Retention Through Content UX w/ Lou Cimaglia @Liberty Mutual

Transcript

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  Ian

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  Hey Lou, thank you so much for joining on another marketing strategy talk.

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  Lou

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  Content Marketing Customer Experience Marketing Strategy

  Lou

  Ian, thanks for having me. This is great. Looking forward to it.

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  Ian

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  Founder

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  Of course, man, so for those of you that don’t know, Lou and I go way back, actually. We worked together. We were previous colleagues at a company that shall not be named. And it was honestly one hell of an experience for both of us, so I kind of want to intro with that, if that’s cool with you.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, absolutely. I feel like this is a story that needs to be told.

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  Ian

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  So all right. I still remember starting … We started about the same time, right? I was a retention marketing manager. Lou, you got hired to run social media for this company. It was a startup out of Boston, pretty well-known at the time. And so the first thing you and I both did … I mean, obviously, I cared about what the customers were saying. You cared about what the customers were saying on social media. And I think at week three, something along those lines, I was like, “Hey Lou, are you seeing the same thing I’m seeing? I’m hearing a ton of customers, on these calls, just screaming their heads off, just angry as hell, about whatever we did,” which was honesty, not to get into it, but the business practice was a bit dubious. It was charge them for a free trial for eight bucks and then charge them 80 bucks a month later for the full thing.

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  Ian

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  But I jut kept hearing recording after recording of these angry customers, and I think I went to you. And I was like, “Ah man, are you hearing the same thing?” And you were … kind of just broke down. You were like, “Oh my God, finally, I thought I was the only one that knew this was going on.”

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Oh my God. Yeah, serious, after a few weeks … For what it’s worth, I think that was my first real job out of college, at the time. I was maybe 23, so you’re kind of rolling with it, and you were listening to the calls. I was reading the social media posts, so people were even less edited in those instances. So they were really letting us have it, but to sort of have that moment of clarity. This can not be. This can not be a normal job for anybody, so you were the right life raft at the right time.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  And we soon realized it wasn’t a normal job, so the thing we got sold coming in … And this will be pretty common for, I think, marketers out there, so I feel comfortable talking about it. And I learned a ton of lessons from this company, and we can get into those too, but we got sold something and then came in and found out that it was a completely different thing. And it was dubious, to say the least. I think we were there about eight months, and then we got in trouble with the FCC, essentially. The company, itself, got in trouble with the FCC.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, not us.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Not us. Not us, specifically, but we both got laid off at the same exact time. They were like, all right. We have to kind of clean house. I think they let go roughly 10 people or something like that. And I remember it, clear as day, obviously, as you tend to do with these type of things. They brought us in one by one, with our manager, let us go, and then I think you and I met up at a bar. We boozed up and then went and got cheeseburgers at Five Guys. It’s kind of what you do when you have to face reality and certain scenarios like that. But it was a hell of an experience, and I remember learning that, from here on out, I’m going to make better choices about who I decide to give my life to, as far as my employer is concerned. And I definitely ask about the customer base, from here on out, and the customer experience is a huge thing for me now, which I’m literally in the customer experience field. You’re at Liberty Mutual, as the Senior Content Strategist. You’ve made a couple other moves we’ll get into, but yeah, what was the biggest lessons for you out of that whole experience?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, there were a million that come from it. It shapes you. You never fully anticipate what it’s going to be like when you’re separated from a job in that way. But I think, two things really jumped out. One, and probably what I’ve taken the most, from that experience, is you have to learn how not to take yourself seriously but how to take the work seriously. And I think you hinted at that, with finding a way to really think critically about the larger sort of narrative you want to shape about your career mark. And it’s one thing to have an interesting sort of corporate structure, or startup, that you think is going to rocket to the moon. And you have all these different ideas, or illusions, about what that can do for your career, but ultimately … And I think we netted out, in a similar place, where customer experience, or user experience, ends up being sort of the end all be all. So it’s really being able to dig under the hood and know the right questions to ask about what you’re going to be contributing to, from here on out.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  That job, at least for myself, invaluable experience. I grew exponentially, even just in those eight months, culminating with 10:30 AM cheeseburger, or whatever that day ended up being for us. But as ridiculous an experience as it was, I don’t regret it, wouldn’t give it up, because there’s only one way to learn that stuff, and it’s really just taking your lumps and figuring it out.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  And I bring this up now, because I think, with the current state, there are a good amount of marketers out there, that are out of work, and this sounds like a harrowing, terrible experience, but honestly, I’m in the exact same boat as you are. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. This literally put me on my trajectory, to focus on what’s important, and I’m deliberate. I think that’s the word that I use. I am very deliberate about everything I do in my career now. And it’s not necessarily tied to the company. It’s like, this is what I’m trying to get out of my next move. The company helps, if they have a great culture, that they care about their customers. I mean, the company’s important, but you got to start from a you first position, I think, and that’s something that’s tough to say for a lot of people. But when it comes to your career, that’s almost the only thing you can do is really think about how this affects you, how it affects your family, how it affects your mental health.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  I mean, I had some stressful days at that company, man. I know you did, because I was sitting right next to you. That was tough managing customer experiences at a company where almost everybody seems like they’re losing their minds over something we did wrong or whatever it was.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, there was a reason we spent $45,000 on burrito bowls, I think, during our eight months there. We had to find a way out, and the only way was through Mexican food, I think.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Oh my God. We ate our feelings. Of course, but all right. And I just wanted to bring that up, and I know it’s kind of a heavy topic to start with. And I know we have some really cool things to talk about today. But I really wanted to bring that to the forefront, because I think it’s important for people to hear that not everything is bad. I think, even when it seems bad, it’s like you’re in your darkest place, there can be hope. There’s great things that come out of this type of stuff every now and then. And you and I are living proof of that, so I just wanted to lead with that. And if gives you perspective, right? I mean, again, you appreciate the things you have now, when you’re at your job. You enjoy what you do, but you look back on that point in time, and it just makes you realize how important perspective it and kind of taking deliberate steps to get what you need out of life and your work scenario. All right.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Amen.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  So pretty exciting things for you. So again, this is Lou Cimaglia. He is officially an Inbound, HubSpot speaker, this year, at 2020, so that’s really cool. So walk us through how did you get that speaking spot, and what will you be talking to us about, at Inbound, this year?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah. Yeah, thanks, man. I’m pumped. It’s such an incredible event. They do such a good job, and I think it’s sort of really shone through, this year, having to adjust on the fly. And they’re doing everything 100% remote, obviously, as most places are. But I’ll be talking about content strategy for retention, customer retention. So it’s something that I’m extremely passionate about, and that sort of informs all the work that I do, at Liberty Mutual, and some of the different work streams and customer journeys that I’m affiliated with.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  So I had been living in that space for about three years now, and it made sense to try and package this up, with whatever I’ve learned working with a number of UX designers, product designers, sort of product managers, people who are really in depth, in the weeds, with the sort of insurance product that we’re dealing with, different developer, software developers, so there’s so many different, really experts, on all of this stuff, and we’ve been digging in just such a complicated product for so long now.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  There’s a story to tell, and I’m really trying to focus the talk on that and trying to break it out into some different actionable strategies that we’ve learned over the past couple of years and talk about some of the mistakes we’ve made, so I’m looking forward to that. And it’s sort of been the culmination of a couple years of realizing, for myself, that I do have a sort of a secondary passion for getting up on stage and speaking in front of people. At least for me, it’s kind of like skydiving, where I don’t think I am inclined to be strong, in that area. And I had crippling stagefright growing up. It just was not my strong suit, not at all, avoid it like the plague, sort of at all costs. And I had to give a presentation at a work event, a couple of years ago, and I basically had 10 minutes in front of this big room. And it went really well, sort of talking about what content strategy was. And I had a couple people, who approached me after, and say, “There’s something here. I think you should try and break out of your comfort zone a little bit, try and put something a little bit longer together.”

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  Lou

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  Lou

  And I was accepted to UXPA, which is a local conference, last year, and sort of stuck my neck out. And it went pretty well, got accepted to that. And then you start to get a little conference, and then I went out to Seattle Interactive and spoke there, so this year, potentially … I skipped some steps, but I’m going to do what I can and try to reach out to Inbound. And they were gracious enough to accept what I put in front of them, so I’m incredibly enthusiastic about that conference, and I think it’s such a sort of a discerning, intelligent crowd that goes there, so I’m looking forward to … There’s an extended, for Q&A, remote portion, this year, that I’m looking forward to meeting some of the attendees and really how everyone else has sort of shifted their work over the past six months, however long we’ve been in lockdown.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  So I’m excited, and it’s sort of been a buildup, basically, to get to this point, but it feels like the big leagues, for sure.

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  Ian

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  And that’s such a cool topic, man. I have to really commend you. So user experience content strategy, so again, you’re Senior Content Strategist, at Liberty Mutual, so walk me through, what does user experience content strategy actually mean, to Liberty? What have you guys done, get tactical, right? So give me some examples of how you guys have leveraged this at Liberty.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So content strategy, particularly for the user experience field, it’s really breaking down the creation, the organization, the deployment, really just the strategic laying out, of any form of content, that would be in front of a customer. So it can go in so many different ways, and I think the easiest way to really draw a line is to think about how we structure, sort of, our digital work, in and of itself. So I, specifically, and my teams that I work with, we are on the sort of the authenticated logged in customer experience, so it feels really classic, sort of UX, where we have different flows, setups, where we need a customer, or we want to get a customer, to go from point A to point B. And what’s the easiest way we can do that? So there’s just so much testing and different sort of concepts that we have to create, different designs, and go back to the drawing board, and work with our developers, and really be lean and agile, in every sort of way that we’re doing it.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  And I sort of am always talking about that is I guess, the most classic sort of application of UX work, but on the other side of it, for example, for some of my counterparts, who work more on the public facing properties that Liberty Mutual as, it’d be more SEO, or sort of classic copywriting, so there are different levers that a content strategist would have to pull, potentially. So it’s really, really interesting, but we’ve been fortunate, on the logged in side of the house, to modernize a lot of the sort of technical infrastructure that we inherited, when we really tried to spin up, in earnest, this digital effort, a few years ago. And we’ve been able to modernize some of the nuts and bolts stuff, if someone were to log in, say I need to make a change to my policy, or look at a document, or whatever you would associate with say your auto insurance policy.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  So we’ve been able to get the basics right, and we’re working hard to think about how do you sort of tear all that down and then start over with … If you could completely rethink this, if you could reimagine this, in a way that just makes sense to a customer, and I’m sure we’ll sort of keep spinning on this point, but I think the most interesting sort of line of work right now is taking just a legacy industry, or really complicated subject matter, and trying to break it down, and give a regular customer, someone with a busy life, and give them that confidence to manage that property themselves, insurance, finance, taxes, whatever it is. I feel like that’s such a great place to be right now.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Yeah, and it brings me to almost, and I hate to use this as an example, but Elon Musk, right? So he approaches everything from a first principle standpoint. I’ve talked about this a little bit on the podcast, previously, but it’s literally, forget everything you know about how to do something, and start from the very beginning, and act like you don’t know anything about the subject, and learn as you go, and apply these first principles to creating something new.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  And it’s kind of exactly what you’re saying is don’t assume you know anything. Start from the very ground up and build it around the user experience. And I think that’s pretty provocative, man. I mean, not a lot of companies the size of Liberty Mutual would do something like that, and I think that’s really a testament to their commitment to innovation. I mean, that’s tough for a lot of SAS companies to do, man, I mean, start from the ground up. So walk me through how you were able to convince the business to do that, if that was even a thing. Or how did that even come about?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, and a few years ago … And some of it sort of predates when myself and some of my teammates came onboard, but it’s one of those things that I’m sure every industry can sort of relate, where it just becomes glaringly apparent, that there are digital shortcomings, and the world starts to pass you by. And you start seeing these disruptors, in different spaces, who are just … Like you were saying, just start from zero. Assume nothing and really try and reimagine the experience. And I think Liberty, like so many other companies, said, we need to make a change, where we’re dealing with just a different model, a different sort of digital presence, that it’s getting us through today, but five years from now, ten years from now, not only would it not work, it would be sort of laughable outdated, right? There’s such a fine line to walk. And you have to understand sort of where customer expectations are. And you have to make a concerted effort to sort of skate into where the pocket is going to be.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  And to Liberty’s credit, they jumped in with both feet, empowered us on a digital side to make some serious changes, take a heavily regulated industry, really complicated information, to try and package it up, test it, either it be sort of in-market testing or just a ton of sort of pre-market usability testing and customer interviews, so we had to put a lot of our assumptions and egos down and just say, we need to be sort of reeducated on how our customers are actually dealing sort of with this information and with the company overall.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  I mean, that’s such a crazy exercise, from a business standpoint, so I really want to commend Liberty for recognizing the problem. It’s like, again, Domino’s maybe, that commercial, or the ad they ran, what was it, 10 years ago now, probably, where the customer feedback-

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Our pizza’s terrible. Our bad.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Exactly, in that the pizza was terrible, and they adjusted it to better align with the customer expectations. And that was one of the most successful ad campaigns for them and actually, probably in history, if you look at the numbers. It recovered the Domino’s business, and it actually just grew a ton of growth from that specific type of approach, not to say that Liberty was the Domino’s of insurance. But there’s something to be said about a business realizing that you can improve something.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  So again, I think what I really want to grill you on is you don’t just do this because it will look better or create a better experience. The end goal is something bigger, right? It’s retention gains for the user base. So how did you guys go about measuring that, and what did you put in place, to kind of what you were talking about? How do you actually know it’s working?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, for sure, so it’s funny, for as abstract and convoluted as something like insurance can be, for so many customers, working with, sort of, the structures of what an insurance policy is actually makes retention a pretty straightforward conversation, at least in terms of how we measure it. Each policy lasts 365 days, for the most part, so painting with a broad brush here, but for the most part, I would say, historically, and this probably isn’t just unique to Liberty, by any stretch of the imagination, but the customers have really one day a year, where they’re going to say, oh, that’s right. I’ve been paying for my insurance policy. It’s been 12 months. What happened? Did I have to use it in the past year? Was anything confusing? Did I log in at all? Are there cheaper option out there? So it’s becoming increasing commoditized, basically, where it’s just like, I’ll just see what else is out there.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  So I think, for a long time, renewal was just, are we going to flip the switch on day 365 and get them to buy-in for another year, or are we going to sort of stop on that idea and make it more about retention? And I think that’s where the UX sort of movement really has taken a foothold, where we kind of think of it as branding or sort of the larger corporate message is the promise. And UX is the execution of that promise, of what we’re actually saying we’re going to do.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  So we have a much larger scope now, of all these different moments, throughout the course of any 12 month policy term, where we want to do … And a couple of different things. We want to educate, specifically, on what they’re capable of doing, so we can deploy different sort of informational nuggets at the right time, to say, hey, did you know you can do this? Or you’re going on vacation soon? You might want this coverage for your rental car or whatever the case it, but trying to get a little more intelligent with, how can we meet the customer where we think they’re going to need to be, and try to give them something helpful, and be more consultative, and not just, it’s renewal day again, fingers crossed, that you were satisfied with whatever we did last year, so finding those little moments, or trying to find ways to really advocate on behalf of the customer. And I think this is sort of the new frontier for content strategy is as I’m trying to think about it now, where for a complicated industry, how do you know what’s right? How do you know what you’re supposed to do?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  And I think it’s sort of incumbent on user experience professionals to know that right moment of, what’s a polite nudge look like? Or what does sort of the most altruistic version of advice, from sort of corporation to customer, look like, where you really want to be responsible in what you’re recommending. It’s a never-ending sort of alchemy we’re trying to balance right there, but it’s so challenging. And there’s so much depth to that work, and so much comes from customer interviews, where we would never, ever have all these answers on our own. So knowing what a real customer problem looks like, or knowing what time constraints look like, or if you have two kids, and two working parents, and there’s so many different variables that go into what does the correct amount of outreach, that isn’t necessarily just a marketing message but some sort of proactive, hey, we got your back. We’re thinking about you. That is really where the secret sauce is, and we’re spending a lot of time and research, right now, into figuring out what that can continue to look like, over the next one, two, five years.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  And I think that’s a thing that marketers, across the board, struggle with, most likely, is how much is too much? What are the touches that we should be reaching out, specifically customer marketers, I think. So guys like yourself, that are trying to figure out the right content mix, trying to hit them up at the right point in their journey, I can speak from this, because I used to be a customer marketer for five, six years. You make decisions, right, and then you test those decisions, but I think it’s tough to really formulate some sort of a large scale, holistic testing mechanism, that can say, this overall strategy is better than this overall strategy. So how do you guys … And that may be kind of a weird question, but are you guys doing microtests to figure out, all right, this individual touch point is the right thing to do here, or are you guys testing large scale experiences versus large scale experiences?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, and it’s a great question. And it’s a mix of both. I think we’re getting better at figuring out where in a life cycle we need to be really clear on what those sort of micro touch points are, where we would potentially be falling down or missing the mark. And I think the little things inform the big things, so getting a better feel for very specifically what we want to learn, if it’s say, right in the middle of a policy life cycle, and let’s say we have data that more accidents happen over the summer, or … I’m sort of making that up, and they very well may. But if we knew exactly sort of what some of those smaller inflection points are, where we know a customer is going to need a helping hand, I think we invest our resting and our research in those moments, because that’s sort of the nature of the beast, where it’s harder to say, we’re going to do a full facelift on the entirety of sort of a logged in experience, or retention strategy, or whatever. I think we’ve gotten comfortable in the idea of having to work in smaller slivers and sort of identifying those moments, with the ultimate goal of saying, all right, what’s the right mix? What’s the right recipe of these smaller points? What’s the right information look like at the right time?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  And then we can start saying, all right, now a retention strategy, for this profile of customer, is starting to sharpen into focus.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Yeah. That makes little sense, and I think that’s good advice, too. I mean, start small, test something, and figure out what works best for that specific touch point, and kind of start to grow outward. I think that’s a really good way to look at it. All right, so half time, ready for this?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Let’s do it.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  You’re a big Bruce Springsteen guy.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  I am.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  What’s your top Bruce Springsteen moment would you say?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Oh man, top Springsteen moment, so first of all, great question, man. I think it’s pretty clear for me. So 2012, Bruce is playing at Fenway Park. We were kind of looking up tickets, but at the same time, we’re like, oh, it was the day of. No way. Yeah, I just graduated college. We’re not going to get tickets, whatever. So there was a tribute band playing across the street, I think House of Blues or Lansdowne, Poppet, whatever, from the park. And my buddy’s like, “Did you even look for tickets? Did you look for actual Bruce Springsteen tickets?” I was like, “No, what’s the point? They’re not going to be available.” So he’s like, “I found $100 field seats, where we’ll be right in front of him,” so I was like, “All right. We could do that instead of the tribute band, I guess, if you wanted.” And so we went there, and it just obviously blew my mind. It was like a religious experience. That night, in Fenway Park, in left park, completely changed my life, played every song you would want to hear, the whole thing, so that was number one. And we’ve seen him a bunch of times since then, but there’s nothing like the first time.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  So for everyone who’s been to a Springsteen show, and that first one that comes out of unexpected circumstances, it’s a cut above. Been to a lot of shows, but that one’s number one.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  I think everybody has that one concert that just sticks in their mind as that transformative experience. That’s cool to hear. Have you seen the Netflix thing yet, the Broadway, Bruce on Broadway?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  I have, so matter of fact, went to the actual Broadway show.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Wow.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, well, I’m doing very well, doing very well, the Broadway type. So my buddy, who I ended up doing the Fenway show with, actually, he won some sort of lottery, to basically get the chance to go to one of those shows. So we went. It was 130 degrees that day, in Manhattan, but we waited outside, trying to get the pictures of him, the whole thing. And we went, and it was just incredible. How someone could do basically a two and a half hour, one man show, every night, five nights a week, for 50 and straight months is absolute blasphemy. I have no idea how he pulled that off.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  I think that’s the most impressive thing, just the stamina it takes to do that.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Crazy.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  I mean, I don’t know if there’s any musicians listening, but I used to play in a band. I dabbled a little bit, and I used to do 45 minutes to an hour shows, and I would leave the stage and just sleep for three days, because it was so exhausting, so the fact that he’s up there, doing five nights a week, for that many hours, you’re 100% right. It’s just crazy.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  I feel like you’re being very modest. You used to go up for 60 minutes, burn the place down, and then yeah, they’d get you when they got you again.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Of course. Of course.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  You’re pretty accomplished, if I recall.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  They have to wait. They have to wait.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  That’s right.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Join the line people, sell, man. All right, so let’s get back to it, right?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yep.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  All right. What are some companies doing? So in this talk, you talk about specific examples and interview you’ve done, that kind of support this UX strategy, to increase, retention. Give us maybe one or two examples of some companies that are doing it right.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, absolutely. Even if you’re not familiar with sort of user experience, or it’s not your sort of main function, in your work, I think it’s so easy to assume what companies are good at UX, so it’s like the TurboTaxes or Robin Hood, if you are any sort of microinvestors out there. But basically, anyone who takes an extremely complicated subject, that once required sort of a middle man and either an agency or some sort of trust, to figure out how to operate, all of these different apps, I think, are sort of the best example. So I just right now, because I’m fascinated with how it works, so I think Robin Hood is such a great example.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  I had zero, zero financial literacy, and I just decided to poke around on this app, to see how did they get people like me, presumable their target audience, of sort of stay at home, lazy, weekend investors, to figure out how to get comfortable with their own money being thrown around? And they do such a good job of breaking down sort of complicated terms, what the risk of any given transaction would be, finding right times to put in sort of expert analysis, or if there’s a recent news story about a company, or how it’s been impacted by COVID, whatever the case is. They do a really good job of threading that in really seamlessly, which is so critical, because you don’t necessarily know what questions you need to ask. You just don’t know what you don’t know. So any of those types of organizations, that are answering those questions proactively, I feel like are the most successful.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  So Robin Hood definitely jumps out. Chewy is another one. It’s sort of a different style, I think, of UX and content strategy, where it’s not necessarily a complicated product, doing sort of pet supplies, and pet food, and things you can get mailed right to your house, but they are so thoughtful in the way they orchestrate their customer interactions. So I’m telling a story, but my mother has two cats. They are 18 years old, and they have a litany of health issues, everything you could have. They’re diabetic and arthritic, and they have all these things. There are ramps built all over the house, so they can get up the stairs. It’s like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory but for arthritic cats in that house.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  But they get sort of personalized messaging from Chewy, and when Coronavirus first hit, basically, they reached out. They emailed my mom and said, hey, there might be some supply change disruptions, as a result of these new sort of guidelines and sort of the health … the pandemic and everything else. So by proactively going out of their way to say, you should probably think about making your regular monthly transaction at this time, made such a huge difference. And I was talking to her about it a couple of weeks ago, and I was like, “Have you ever thought of looking at Amazon or anything else that I’m sure you get these items, these bags of food, or whatever, for a more competitive price?” And she’s like, “Honestly, I’ve never thought to look. Chewy knows who the cats are.” It’s sort of that idea that something being personalized goes such a long way. It’s kind of like, who gets sued more, bad doctors or rude doctors? It’s always rude doctors, because people assume if you are willing to spend a little more time with them, even if you do make a mistake, they’re going to assume some sort of personal connection and assume better intentions, so I think Chewy is just a great example of sort of thoughtful, proactive communication, that just makes customer life just a little bit easier.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  They know the cats.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  They know the cats. Yeah, they’re first name basis. I always found out when they send Cubby a Christmas card. It’s a big deal back at home, so it’s a whole to-do.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  They send Christmas cards.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  They do.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Oh my God.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Christmas cards or birthday cards. Yeah. It’s all personalized. It’s so above and beyond.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  It’s crazy.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  And it makes total sense. Sort of the bully on the block is Amazon, and it’s probably always going to be, from here on out, and there’s such a short … Now I’m going to have to stick with the pet analogies, but there is such a short leash sort of for errors that can be made. I think it’s between 40 and 50%, basically, of any eCommerce transactions, where if something is unsatisfactory, how quickly a customer will just make the jump to Amazon or be willing to shop around or leave the current eCommerce provider that they’re on, so it’s sort of that always impending cloud of Amazon’s coming for you. I really think there’s no choice but to be a little bit more thoughtful in how we’re reaching out to customers.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Yeah, you nailed it. I think there are spots for companies like Chewy, that can give above and beyond. I completely, because you’re not going to want ease. You’re really not anymore. Amazon has eased down completely, and so you really have to go personalized. Experience is really where it’s at. That’s the new battleground for a lot of these companies, so experience.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  For sure.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  That’s it. I love those examples. Thank you for that. Robin Hood too, really cool, because that’s a topic that, I mean, is a black hole for a lot of people, like you said. And so if they’re adding little snippets of helping you understand why behind it, as opposed to just invest and we make money, I mean, that’s a cool thing too. I mean, that’s really interesting. They’ve made a lot of news, because they’re such a good company, that helping you do those microinvestment transactions, things like that, where a lot of other companies have jumped on that bandwagon, but I think they were kind of the first company to really do it properly. And it’s good to hear they have a good UX. I’ve never actually joined up, but yeah, it makes total sense why they would give that a little context or tie in the news to your investment transaction. That makes total sense.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  So all right, content strategy, so that’s not a role you see every day. If you had a VP lesson to this thing, and they’re building out their marketing team, when should they bring on a content strategist, and kind of what would you give them for responsibilities? Obviously, we talk about a bunch of different things, that cover the entire life cycle, right? So what would you have them focus on right away, and kind of what would you give as advice for that VP, looking to hire a content strategist?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, it’s a great question and sort of full transparency, it wasn’t something a role I’d been angling towards for my whole career. I think sort of the advent of user experience and as things start to mature, these roles open up, and you start to realize where you can slot into these different sort of skill sets. I would say a couple of things, as early as possible to get a content strategist on board. I think an oversight that a lot of companies will make when they’re spinning up a UX department, or a digital department, is that you just need designers and sort of product managers. And I there’s a fundamental gap there, where even if those two things are hired, maybe the next hire could be a copywriter or sort of outsourced copywriting, and that, I think, leaves a lot of really interesting thinking sort of on the table. If you’re hiring, if you’re building out this role, I think what a content strategist should at least strive to do is A, bringing sort of the content at writing excellence to the table, 100%, but being able to act really in between good design and then the business or sort of KPIs and benchmarks, so really being able to translate between those parties, I think, is critically important.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  And a content strategist can do that, by really going above and beyond, to listen to the customer. And then, it becomes a little bit more clear on how that customer feedback, how that customer information, can start to inform … As a truck backs up here into my living room.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  The noise.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  I think a content strategist can start to inform the architecture, and the taxonomy, and sort of the right combinations of data and information, to start providing and acting as really a design partner, with the design of themselves, but also being to relay, to the business side of the house, hey, there’s some considerations here we need to think about. Sort of in that constant negotiation, I think, is where great products really start to come around. That’s where those start to flesh out is when your pressure makes a dime or whatever the case is. But I think working within the confines of really all the restrictions that a designer would want to sort of go with blue sky is possible. Business will want to go as sort of lean and mean is possible. What can we get in front of customers, that will return results as quickly as possible? So a good content strategist, and I, by no means, have mastered it, but it’s something that I think is really critical to say, we’re not just looking for a copywriter, but we’re looking for an active sort of thought partner in the future of the product, in the future of the digital experience of the company.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  I think that is where a content strategist should really look to set themselves apart, and I think leadership, VP of marketing, or VP of digital, should be discerning in what they’re looking for, because I do think there are a lot of different skill sets that have to be roped in or at least part of some sort of learning and development road map, because it is an occasionally underserved profession. But as it’s starting to pick up steam, finding that home really the business, the customer, and sort of design excellence, I think that’s where a content strategist should try to sit, at all times.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  And that’s the main reason I wanted to bring you on this thing, man, also because you’re a good guy, and I know you. That’s such an important thing, because I’ve seen it in multiple different companies. And I’ve ranted about this in the past, where literally, marketers will hire the content person to write content, and they’re in this little silo. And they’re not listening to the customers. They’re not really that experienced in the business. They’re not really focused on KPIs. Their thing is I’m going to write content, and it will be producing views. And it’s just not the right thing to focus on. And number one, these people are probably fresh out of college, don’t necessarily know what they’re doing, as far as the business is concerned, don’t really know how to operate with KPIs above their head. And this is really where I feel like the content strategist’s role is really interesting for the VPs of marketing out there, because you’re right. It’s a nice condor from the customer feedback, to design, to the business, managing those KPIs. And that’s something that’s missing in a lot of companies is that you’re producing content, but why are you producing it?

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Does it address any of the pains that your customers are experiencing? Does it drive any results that the business is looking for? Does it fix any of the UX issues, that the designers, the product designers, are looking for? You have to really take all of those considerations into account, when you’re building out your content strategy. And I think it’s just a super interesting area. I feel like it’s pretty new, right? I mean, there’s not a ton of you guys out there, content strategists, as far as UX is concerned. I think it’s getting bigger and bigger, but that’s interesting, man. Thank you for coming on, because I really do think that this is going to be a massive market for a really interesting niche within a marketing team. I think that it makes total sense, to have this on a team, if you’re running a SAS marketing department.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, man. I appreciate it. First of all, it was just great to catch up. Its been a while, but yeah, I’m so fascinated, and I love ringing the bell for content strategy, because I think there’s somewhat of an underdog mentality here, where it’s so easy to just say, it is just copywriting or whatever the case is. But there’s so much untapped potential and through this road ahead of what a new member of a UX team can do, what a new member of really just a marketing team, at large, can do, so I’m grateful you had me on. I had a blast.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Of course, man, so let’s wrap up. So let’s talk about your favorite marketing book, blog, piece of content, person, brand, whatever it is. What’s that one thing that, as a marketer, just grabbed you and really kind of changed your trajectory as a marketer?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, great question. So I’ve agonized over this. There are a lot of different ways I was thinking of going, but two things jump out, in terms of just strictly sort of marketing collateral. So one is really anything by Seth Godin, because I was drawn to it immediately, because it’s not overly prescriptive, so it’s sort of wrote the book on permission marketing and actually doing things a little bit differently and just there’s more to good business than trying to find the lowest price point. I thought that was always fascinating. And then one, just a plug, because I’m enamored with it recently, TED talk. It’s called, Don’t Listen To Your Customers-Do This Instead. It’s by Kristen Berman. She’s a behavioral scientist, highly recommend everyone check that out on YouTube. It’s 15 minutes long, but basically talking about the idea of how do you provide the best possible experience for a customer, even if they don’t necessarily know what it is they’re looking for.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  So for UX, but I think for marketing, in general, a really interesting perspective on how we can start thinking a little bit differently.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Love that man. Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out. Sounds right up my alley. So the last thing we’d like to end here, at marketing strategy, is just a quick word association, so sit back in your psychologist’s chair. I’m going to throw out a word or two, and give me your first thought that comes to mind. You ready for this?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Sounds good. Yep.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Content strategy.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Up and coming.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Retention.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  It’s good business.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  User experience.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Non-negotiable.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Love that one. Facebook.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  I think my parents have it.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  LinkedIn.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  I’m coming around. I’m getting better.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  All right. Bruce Springsteen in the E Street Band, 1978, at the Capitol Theater, in Jersey, playing Prove It All Night.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  One in one A, with the moon landing, as humanity’s greatest achievement.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  There it is. I knew you’d say something like that.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Check that on YouTube first, before you check out the TED talk. Go watch that. That’s 28 minutes long.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  It’s black and white. It’s recorded on the camcorder. I have to admit it is quite amazing.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  I feel like, if nothing else, in our time at that first company, that was really my crusade, after about a month and a half, when I said, I’m not going to change things here, but I’m going to change this one guy’s mind.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God, did you ever. All right. So Liberty Mutual, last one.

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Doing things the right way.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  There you go. All right, so Lou, it’s been a blast. Let’s throw some plugs. Where can people find you?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, Lou Cimaglia, Liberty Mutual, and then speaking at Inbound this year, September 22nd, so check that out. They actually have some really great pricing options this year. They want to cast as wide a net as possible, so they’re really working hard to be inclusive and get some new attendees to Inbound. I’m also speaking at UXP Boston, which will be remote this year. That’ll be in October. They’re still nailing down some dates, so more to come on that, but looking forward to those.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  All right, so Lou Cimaglia, UX for retention. It’s September 22nd, you said?

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  Lou

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  Lou

  September 22nd, yeah.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  22nd. All right. Go check it out everybody. Lou, thank you so much for joining up. It’s been a blast, and we’ll talk soon.

• 

  

  Lou

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  Lou

  Thanks, Ian. Take care. Talk to you soon.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  See ya. All right, man.