Category Archives: Customer Experience

It’s Like You’re My Mirror: Marketing and Change Management

In a previous blog, we highlighted similarities between marketing and change management and suggested six questions that can serve as a foundation for successful change management initiatives. Taking one step further, here we look at the similarities in the communication requirements of these two disciplines that will be increasingly critical in both the pandemic response and next phase of economic recovery.

In his hit song, Mirrors, Justin Timberlake sings of the way his love is  the other half of him, completes him, and supports him. The song is great, but its relevance here is in the way his words perfectly capture both the similarities between marketing and change management and the way that understanding those similarities can make each discipline better.

In change management, ADKAR is a widely known and respected methodology. The letters represent the journey through which change managers must guide their audiences in order to achieve the desired new state.

The value of a framework like this is that it identifies all of the moments in the journey that need to be accounted for and addressed through communications and training. It also enables a leader to think strategically about where the biggest risks and opportunities for influence lie. For example, if a company is introducing a new software application to replace a much despised legacy system, the opportunity to drive change may be greatest in the Knowledge and Ability stages: nobody needs convincing that the new system is better than the old but they may need extensive guidance on how to do their jobs under the new system. Conversely, the introduction of a new process for customer onboarding that is projected to save money and increase retention may require more emphasis on building Awareness and Desire if the current process, to those using it every day, doesn’t seem “broken.”

In marketing, the customer decision-making journey is often defined through the following stages: Problem Recognition, Information Gathering, Alternative Evaluation, Purchase Decision, and Post-Purchase Assessment. As with the ADKAR framework, this model enables leaders both to think carefully about each stage of the process and to identify the stages in which the flow is most at risk. For example, a new entrant to the CRM software market may need to invest heavily in the Information Gathering and Alternative Evaluation stage in order to gain consideration by prospective customers. On the other hand, a company selling a new kind of service connecting corporate art buyers and artists may need to focus on Problem Recognition to drive prospects to consider their solution.

Interestingly, when we line these two models up next to each other, it is, in the words of Justin Timberlake, like each is “lookin’ at the other half of” the other. More importantly, the alignment brings to light the key objective in each of the five stages.

A subsequent blog post will provide more guidance on how these objectives can provide a powerful foundation for devising more effective change management communications, but to illustrate the potential:

  • The objective to “highlight the need” drives home that the efforts to build awareness of the need for change must be from a credible source and be seen as empathetic.
  • The objective to “Envision a better world in which the need is resolved” makes it clear that any attempt to build knowledge of how to change requires that the “how” be seen as irresistibly simple and clearly puts the better, future state close at hand.
  • Focusing on the objective to “Make it happen” will ensure that assertions of the audience’s ability to implement will minimize friction and build confidence.

Soulmates: Marketing and Change Management

Their eyes meet across a crowded room. Drawing together, they begin a conversation and discover that they have much in common – core values, personality, life goals. They make plans to meet again, filled with wonder at how the hand of fate has seemingly led them to find each other.

Who are these two souls? Marketing and Change Management. Two disciplines that aren’t typically thought of together, but which are in fact very similar in their goals and objectives and who powerfully complement each other when combined. At their cores, marketing and change management are about influencing behaviors and attitudes of a target audience to move it in a desired direction. For marketers, that direction is purchase; for change management practitioners, that direction is adoption of new processes or technologies. The terms change, but the concept is the same: persuade individuals to move from their current state to a desired future state.

There are two ways you can get people to do what you want them to do: force them or persuade them. Needless to say, while there have been times in history when force has been coldly effective, companies in the free world today have to rely on persuasion. This means that they not only need to have a clear picture of where they want their audience to go, but to do this they also need to have a strong understanding of the attitudes and motivations of the audience. This is true whether your audience consists of internal users of a new technology or prospective customers of your product or services.

Whatever the audience and whatever the desired action, marketers and change managers therefore need to begin by making sure they can answer the following six questions:

  • What audience need is addressed by the solution?
  • What is the audience’s current way of addressing that need?
  • Will the audience immediately understand the benefits of the solution?
  • Will the audience need guidance on how to implement the solution?
  • How does the audience typically consume information that relates to this solution?
  • For any of the questions above, are there any significant segments of the audience for whom the answer would be different?

When marketing strategies and change management initiatives aren’t supported by answers to these questions, they fail. The failure might be immediate, or it may be longer term, but ultimately any effort to influence decisions and actions not built on the foundation of this understanding cannot succeed.

At the end of the day, then, marketing and change management are really just two sides of the same coin. For practitioners of either, this should be cause to rejoice as the thinking and experience of both disciplines can be mined for ideas that help improve outcomes. And perhaps both disciplines will end up living together happily ever after.

Marketing in the Coronavirus Crisis: Notes from a Discussion at the Boston Meeting of the Gramercy Institute

Just before everything shut down in the face of the pandeminc, a group of financial marketers convened in Boston for a meeting of the Gramercy Institute. The session was billed as focusing on the topic of ”What’s New and What’s Next in Financial Marketing“ and indeed much of the content touched on the future, but, taking a cue from the news at the time, the host initiated a discussion of marketing in a crisis.

Broadly, the conversation fell into two buckets: communication “best practices” and the role of marketing. Two key take-aways:

  • Communication “best practices.” There was agreement that transparency and authenticity were key to building connections with customers, but also that there was no clear playbook for communication frequency and channel. Discussion participants recognized the need to respect the limited time and frayed nerves of customers but also saw potential value in providing clear guidance in an environment filled with uncertainty. Likewise, they recognized the need to find a balance between communication overload – exacerbated by the worldwide turn to digital communications in light of severe restrictions on face-to-face contact – and the value of demonstrating presence and building community when so much of the current crisis feels (and is) isolating. Finally, participants expressed mixed feelings about finding opportunities in the crisis. Many said that this was definitely not the right time to be promoting products. Some made the argument that people are looking for concrete assistance and that there was a place for tasteful promotion of solutions that could meet the needs of customers in the current environment.
  • Role of marketing. As the discussion turned to the role of marketing amidst the crisis, there was widespread consensus that in some ways the environment was one in which marketing could really prove its value in building relationships with customers and prospects and in delivering timely, conscientious, clear communications. Even more, though, there was agreement that marketers at B2B financial services companies should seize on this as a chance to forge a closer partnership with their sales colleagues, who are likely to be struggling to adjust to a world in which face-to-face contact is minimized or even completely foregone. Everyone agreed that if Marketing could find a way to enable sales to leverage digital and voice channels to nurture relationships at a distance and at scale, it would have a significant impact on the ability of the company to navigate these difficult times.

While the event was likely the last in-person meeting for the near future for most in attendance, it was a valuable opportunity to share ideas with colleagues and learn from each other as chaos seemed to be descending. It has given us much to think about as we all now hunker down, socially isolate to try to stay safe, and think about what the future might hold in store.