Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Content Marketing World conference with about 2,500 attendees from around the world. One of the keynote presentations was given by Julie Fleischer, who is the Director of Media and Consumer Engagement at Kraft Foods. She discussed how Kraft, through its content marketing efforts, provides recipes online that it has created in its kitchens, as well as recipes shared by members. Kraft also has a subscription magazine. Through these and other efforts, Kraft has amped up its customer engagement and, according to Fleischer, the ROI on its content marketing is 3-4x what it typically gets with marketing efforts.
In an interview Fleischer did with Forbes a few years ago, she sums up the key to Kraft’s success: “To be successful in content marketing, you have to take the time to get to know your consumers, what s/he needs, and how you can serve that need uniquely and authentically.” Wait a minute, finding out what the customer needs? That sounds like something a customer experience professional would say, not a marketer. Essentially, what Kraft is doing is helping improve customers’ daily lives. And, by the way, the byproduct is that they buy Kraft products to make the recipes that they found in the content Kraft provided.
There is no doubt that these activities fit under the category of customer experience management, but recognize that the customer is in control and provides information that meets their needs, letting consumers decide when and how they want to experience Kraft’s products. Kraft is just giving them ideas. I wonder if Kraft customers who use these resources were asked about their experience with Kraft and what was most memorable or valuable to them. My guess is it isn’t the taste of the cheese or the mayonnaise, but rather how Kraft helped them make a special meal that was memorable.
There are a few lessons to take away from this depending on your perspective:
For marketers, realize that making your customer experience the differentiator isn’t always (and perhaps rarely is) the unique features you put into your products and services. What you do for customers is what matters, which in this case may not be your products at all, but the information you provide that helps customers get more out of the your products they use.
For customer experience professionals, this is one more example of why it is important to get beyond touch points and understand the customer’s journey more holistically. You need to understand the context of your brand within customers’ lives. This has implications for how and when you engage customers. It remains important to understand how well you are serving customers, but it is also crucial to understand the customer’s context, perspective, and needs.
In one of the other talks at the conference, a speaker mentioned the common refrain from marketers, salespeople, and customer experience professionals that customers and potential customers are very busy and don’t have time to listen to or otherwise consume their messages. His conclusion—these kinds of statements are just excuses. People will make time if you are relevant. Kraft has found ways to be relevant. Whether you are trying to sell something, measure satisfaction, or simply engaging your customers, if you aren’t relevant you’ll fail.
