The Evolution of Consumer Experience and Digital Marketing in 2024

Council Post: The Consumer Experience Continuum In 2024

When I started my business career at Procter & Gamble in late 1999, I learned two important things about executing marketing plans. The first? Always know how your activity would deliver one of the four key marketing fundamentals (awareness, choice, loyalty and recommendation). Second, remember that content is king, but context is queen. Marrying "message" with "moment" matters -- that's what builds the kingdom. I spent most of the next 16 years seeing the marketing world through that lens. After serving several years as Centene's first chief marketing officer, I realized that viewpoint didn't serve our company or objectives well enough. As a managed care organization, we controlled little of our customers' experiences with this industry. Whether we refer to an individual as a consumer, patient or member, people generally have a low regard for the simplicity or enjoyment of today's healthcare environment. Health insurance consistently ranks low in brand simplicity. Ranking 24th out of 25 categories sounds bad until you realize healthcare ranks below telecommunications/cable providers. Then it sounds worse. Health insurance and telecom companies also fared poorly according to the 2016 Temkin Experience Ratings. Accordingly, Centene expanded my responsibilities and changed my title to chief experience officer, and I adopted a new way of seeing the world -- through the lens of the experience continuum, a three-layer sequence. The first layer I call "transaction." Transactions don't build brand equity, but getting them wrong can destroy it. For example, buying a ticket to a baseball game should be easy, safe and not counterfeit. The second layer, "engagement," appears in many forms. Engagement might look like me cheering for my team in the stadium, following players on social media or reading critiques on individual and team performance. As marketers, we all yearn for the final layer, "relationship." When I'm in a relationship with my team, I lose sleep when they lose the championship. I give their gear as gifts to friends and family. I wear their logo, and I might even tattoo it on my body. Twenty years ago -- before the iPhone, before streaming and before the global pandemic and the rise of AI -- we saw the world of marketing through two lenses. One was the traditional mass media "interruption" model, and the other was Seth Godin's "permission marketing." Ten years ago, Gini Dietrich published Spin Sucks and launched the PESO Model, providing a new framework to approach these traditional strategies. In the world of paid, earned, shared and owned brand assets, most marketing leaders focus on "paid" because it often provides predictable results and seems the easiest budget to justify. We aggressively try to push as much budget to "working" dollars as possible, and then, through a variety of attribution models, we try to measure results, which is becoming increasingly difficult (download required) to do accurately. On the other hand, we tend to ignore FTE overhead because that part of SG&A is just "the cost of doing business." Unfortunately, this creates a blind spot when it comes to managing owned assets. Because we see owned assets as "sunk costs," we don't try to attribute business growth to them and therefore don't measure the investment. Today, our world looks different. The opt-in "permission" model has largely turned into more "interruption." Yes, I opted into your emails to receive a discount, but that doesn't mean I want weekly updates. In other words, distractions, interruptions and media fragmentation make the world of relationship-building chaotic, confusing and challenging. As a result, brand trust is at an all-time low. Part of the solution to this problem lies in how we assess our budgets. We need to reevaluate our total budget, not just working dollars. For instance, if we have staff managing SEO, content creation and publication, shouldn't we assess the efficacy of how our online owned assets -- our website, our white papers and our social -- contribute to delivering awareness? Shouldn't we attribute that effort to acquisition costs? This takes us to today's consumer journey. Consumers have never had more choices, nor an easier way to ask questions and find answers. We all have a search bar in our hands. In fact, 81% of consumers research online before making a purchase. As Seth Stephens-Davidowitz points out in Everybody Lies, the Google search bar is one of the only places where we all tell the truth. So how visible are your owned assets in Google's search results, and how effectively do they answer consumer questions? I would challenge any marketer to find a more receptive audience than the online user on the first page of Google search results. That's why optimizing your brand's owned assets enhances the efficacy of all other marketing activities. Historically, brands have pursued search engine optimization (SEO) as an execution tactic, to support other marketing strategies. The brands that win in the future will use owned asset optimization (OAO) as a go-to-market strategy that can help them connect with their audience in the moments that matter -- regardless of the consumer journey stage. Understanding search intent, in an always-on manner, reveals the insights that brands can deliver with their content. For those hoping to get started, here are a few tips to consider: 1. Understand your consumer, their journey and their unmet needs. Brands that win online intimately understand their audience. 2. Remember that OAO is "always on," so instead of auditing your website once a quarter, ensure you have a process or a partner that constantly updates search intent to turn insights to action. 3. Embrace evolution. Consumers evolve with advances in technology, so work with partners that understand and harness the power of AI. Executing this strategy allows brands to dominate the experience continuum for modern consumers. It shifts the paradigm from transactional, interruptive touchpoints to reception marketing, where a brand can leverage its owned assets to meet the user in the time and place of their choosing: online and ready to connect. It empowers consumers to stay within the engagement and relationship steps of the experience continuum, building the long-term trust and loyalty that drive real business outcomes. Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. 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Council Post: Strategic Marketing In The Digital Age For Healthcare Organizations

In today's digital age, patients increasingly turn to the internet to find medical procedures and providers. Having worked in healthcare both domestically and abroad for two decades, I've engaged in hundreds of conversations with physicians, practice owners and medical device manufacturers about the "best way" to quickly boost their presence online. The short answer: There isn't a "fast" way to grow relevance. Businesses are built with intentional and deliberate plans executed over time. Sure, you can execute a tactic and secure some wins, but healthcare, even in the digital era, is a human business built on trust. Trust, even in the digital world, must be earned over time -- not overnight. My aim within this article is to simplify the complexity of the digital ecosystem and empower healthcare leaders to focus on how to establish and optimize their business's digital presence and thrive in the digital age. To do that, let's look at the five building blocks of the digital presence pyramid. A well-designed website serves as the virtual front door of a healthcare business. When designing your website, make sure it is easy to navigate, informative and optimized for search engines. Provide "schedule now" buttons that offer online scheduling options. Include photos and background information introducing you, your staff and your practice location(s), as well as a list of services offered and an "accepted insurance" page. Additionally, consider establishing a Google Business Profile and investing in a listings service; this can help you ensure accurate practice details and build a strong local presence. Pro Tip: A good website is often a nice marriage of effectiveness and economy. You can certainly overspend on website features like video that may slow the user experience. In modern healthcare, convenience is key -- 67% of patients prefer booking online. According to research, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation, and 90% use online reviews to evaluate physicians. I've found that patients are more willing to leave reviews when a provider asks for one, so consider incorporating software that securely connects to your practice's EMR and automatically sends a review request to completed patients. Consistently request reviews from patients to ensure you collect real feedback. While everyone loves a five-star review, less glowing reviews can help you identify areas for improvement. Establish and regularly update your social media accounts, as well, linking new and existing accounts to your website. A strong social presence for healthcare providers is less about the newest TikTok dance and more about helping you engage with patients and humanize your brand while showcasing your expertise. Pro Tip: Within the workflow of your practice, incorporate an intentional request of patients for an honest review. However, avoid offering "incentives" for reviews, as these go against Google's policies. Search engine marketing (SEM) includes search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising. SEO involves optimizing your website to secure high visibility on search engine results pages. A good SEO program should address on-page and technical SEO. On-page SEO can make your site more rewarding for users by optimizing title tags, content and internal links. Technical SEO implements adjustments that can improve areas like site structure, page speed to affect crawling and indexing of your site. Both on-page and technical SEO can improve your organic search ranking and drive traffic. PPC advertising extends your organic efforts and further refines the audience you want. PPC campaigns are typically most effective with a starting goal, like increasing site traffic or generating leads. This goal fuels how you select your target audience and identify keywords likely to lead to your desired conversion. Build a PPC campaign that has clear objectives, identifies a focused target audience and operates within keyword groups that align with your ad objectives. Pro Tip: Be cautious not to build your keyword categories too broadly; appealing to too wide an audience can lead to your paying for impressions that have a low likelihood of converting to an actual client. A great organic post on your social channels may reach hundreds, but an ad with proper investment fueling its exposure could be presented to hundreds of thousands. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are primarily paid-advertising platforms and don't benefit from content receiving viral exposure. Complementing your organic efforts with targeted advertising on social media to capitalize on the "pay-to-play" nature of social media can increase reach and drive conversions. In addition to paid social media advertising, placing paid display network advertising on prominent platforms can yield significant results in terms of patient awareness and, ultimately, acquisition. Display Network ads can be targeted to engage your audience across millions of websites and can build awareness of your brand. However, these ads are not tools for conversion but rather a great way to begin the modern patient journey. Pro Tip: Data fuels all marketing campaigns in the digital age. When possible, use first-person data to define your ideal patient type before investing in targeted advertising efforts on social media. Undergo regular performance analysis, and consider collaborating with marketing agencies to help you achieve continuous optimization of your digital presence. (Full Disclosure: My company offers these services, as do others.) Emphasizing the speed and accountability of digital marketing can enable your practice to adapt quickly and effectively in the ever-evolving digital landscape. When seeking an agency partnership, look for one with proven expertise and experience in your specialty. Many claim expertise in "healthcare" but lack access to first-person data and deep knowledge to maximize your return. Pro Tip: Don't assume the campaign or your representative agency will automatically measure and adjust your efforts. Marketing in the digital age still requires human input, no matter how much AI insight an agency claims to have. Provide candid feedback on the results you see to ensure you're making the most from your marketing spend. Your agency needs to know if, for example, all the leads you receive show no interest in scheduling an appointment. Good agencies will check in regularly and adjust as needed to ensure you feel the improvement. In my experience, building a digital presence for a healthcare business requires a multifaceted approach encompassing website optimization, social media engagement, targeted advertising and continuous optimization. By implementing these strategies, you can enhance visibility, build trust and attract new patients in the digital era. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?