.

Once you decide to live blog, you will notice that it is easier to depend less on social networks. However, it is also possible to take advantage of social media integration by using automate live blog solutions to compile news from a wide variety of sources.

Let’s not forget that live blog strategies can work only so far without motivated human resources behind them. Technology is essential, but customer experiences are deeply affected by people interacting with readers and users. And that is where live blog makes your strategy flourish: by putting the right editors behind the screen to create fantastic customer experiences.

Take a look at how Arena’s clients are empowering their content and engagement strategy by live blogging.

A press conference to fight for: Fox Sports

Ahead of its blockbuster in 2018, UFC live-blogged a heated press conference led by fighters Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov. Seen as the most talented mixed martial artists in the world, both UFC icons were watched by over 500,000 people on Youtube. Meanwhile, Fox Sports live-blogged the conference, widening discussion both in their timeline and live chat. It successfully gave readers an exclusive place to comment about the fiery discussions that followed.

Jambase: music any time, anywhere

When it comes to live blog strategy, Jambase promotes live events to connect music fans everywhere with the music they love. One of those is “Dinner And a Movie”, a weekly event that live streams Phish’s concerts. The livestream gives fans a chance to watch previous Phish shows while discussing in the live chat. A plus is that Phish’s Replay, as the event is called, promotes recipes that readers can cook before watching the shows – an action that brings them together.

Greenpeace: As it happened: #BarclaysShutdown

Tired of watching Barclays pour billions into fossil fuels, Greenpeace activists enrolled in shutting down more than 100 Barclays branches across the United Kingdom in 2020.

The event was soon promoted on Greenpeace’s website. #BarclaysShutdown was live-blogged chronologically. Tweets, videos, and links that redirected people to email Barclay’s CEO were brought together as a way to deliver fresh news regarding the shutdowns and create awareness.

Liveblogging the protests also shed a light on the challenges Greenpeace faces when it comes to climate-wrecking industries and generated a sense of community between activists – even those that couldn’t physically join.

Learn from those who are engaging audiences through their live blog strategy

To sum it up, live blogging helps you reach wider audiences and attract public attention while providing authentic and exclusive content. As a result, it increases customer engagement and revenue.

Arena’s live blog solution is highly customizable and allows the addition of social features to enrich the interactions between you and your audience. Our platform works on any website, from desktop to mobile, supports live chat rooms, and is ready to manage multiple people covering the same event at once. It also contains a mobile app that makes possible a post-on-the-go strategy, so your editors won’t miss a thing while broadcasting.

We work day after day to empower editors from more than 120 countries to cover any breaking news or live event in real-time, breaking their dependence on social networks.

So, if you want to use content to truly engage your audience, it is time for you to join us and find out the best professional and user-generated content using our advanced content discovery platform.

Claim your free trial now and start live blogging right away!