In my December 2010 article “Branding in the Digital Age,” I discussed how consumers today connect with brands in fundamentally new ways, often through media channels that are beyond manufacturers’ and retailers’ control. Traditional marketing strategies fall short in this new world. Marketers need to drop the funnel metaphor to describe consumer touch points and instead study the evolving and increasingly digital consumer decision journey (CDJ). The CDJ illustrates how consumers add and subtract brands from a group under consideration during an extended evaluation phase. And purchase is no longer the end of the relationship. Now consumers often enter into an ongoing relationship with the brand during which they enjoy, advocate for and bond with it.

Aligning with the Consumer Decision Journey by David Edelman

David C. Edelman (david_edelman@mckinsey.com) is co-leader of McKinsey & Company’s Global Digital Marketing Strategy practice.

The ArTICle SpArKeD a lot of discussion with HBR readers, who were eager to apply the

CDJ approach to their organizations. They wanted to know how. Some of the most common questions we received were:

• Where do we start?• How do we get hold of the re-

search in our field to begin mapping our customers’ CDJ?

• How can this be applied in my unique industry and company?

• Does this only apply to con-sumers or can business-to-business companies use the CDJ as well?

The article discussed how a con-sumer electronics company used the approach to change its marketing planning process and successfully launch a new product line. However, that is just one example. Having worked with several dozen clients on their CDJ approach, we wanted to share a case study that shows how another company has grappled with the issues that the CDJ presents.

HBR.ORG To read the full article, go to hbr.org/2010/12/branding-in-the-digital-age/ar/1.Ideas in Practice

SpotlightDavid C. Edelman (david_edelman@mckinsey.com) is a coleader of McKinsey & Company’s Global Digital Marketing Strategy practice.Branding in

The Digital AgeYou’re Spending Your Money In All the Wrong Placesby David C. Edelman

ARTWORK Alex MacLean, Untitled, 2010 photograph, Atlantic City, New Jersey

hbr.orGSpOTLighT oN SoCiAl MeDiA AND the New ruleS of brANDiNG

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design tools, and sources for ideas that it could use with its customers. Sensing that the issue was bigger than simply expand-ing its website, the division president formed a team that included the chief marketing officer, the newly hired vice president of digital and sev eral marketing staff to research how customer behavior was changing, what competitors were do-ing in the digital world, how the distribu-tion channel could be improved, and what it needed to do to respond.

Getting StartedGlobal Light took a journalistic approach to getting the data it needed about its customers and competitors. First, the team interviewed 40 customers—lighting designers, architects, and construction managers—about purchasing behavior and past experience with Global Light. Clear patterns emerged. Within their specific communities, customers were engaging in discussions, sharing ideas and giving advice to one another. These conversations were happening via trade associations or in threads tied to blogs and other publications, such as Candle Power Forum. Other exchanges were happening on LinkedIn or in other social media ven-ues, including Flickr, where people were posting pictures of installations they had done and then inviting commentary from the community.

These customers explained that while a handful of Global Light’s manufacturing competitors had reasonably useful sites that offered ideas, tools, and technical

The Customer Decision Journey A business-to-business story

The CoNSuMer DeCISIoN JourNey STrATeGy is not just for companies that work directly with consumers.

Those who serve businesses can make use of it as well with a few adjustments. First you need to substitute “customer” for “consumer.” Then, because most B2B distribution channels are complex, you may need to sort out several CDJs, not just one.

Here is the story of a lighting company, which we will call Global Light, that radi-cally changed its go-to-market approach based on the study of the CDJ in its in-dustry. Global Light is one of the largest multinationals in the category, covering

a range of commercial markets, including public construction, retail, and hospitality. The company depends on its distribution channel and direct sales network for the majority of its business. Because it didn’t have direct contact with its customers, the company had assumed it didn’t need a highly developed web presence. However, in 2008 its distribu-tors and direct salespeople began request-ing more digital content. They wanted online pictures, product specifications,

IDEa In PRaCtICE

Global light had a decent brand name but it was essentially an island in the online ecosystem.

5 Steps to Defining the CDJ

1Interview customers

2Gather publicly available data on search activity and traffic patterns

3purchase additional multidimensional data, as needed

4examine own site data

5Identify and analyze trends

content, most distributors did not offer much more than a catalog of aggregated information from several manufacturers. Most importantly, and not surprisingly, the company learned that the vast major-ity of its customers were doing extensive research online before contacting a dis-tributor or a manufacturer directly.

Now that the team had a better sense of what it was looking for, it set about acquiring relevant data. It used a variety of publicly available sources, such as Google

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trends, Compete and Comscore, to better understand search activity and traffic pat-terns. For example, commercial lighting had more image searches than most other categories. The team also bought multidi-mensional data on lighting website users to analyze cross-clicking patterns across sites and discovered that people were spending more time on community and social sites than on those of manufacturers or distribu-tors. Finally, it looked at its own site data to better understand where traffic was com-ing from and what people were doing once they got to site. Two trends surfaced. One, most people were simply typing in Global Light’s URL, which meant that it had a decent brand name but was essentially an island in the online ecosystem. Two, most visitors were checking specs for an item based on a catalog number, meaning they were using the site to get more information after talking to a distributor or salesperson, as opposed to initiating their search for lighting solutions at the site.

a Unique CDJBased on the acquired data, the team cre-ated a customized CDJ. It looked like above.

This CDJ represented a significant de-parture from how the company had con-ceived of its customer experience in the past. Most notably, it now included two

additional, but critical, steps: Inspiration, in which customers use online channels to find, create, and compare ideas, and Sharing, in which customers post projects, case studies, opinions, and experiences using a variety of digital media: social media, email, and websites. The com-pany also realized that its current view of Specification could be broadened to include more dynamic options. Custom-ers now expected to have tools that helped them make trade-offs between lighting and other inputs in a facility design, or be-tween lighting performance, energy usage, and total installed cost.

The research also showed that while customers were clamoring for more digital content and interaction, certain aspects of the journey, such as RFP and Purchase, largely occurred offline. Buyer behavior had not changed that much: customers still wanted to work directly, over the phone or in person, with the distributor or direct manufacturing supplier to ask questions, get additional information and make the final purchase. It wouldn’t make sense to force customers online at these points so Global Light needed to consider how it would manage cross-channel flow as customers shifted from phone or face-to-face contact to digital interaction, and back again.

The team completed this research and analysis over four months. It then turned its attention to making changes to its strategy.

transforming the OrganizationAs a result of this reconceived CDJ, Global Light rethought its go-to-market approach, expanded the role of the corporate digital marketing team, and changed the nature of its customer relationships. Here is what that looked like at each step of the journey:

Sharing. Once customer projects were completed, the marketing team sent follow-up emails encouraging customers to post case studies on the manufacturer site. The team then sent out these stories and related images via email to relevant customers and cross-posted to key com-munity sites.

inSpiration. In several markets, the company set up local teams of junior marketing or sales people to take turns monitoring community sites. These teams answered questions, attached links to

positive postings about products, and announced new products. They also im-proved the tags on the product pictures so the images would be picked up by Google across more search terms.

Specification. Since most custom-ers used the website to get more facts about products, Global Light made that information easier to access. Success sto-ries were linked directly to the technical specifications of the mentioned products. Tools were added to help designers make product choices, such as models that calculated the wattage needed for differ-ent types of spaces or that calculated the

The CDJ represented a significant departure from how the company had conceived of its customer’s experience in the past.

SERvICE ExPERIEnCE

SHaRInGPURCHaSE

tHE LOyaLty LOOPInSPIRatIOn

RFP/PRICE COmPaRISOn

SPECIFICatIOn

Global Light’s CDJThe team created a unique CDJ based on data about its customers.

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a consistent experience. The team coor-dinated handoff processes between chan-nels, determined ways to move customer information with them, and created rules on distributor assignments and roles so customers did not get lost in the cracks.

2. customer discussions are invitations to get involved. Customers are talking about your products, perhaps on your site, or perhaps elsewhere. Find them, listen to what they are saying. These are summons to get involved in the conversation. Use what you learn to inform your company’s understanding of the CDJ. And then talk back, as Global Lighting did, by answer-ing questions, providing ideas, supplying links, and giving customers the content they want. But don’t start until you are ready. There is no point driving people to a weak site experience. You need to make significant strides in the content, function-ality, and flow of your site before driving traffic there.

3. there is no such thing as a “social strategy.” Social media is not the endgame. It is a tool to talk and connect with custom-ers. Global Lighting started by laying out its CDJ and studying what it needed to do differently at each stage. Then, it employed appropriate social and mobile tools to meet those needs. Changes driven by adopting a CDJ perspective go deeper than online execution tactics or agency-managed pro-grams. They are at the heart of how a brand manifests itself in the eyes of its customers and how the company will align its opera-tions to deliver a new experience.

What are you learning about the CDJ at your company?

This move toward digital highlighted the company’s lack of skills in new tech-nologies, which limited its initial actions. For example, it stuck to simpler analytic tools, such as Google Analytics, until it could bring in more talent. Once under way, they hired from the outside, bringing in a new vice-president of digital as well as other key leaders. It also relied heavily on an outside agency to do a large portion of the design work.

Looking aheadGlobal Light has been gradually rolling out the changes over the last two years. The company expects a 5× return on its investment in shifting to a CDJ-driven strategy. However, it’s a gradual process as it continues to put skilled people, technology, and programs in place. The transformation has forced the company to up its game in search, social media and site design, not to mention make greater investments in a high quality content sup-ply chain, a new call center and distributor support capabilities.

Lessons Learned1. the cDJ is not limited to digital. Cus-tomers often move across channels during their journey. Global Lighting had to cre-ate mechanisms that supported custom-ers during these shifts and maintained

total cost of ownership including energy usage over time. Data about products was restructured so it could be exported into popular third-party tools, such as CAD/CAM software for architectural rendering.

rfp/price compariSon/purchaSe. Given customers’ desire for traditional contact here, the site offered options to connect offline with the call center, a specific rep whom they did business with before, or a distributor. The company also invested in setting up an inside sales team that supported the online channel, with co-browsing capabilities and immediately available data on a customer’s online path-way. This was piloted in one region before being rolled out more broadly.

Service experience. With a more aggressive online channel funneling leads to distributors, the company required dis-tributors to track lead conversion. It also created support programs that distributors could use to keep the manufacturer in front of the customer on an ongoing basis, such as email bulletins with case studies of projects in the field.

In order to realize the above changes, Global Light needed to create content centrally that could then be pushed out to its regions. This required a group located in and funded by headquarters to manage the shared site, content, and analytic resources across geographies. Executives had to resolve the friction created by this more centralized approach. Corporate had to convince the regional managers, who had enjoyed the autonomy of separate budgets, to give up a degree of control. It succeeded by identifying the inefficiencies in the current system and explaining the require-ments of operating in this new world.

The transformation has forced the company to up its game in social media and site design.

Getting Started Questions to ask

Are we willing to challenge the way our functions operate?

Do we have support outside marketing in sales, service and other functional groups?

Are we prepared to make an upfront investment and pilot a range of changes?

Do we have a champion at the top of the organization?

Are our distribution channel partners eager to cooperate?

how will we build our digital team? Do we have internal expertise or will we need to rely on agency help and external hires?

What are the costs of not changing our digital strategy?

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