At the 2024 B2B Marketing Exchange East, Sophia Agustina, CEO & Co-Founder of Gain Relationship, and Margaret Safford, President of Gain Relationship, will host a customer-centricity workshop based on the pair’s “9 Cs” framework, where the customer is at the center of every decision. The workshop will provide an in-depth exploration of each “C” along with critical questions to identify gaps and opportunities for optimization.
To learn more about the session and the landscape of customer-centricity in general, the Demand Gen Report team sat down with Agustina and Safford.
Demand Gen Report: Can you discuss the evolution of the customer experience over the past few years?
Sophia Agustina & Margaret Safford: Customers demand personalized experiences tailored to their needs today more than ever. It’s fascinating to see how channel mix strategy has flipped from 80% brick-and-mortar and 20% digital presence to now 20% brick-and-mortar and 80% digital experiences! This makes the digital landscape cluttered and it’s becoming harder for your target customers to find you. This is why it is so important to create relevant, personalized experiences.
DGR: What are some of the external factors that are making it harder than ever to connect with customers?
Agustina & Safford: Some of the external factors include the evolution of the physical and digital distribution mix, more mature martech stacks (such as easier access to AI and automation tools), the commoditization of content and endless product options. This cause companies to constantly compete for the same customer attention — making it hard to stand out and connect with their customers.
DGR: Why is curating a strong customer experience more important than ever before?
Agustina & Safford: In today’s always-on and cluttered landscape, it is increasingly difficult to gain customer attention and make a lasting impact. The human brain is processing more information than ever before, making mental availability at a premium. Without a truly meaningful customer experience, you may not be creating the mindshare and lasting impression to gain your customers’ attention and create those magic moments that will drive the outcomes you are looking for.
DGR: What are some of the steps practitioners can take to ensure their campaigns and messaging are resonating with their audiences?
Agustina & Safford: Context is really key to ensure that you are reaching your customers at the right time and place — when and where they need you. It is important to understand not only the overall company’s pain points but also each member of the buying committee: This includes knowing what makes them tick and how your solution can help solve not only the company’s problem but also improve their day-to-day.
Our budget is finite, so you need to identify and prioritize the three to four roles within the account’s buying committee that could move your funnel forward. Then, tailor your messaging and campaigns to solve their problems and help them make the right purchasing decision. You need to provide the value and ROI why you are the right solution partner for them.
DGR: How can practitioners work to put customers at the center of their GTM strategies?
Agustina & Safford: It is important to think about all the touchpoints across a go-to-market (GTM) journey where the customer could be impacted and ask strategic questions to ensure the experience is customer-centric and not process or mandate-driven. Our 9 Cs framework provides a structure to do this across the key levers that impact the customer today, which is crucial as companies need to continually adapt to the changing customer needs landscape in order to thrive.
DGR: Can you give us a quick overview of the 9 Cs framework?
Agustina & Safford: The 9 Cs framework is a GTM methodology to get closer to the customer and drive value for both the customer and business. It is a guide to deliver a personalized customer experience by asking customer-centric questions across the 9 Cs as identified in the framework. The 9 Cs are company, competitor, context, collaborators, content, campaign, channel, conversion and customer.
When put into practice, all these 9 Cs taken together will elevate customer value and highlight relevance at each stage of the buying journey. It delivers outputs to help prioritization and provides knowledge of where to place big bets around resource allocation and efficiency in today’s cluttered marketing landscape.
DGR: Can you give us an elevator pitch about your session and discuss what attendees will walk away with, both about your workshop and track session?
Agustina & Safford: After our session, the attendees will have a good overview of the 9 Cs framework and how all the Cs work together to drive customer value. They will come away with insights into the gaps we have identified through our customer-centricity assessment and how to spot them within their companies.
We will also do a deep dive into three of the C’s in the framework — content, campaign and collaboration. The workshop will provide an opportunity to put the framework into practice through the 9 Cs customer-centric assessment which will allow participants to develop the start of an action plan to immediately use in their organizations. You can take the assessment to get a jumpstart to advancing your customer-centricity journey now: https://www.cmocouncil.org/surveys/9Cs-framework-assessment
