Show me. Purpose.
When this article was assigned as a reading during #HBAP, a light bulb clicked on purpose. I've read this article 50+ times now, and am likely the top-fan reader of this position on Small-P Customer Purpose. So, of course, this article leads Newsletter #2. In this article, Recognizing Your Customer’s Purpose is Key to Growth, HBR, the author Cornfield gives a framework to the work we do regularly as marketers or business owners. What I connected with here is the tactical listing of 3 Purpose statements as a path to lead with broad purpose and to aim to prioritize and focus to directly serve the needs and expectations customers bring to us, via customer purpose. It's purposeful, tactically-driven, and noted as a growth strategy. It's 100% worth the short read here. I'll also summarize key points next.
Growth strategies that are purpose-led, customer-centric, experience-driven, data/AI-enabled, and technology-scaled require new mindsets far more than new toolsets or skillsets. -Cornfield, HBR
Big-P Purpose "What's your company's role in the world?"
Start here. What purpose does your company serve? Ideally, this is a purpose with your customers, beyond for your customers. For example, the article notes the purpose of Verizon: "We create the networks that move the world forward," capturing the work Verizon and customers do and collectively aspire to daily.
There are inspiring give-back examples of Patagonia 1% for the planet and Toms Shoes’ buy-a-pair-give-a-pair.
Companies significantly outperform competitors on growth, profitability, differentiation, category leadership, and long-term loyalty of customers and employees by considering three levels of purpose — company, brand, and customer purpose — and then optimizing their products, people, processes, policies, technology, operations, and metrics to deliver experiences aligned with those purposes. -Cornfield, HBR
Medium-P Purpose "What role does your company serve in the lives of customers?"
Purpose statements are promises to customers. They elevate the expectations customers bring to us. The example offers Kimberly-Clark, a large company, with brand purpose at the Huggies level that is so cutely and importantly "Helping to navigate the unknowns of babyhood." We counted on Huggies to help navigate unknowns! -- so in our case that promise was met {heart}.
The article notes the imperative to ensure you back up your purpose with operational efficacy and alignment to deliver! *Solid reminder, and a good opportunity to shout out #HBAP HBS Professor Tushman's Structural Ambidexterity. Here's a link to his latest books on the subject, also worthy of a read.
*PS If you're a small business, your Big- and Medium-P Purpose can and likely will be the same, unless you carve out specific brands/customer segments.
Small-P Purpose. Customer.
The most important Purpose segment is understanding and building your Customer Purpose Portfolio. This will encompass the needs, wants, and desires your customers bring to your company. These are specific and end each customer journey.
Think anything that starts with something like, “I need…,” “I want…,” “How can I…,” or “Can you…” -Cornfield, HBR
It is recommended to do this exercise: Identify 20 - 100 (yes, minimum 20) customer purpose expectations to consider in building your portfolio, inclusive of customer observation and input. Next, as a team, evaluate these to identify target customer purposes that you can deliver on and also that align with your KPIs. There is current momentum to focus teams and work around specific customer purposes, and leveraging CPIs (Customer Purpose Indicators) to help monitor how well you're delivering to these. The strong alignment will drive customer feedback of 'satisfaction, excitement, or joy,' whereas less understanding and meeting these customer purposes will likely result in reaction and feelings of 'confusion or frustration."
Because your organization’s growth and success ultimately rely on customers achieving their purposes, start by understanding what matters most to them — in the world, in their lives, and in the specific context of what you provide. -Cornfield
Now, onto highlight a powerful Data Science tool..
Show me. Data Visualization.
In the 1st newsletter edition, I showed you the superpower of AI/Machine-learning prediction with the DataRobot Data Science platform. Prior to prediction, the first show-stopping #HBAP moment arrived with Tableau. If you're a marketer or business owner or decision maker who has dug into varying channel platforms, or commonly Excel, to uncover insights and optimize decisions, then I offer you the transformative power of data visualization with Tableau.
Data visualization should have a starring role at 2 stages in the Analytics process.
When approaching a new analytics question, or working to leverage analytics to help solve your current problem, the DataScience Workflow steps, detailed by DataCamp, below can help guide your project. First, before visualizing, it's important to ask specific questions that you'll be working to answer.
Steps to Data Science Workflow
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Data visualization is a game-changer and effective tool when first looking at your data for exploratory analysis to figure out what you're looking at, and even stronger impact to see results and ultimately share with your team. For example, continuing with our work on Customer Purpose Indicators. Let's assume we've identified our top 20 CPI's and are now putting effort into tracking how well we're doing helping customers find same-day Superbowl party snacks with few clicks on your e-commerce site. Once KPIs and actions are identified and measured to take a look at how we're doing, the Data Science Workflow can guide steps to measure. Whether you're a small business, non-profit, or marketer that can brainstorm additional Customer Purpose expectations, data visualization, and more specifically, Tableau, can be effective for you.
So, let's see it in action...
Data Visualization - Tableau Examples
Here is my Tableau Public profile where you can see a few of the key exercises we explored during #HBAP or subsequent DataCamp modules.
First, this viz below uses a sample marketing dataset to aggregate exports from different marketing channel platforms into a view that shows us which channels customers engaged with first and last during their marketing journey, separated by whether a purchase was made. Here is a link to the interactive viz on Tableau Public that I built. Do you agree that this is a really clear view to see where the investment is productive?
First and Last Touch Customer TouchPoints by Purchase Journey
Second, this is the top-viewed Marketing dashboard from the 'Tableau for Marketers' Tableau Public page. Click link to view the real power in the interactive dashboard.
You can view interesting Tableau work and dashboards being leveraged across companies such as HomeDepot, Disney that will inspire how you look at data visualization: https://www.tableau.com/resource-best-cmo-dashboards
Third, here is a Tableau workbook produced by the expert @DataVizJen that visually showcases our HBAP journey - showing a different use case application of Tableau that's easy to digest a timeline with tooltips. You can see the interactive viz here with tooltips.
Are you ready to see more clearly with Tableau?
One of the most important considerations when working with Tableau is to ensure you connect with the right level that keeps your data private.
Tableau Public is the link I shared above. In this environment, any work that I publish, whether DataCamp exercises or Viz of the day work on public databases, is public. EVERYTHING that you publish here {viz and underlying data} is viewable by all.
In addition to Tableau Public, you can review the offerings at Tableau.com to find a subscription that fits your needs. There is a free trial offering for 14 days currently as well.
To wrap it up, in this edition we've featured Big-P and Small-P Purpose, focused in on Small-P Customer Purpose including a recommended exercise to get out your pen and identify 20 - 100 top Customer Purpose expectations that are brought to interact with your company. This can start your work or check in on how well you're meeting these customer needs. You can review this featured article on Customer Purpose here. We also looked at the power of data visualization in the business analytics process. As a useful tool to help visualize your customer purpose indicator work or to visualize any topic, Tableau is a game-changer. You can learn and explore more at Tableau.
Sources:
Recognizing your Customer's Purpose is Key to Growth, Harvard Business Review, Gene Cornfield, May 20, 2021