five customer experience trends to watch for in 2021

Five Customer Experience Trends to Watch for in 2021

Welcome to M4 Communications' Five Customer Experience Trends to Watch for in 2021. Before we dive into what's in store for this year, let's take a look at the state of Customer Experience. If we were at the beginning of 2020, no one could have predicted how upside-down, sideways, diagonal our lives would become at [...]
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Five Key Customer Experience Trends for 2020 to Watch

Five Customer Experience Trends for 2020 To Watch

Welcome to M4 Communications' Five Customer Experience Trends for 2020 To Watch. This has become an annual event here at M4. But before we dive in, let's take a look at where we are with Customer Experience. The Current State of Customer Experience So, where are we with Customer Experience (CX)? The answer to the [...]
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new-marketing

Is Customer Experience the New Marketing in 2017?

I've been reading posts about how Customer Experience is the new Marketing. Is it? The Difference Between Customer Experience and Marketing The definition of Marketing, per Merriam-Webster, is: "the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service" Dr. Philip Kotler defines Marketing as “the science and art of exploring, creating, and [...]
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Mechanics of Measurement

Understanding The Mechanics of Measurement

For marketers to be successful, they can’t muddle through with blinders or rose-colored glasses on. They must be informed and know which marketing activities work, and which don’t. That means understanding the mechanics of measurement. Marketing and measurement are like lock and key. You need both to be successful and grow. Unfortunately, some marketers still [...]
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m4comm_win/loss analysis

How To Conduct Win-Loss Analysis To Achieve Strategic Growth (Part II)

In Part I of "How To Conduct Win-Loss Analysis To Achieve Strategic Growth", I discussed the pre-interview and interview phases of Win-Loss Analysis. The post-interview phase is the most important element of the Win-Loss Analysis process. During this phase, you will gain insights on how to actually improve your processes, and as a result, better [...]
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m4comm_win/loss analysis

How To Conduct Win-Loss Analysis To Achieve Strategic Growth (Part I)

I have been involved with Win-Loss Analysis from the product and sales sides since the mid–1990’s and have written about the subject since 2009. To this day, I do not understand why more companies aren’t conducting win-loss interviews, analyzing results and implementing lessons learned. When I speak with companies, many think they know the answers [...]
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Why Marketers Must Think Different About Content Gating

There are many opinions about content gating these days. There have been LinkedIn Group discussions about it as well as blog posts debating or trying to visualize it. I recently asked marketers on a LinkedIn Group discussion about content gating. I posed three questions - (1) Are you gating content? (2) What content types do you [...]
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The 3 Types of Metrics You Should Be Focusing On

This month, eMarketer published a post citing results from an April 2014 study conducted by VisionEdge Marketing and ITSMA. eMarketer noted that 85% of marketers worldwide said the pressure to measure marketing’s business value and contribution had increased. eMarketer cited another study in the post, one conducted by ifbyphone in May 2014, which indicated that much of [...]
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Is Content Marketing the Missing Link Between Sales and Marketing?

One thing I like about engaging with my social networks is being able to ask questions and get people’s thoughts on issues, problems, and trends. Recently, I asked on Twitter, “Do marketing and sales still have trouble working together?” The answer was particularly telling: “No. They just do it badly.” In many organizations, the challenge [...]
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How To Get Great Testimonials

Seven Ways to Get Great Customer Testimonials

I recently asked a marketing director about customer testimonials on his company website. He openly said, "The testimonials aren't real, I made them up. Everybody else does it, so why can't we?" My second thought, after "Two wrongs don't make a right," was "Aren't you in the business of building trust? What does that say [...]
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Is_Sales_Dead

Is Sales Dead?

I remember when Bill Lee's post in Harvard Business Review came out in August 2012. There was outrage in the marketing community. Well, how could there not be outrage? The title of his post was "Marketing Is Dead". He was right - traditional marketing is dead. This is where I diverge. Mr. Lee notes "Traditional [...]
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