Cracking the Digital Code: Lessons from a Mystery Novelist (Part 1)

The inter­na­tion­ally renowned spy nov­el­ist John Le Carré once said of his work, “I am still mak­ing order out of chaos by rein­ven­tion.” He takes cur­rent events and cul­tural atti­tudes and weaves them into his espi­onage thrillers, cre­at­ing nov­els that are both pop­u­lar and time­less. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, writ­ten in 1963, com­mented on the tur­moil and folly of the Cold War, skew­er­ing both East­ern and West­ern nations. Yet it rose above con­tro­versy to win that year’s Best Crime Novel award, become an adapted screen­play, and be cel­e­brated as a rev­o­lu­tion­ary work of fiction.

Why am I devot­ing a para­graph on a dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing blog to a spy nov­el­ist? Because Le Carré is an excel­lent role model for dig­i­tal mar­keters. He chose not to con­form to one easy cat­e­gory, like pulp fic­tion writer or polit­i­cal essay­ist. He rein­vented the spy novel form, and made a last­ing impact. Today’s dig­i­tal mar­keters are striv­ing for this same blend of thrilling enter­tain­ment and mean­ing­ful con­tent to help them stand out and connect.

To achieve this Le Carré-like cus­tomer engage­ment, you’ll need to first gather valu­able cus­tomer data, and then orga­nize it to find mean­ing and cus­tomer insights.

Gather Intel­li­gent Cus­tomer Data

Your dig­i­tal tools and meth­ods are only as good as the cus­tomer insights they’re founded on. Begin with a broad view of your audi­ence and con­text the way Le Carré first observed the trends and shift­ing cul­tural cur­rents. The big pic­ture enables you to develop focused strate­gies that are rel­e­vant to your customers.

Start by gath­er­ing all the cus­tomer intel­li­gence you can—particularly the intel­li­gence that can be lever­aged to pro­vide greater value to those same cus­tomers down the line. Gain insider knowl­edge on what moti­vates your tar­get audi­ence. Con­sider your cus­tomers and fol­low­ers your spe­cial agents in the field, send­ing back valu­able infor­ma­tion about how civil­ians per­ceive your brand.

You can source data from the Web, mobile devices, and social plat­forms, as well as in-person inter­ac­tions and cus­tomer ser­vice calls. The more data points you access, the more three-dimensional your big pic­ture will be. And it’s not just about mul­ti­ple data sources, it’s about mul­ti­ple data types, includ­ing quan­ti­ta­tive demo­graphic details, behav­ioral and trans­ac­tional infor­ma­tion, qual­i­ta­tive cus­tomer feed­back, and geolo­ca­tion. The cumu­la­tive data can yield insights into cus­tomer behav­ior, increased cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, and increased ROI.

Make Order Out of Tech­no­log­i­cal Chaos

Order means orga­ni­za­tion, sys­tems, and clear direc­tion. It does not mean rigid and restric­tive rules or uni­lat­eral deci­sion mak­ing. It means scal­able tech­nol­ogy and a diversely tal­ented, inter­de­pen­dent team. It does not mean cum­ber­some soft­ware or orga­ni­za­tional silos.

Slate began mea­sur­ing “page views, refer­rers, mobile usage, and other met­rics to pro­vide mar­keters with action­able, real-time Web ana­lyt­ics about dig­i­tal strate­gies and mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives.” With a high vol­ume of daily con­tent being pub­lished, Slate’s goal was to reach read­ers with the most recent and rel­e­vant sto­ries as they entered the site. The online mag­a­zine was able to use customer-centric pre­dic­tive ana­lyt­ics meth­ods to derive the most use­ful insights from its vis­i­tor data. Slate ulti­mately auto­mated the process of min­ing data to unearth unique cus­tomer seg­ments, or per­sonas, and then viewed how each per­sona behaved when pre­sented with var­i­ous content.

Slate excels at gen­er­at­ing user engage­ment and inter­ac­tion, and has set up automa­tion to update arti­cles with up-to-the-minute social activ­ity, high­light shares, likes, tweets, and com­ments from across chan­nels. This level of seam­less, mul­ti­chan­nel inte­gra­tion would not be pos­si­ble with­out the tech­nol­ogy to nim­bly har­ness, ana­lyze, and amplify cus­tomer data. Slate’s Web ana­lyt­ics sys­tems ensure that it doesn’t miss impor­tant oppor­tu­ni­ties for per­son­al­ized connections.

Rein­vent the Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing Genre with Dig­i­tal Expe­ri­ence Management

Nat­u­rally, we want to be on the cusp of new trends and inno­va­tions. But con­stant tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment can leave behind even the most dar­ing com­pa­nies if they are unable to stay in tune with cus­tomers and build flex­i­bil­ity into their dig­i­tal processes.

As John Mel­lor, vice pres­i­dent of strat­egy and busi­ness devel­op­ment for Adobe Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing, reminded us at Adobe Sum­mit 2014, “The world is more con­nected, and con­sumers want to inter­act [on their terms].” Dig­i­tal expe­ri­ence man­age­ment is the new frame­work for all our tech­no­log­i­cal invest­ments. Cus­tomer inter­ac­tions should inform your dig­i­tal processes, enabling you “to meet or exceed cus­tomer expec­ta­tions and, thus, increase cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, loy­alty and advo­cacy.”

In mys­tery fic­tion, the writer needs to mas­ter­fully tie mul­ti­ple clues together to cre­ate an excit­ing and sat­is­fy­ing expe­ri­ence for the reader. In the evolv­ing dig­i­tal age, sus­tain­able mar­ket­ing processes need to be both adapt­able and sta­ble; pow­er­ful yet user-friendly; and able to weave a seam­less and engag­ing nar­ra­tive for the cus­tomer. To nav­i­gate the dig­i­tal chaos, make cus­tomer expe­ri­ence your yardstick.

In my next post we’ll go deeper into the dig­i­tal processes that can help you move from the big data pic­ture to indi­vid­u­al­ized cus­tomer journeys.

  This article was written for Business 2 Community by James Spillane.
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Author: James Spillane

James is a BSc Physics grad, attending Imperial College London and becoming interested in cryptocurrency shortly after. His previously published work can be found on Rakeback.com and more recently InsideBitcoins.com and DeFicoins.io. Currently James is a content editor and writer covering Bitcoin and DeFi related news, as well as enjoying

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