Transcript of Marrying Content with the Customer Journey

Transcript of Marrying Content with the Customer Journey

The second book I wrote was called content marketing works and it was based on all the lessons learned in the years between Accelerate and Content Marketing Works and I actually co-authored that with my son who is in charge of marketing for our agency and that was a lot easier, even though we had to do some coordinating. About two years ago we came up with this idea for the book around the customer journey. John Jantsch: I think they call those books fables. John Jantsch: I think so. John Jantsch: I’ve been saying for a long time that everybody talks about this change in marketing and that change in marketing. All of us, not all of us, but a lot of times before we go to buy something that car or the shoes I was referencing earlier, one of the things we do in our research is to go look at their reviews, what are people saying about that brand and that product. John Jantsch: Yeah. But the clients out there looking for a solution, they don’t even know what their problem is yet, so how do you get people focused on creating content, particularly for those early stages when … I really a lot of times think people just … The only thing they can articulate is that it hurts. John Jantsch: The thing that I love about where you started with that too is I so often see people that are saying, “Okay, how do we create awareness? It really kind of brings the whole business together, I find.

So, what is content marketing?
Adopt a Curation Mindset to Get More From Your Top Content
6 Time-Saving Apps and Tools Marketers Obsess Over

< All Articles

Transcript

This transcript is sponsored by our transcript partner – Rev – Get $10 off your first order

Klaviyo logo

John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is brought to you by Klaviyo. Klaviyo is a platform that helps growth-focused eCommerce brands drive more sales with super-targeted, highly relevant email, Facebook and Instagram marketing.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Arnie Kuenn. He is the founder and CEO of Vertical Measures. He’s also the author, or I guess I should say co-author because he’s got a group that he wrote this book with, called Customer Journey: Your Audience Will Take This Journey With or Without You, Are You Prepared?

Arnie, thanks for joining me.

Arnie Kuenn: Thanks for having me John, appreciate it.

John Jantsch: As a fellow author I’m always curious how these team books go. How did you find writing a book with others in terms of … The obvious benefit is you didn’t have to write as much, but then you also had to organize people’s thoughts, didn’t you?

Arnie Kuenn: Yeah. The journey for me has been … I wrote my first book solo back in 2011 around content marketing, it was called Accelerate, and found that to be … Just so everybody who has ever written a book totally understands, it was ten times harder and took three times longer than anyone even tried to warm ne it would take.

John Jantsch: And then you had to sell the dang thing.

Arnie Kuenn: Well yeah. Actually we don’t do it so much to become best-sellers. In the business we’re in it’s more thought leaders and help maybe bring some clients in. We do hope it sells, but you’re right, absolutely, then you’ve got to go market it. The second book I wrote was called content marketing works and it was based on all the lessons learned in the years between Accelerate and Content Marketing Works and I actually co-authored that with my son who is in charge of marketing for our agency and that was a lot easier, even though we had to do some coordinating. He lived in Nashville at the time, I lived in Phoenix. It was fun to do with him but, of course, it was half the work, that was kind of nice.

About two years ago we came up with this idea for the book around the customer journey. We have 60 employees altogether but we have multiple subject matter experts and we were just having a team meeting and talking about it and said, well if each of you takes a section we could probably knock this out. That’s how the idea came about. It takes more coordination that way, a little bit less effort but a lot more project management, so to speak to get it done. That’s a long answer but that’s how that all formed and how we decided to do it this way.

John Jantsch: I know in the course of writing a book, some of my books have taken … By the time the editor was really getting to to it I may have written that chapter six months ago and they’re coming back and saying, “Well, you said it this way this time.” I can’t imagine doing that with six or eight people.

Arnie Kuenn: Right. Yeah. We did have one editor so that person interacted with the person who wrote that chapter or those chapters, but you’re right, there’s actually people who finished their work, actually just about what you said, six, seven, eighth months ago and really haven’t looked at it since and the book just got released this week and they’re almost having to refresh, “What did I write again?” And read it over again.

John Jantsch: Well congrats.

Arnie Kuenn: Well thank you.

John Jantsch: You chose the format of, I don’t know, are you calling it a fable? That’s kind of what they call this, right?

Arnie Kuenn: A fable, you said?

John Jantsch: Where you have a fictitious character who is actually going on this journey.

Arnie Kuenn: Yes.

John Jantsch: I think they call those books fables.

Arnie Kuenn: You’re probably right. Actually I never thought about it in a business reference, but yes.

John Jantsch: I think so.

Arnie Kuenn: Yeah.

John Jantsch: What was the decision about trying to present the information in that voice?

Arnie Kuenn: The first two, if you looked at them, they were really … I mean, they felt and really were how-to books, very step-by-step and I’m pretty pragmatic and so it just followed a system and a process and all that. This time we just set off saying we’re going to really try to make it a story. Even though it has lots of good information on how-to and all of that, we just really wanted to make it more readable and, like you say, pitch it more of a story.

We created a character, you’re right, who is in business but wants to go back to school to get an advanced degree. We tell the whole story of how she’s searching for a school to take some online classes and how she starts to go through part of her journey in the beginning but the school she’s doing research around hasn’t quite finished all of their content to map to all of the phases of her journey. She ends up finding another school who has more comprehensive content that takes her all the way through decision and advocacy and so she jumps over and ends up enrolling and taking classes there and then eventually has a better position in life. We just thought that story worked and we’re proud of it, but I guess we’ll find out over the next few months if everybody else likes it.

John Jantsch: That’s the whole story, I guess we’re done.

Arnie Kuenn: Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

John Jantsch: Let’s unpack this idea of a journey because, in fact, you graciously asked me to give a blurb for the book, which I did, because it’s a great book.

Arnie Kuenn: Yeah, I did. Thank you very much.

John Jantsch: I’ve been saying for a long time that everybody talks about this change in marketing and that change in marketing. I’ve been saying for a long time, I think the things that change most is the way people buy and that’s what we’re subject to, the whole buyer journey has changed so much that we have to … Our marketing now has to respond to that massive change. How would you describe the customer journey? It’s a hot topic right now but it’s also one of those that I see a lot of sort of mixed signals around what it means.

Arnie Kuenn: Yeah. We describe it in four steps. I know everybody has different views and funnels and you had described one that you had talked about for years, but ours pretty much follows awareness as a first step, then consideration, decision and advocacy. Our view is that awareness can happen very, very quickly. It could be you are scrolling through your Facebook feed and you see a drone that looks like maybe you will never break, but you weren’t planning on buying drone but you became aware that there’s one that looks good for you and so you click on the ad or whatever.

It could be you’re watching television at night and how we all sit with our iPads or our laptops in our lap and something just strikes you, maybe it’s a pair of shoes or a new car or whatever it might be. You awareness could happen, like I say, in moments and then you turn online generally and you start the consideration phase. You start doing your research and, like you said, that’s what’s really changed is the way we buy now. You and I are old enough to … I’m sure you used to go to car dealers, you decided you want a new car but you showed up at a dealer with a yellow pad of paper and a pen so you could go and ask questions and take notes and go to the next one.

Now when we go to the dealer we walk in with a printout that we researched online and we say, here’s what I’d like to order or buy. In fact, I even know your inventory, I want this car. You’re right, that’s just what’s changed, the way people buy. Anyway, you make that decision but now there’s this whole advocacy piece, which again referring to our age, we used to tell our neighbors or our coworkers about this good or bad experience we have, well now we turn online and we do a Yelp review or an auto dealer review or a Google review and so on. It’s just digital now.

John Jantsch: I think that’s where I see so many people kind of miss the boat on this. The old funnel kind of ended when that person squirted out of the bottom of the funnel and that was like, oh you’re done now.

Arnie Kuenn: Yeah.

John Jantsch: I think that today a much more significant part of marketing is what happens after somebody says yes and I think the companies that are really killing it are taking advantage of that.

Arnie Kuenn: I agree. Yeah. In fact, more and more of our clients, although this is kind of a while ago, Andy Beale, a friend of mine, he’s kind of…

COMMENTS

WORDPRESS: 0
DISQUS: 0