By: Tom Hutchison, Industry Strategist at Acxiom

Tom Hutchison, Industry Strategist at Acxiom

French cuisine is held in high regard by gourmands and people who possess a certain bon vivant spirit. Its culinary reputation is built upon simple foods with distinctive flavors.  French cooking features a handful of mother sauces – emulsifications and reductions of fundamental ingredients – that enhance many basic dishes. From these essential starters, all other sauces are derived. To be proficient, a chef must be able to make Bechamel, Velouté, Espagnole, Tomato, Hollandaise and Mayonnaise. Like French chefs, planners employ a handful of mother strategies that give rise to all campaigns. 

We’ve seen an explosion of marketing categories as agencies and technology companies attempt to differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded marketplace. E-mail marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, digital marketing and social media marketing are just a few examples. Each is an important part of a brand’s approach, but they roll up to broader strategies that align to a customer lifecycle. These mother strategies include Prospect, Conquest, Leads, Customer, Loyalty and Win Back marketing.

The first three strategies line up to customer acquisition activities. Prospect marketing involves engaging people who aren’t customers and may not know anything about a particular product. The messages create awareness of the product, outlining features and benefits. Conquest marketing is similar in that there is no existing relationship, but the consumer uses a competitive offering. Those messages provide information about the product and feature content about differentiators. Leads marketing begins once the person exhibits heightened interest or advanced purchase consideration. Information provided to a lead is personalized to overcome remaining objections and motivate them become customers.

The second three strategies align to customer retention activities. Customer marketing is used to on-board the newly converted lead. The communications offer support and feature cross sell and up sell offers. Extending the customer relationship is the domain of Loyalty marketing. I think of it as convincing the customer to join your brand rather than just retaining the relationship. Win Back marketing involves engaging former customers or customers who have grown dormant. Too many brands treat these people like prospects, but the insights from the relationship should inform the win back campaigns. 

To these mother strategies, we add Brand Advertising as a special ingredient that supports all of them. Telling people about the brand creates awareness so Prospect and Conquest campaigns don’t have to start from scratch. Brand messages foreshadow information featured in Leads interactions. Customer and Loyalty programs benefit from the perception created about the brand. And brand advertising reminds people why they liked a product in the first place, making Win Back content more effective.

A chef who wants to be renowned for French cooking must master the mother sauces, just as a great planner must master the mother strategies. It’s critical that planners understand how the use of any specific tactic changes based on the customer lifecycle. E-mail marketing, for example, remains a critical part of most brand’s efforts. But E-mail is used in one way for Customer marketing and in a different way for engaging Leads. Messages sent to Loyalty members on social media need to have a different tone than those reaching Prospects. Content marketing can be effective for Conquest and Win Back campaigns but the information is very different. Ongoing and consistent brand advertising creates a baseline point-of-view for the people receiving every kind of marketing. Understanding the mother strategies will enable planners construct experiences that are as remarkable and refined as French haute cuisine.