David & Goliath: The Secret to How Underdogs Win

Hint: They're never really underdogs to begin with

 

While reading Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book David & Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, I couldn’t help but notice how analogous some of his key ideas were to the business world we live in today, particularly in the agency world for which I work.  In David & Goliath, Gladwell challenges how we look at the underdog, and how their apparent weaknesses against a much bigger and stronger opponent – at least on the face of it – really serve as their strengths when overcoming the odds.  In fact, when you look more closely at those stories of success, Gladwell points out the underdogs were actually never underdogs to begin with and that the odds of them succeeding were in their favor all along.  In the agency ecosystem, there are many Davids and Goliaths.  There are the mammoth network agencies that have global scale, thousands of employees and a collection of smaller agencies (i.e. the Goliaths); there are the mid-sized agencies not yet swallowed up by the mammoth network agencies; there are the smaller agencies specializing in specific practice areas; and there are the tiny boutique shops fighting for every project and scope, just trying to stay alive (i.e. the Davids).  In this blog, I wanted to highlight a few concepts Gladwell articulates in his book and how I think it uniquely applies to the agency world.  Afterall, who doesn’t like a good David & Goliath story!   


Changing the Rules of the Game
Everyone knows the story of David & Goliath – the story of how a small shepherd boy beat a 7-foot giant warrior in ancient Palestine 3,000 years ago.  It’s the ultimate underdog story in all of history.  During a time when wars between two sides were often decided by one-to-one combats, all odds seemed to be against the little boy with no previous combat experience, armed only with a slingshot and going up against a proven war hero armed with full body armor and the most modern artillery those times had to offer.  In short, Goliath was the ultimate warrior: he had size, strength and had never lost.  David was the exact opposite: he was small, young and had never fought in combat prior to this fight.  So at first glance it was easy to say that Goliath was the overwhelming favorite, right?  Gladwell points out that Goliath was only considered the favorite based on the assumption that they fight in the traditional head-to-head combat that was done in those days.  Fist-to-Fist.  Sword-to-sword.  But the truth was that Goliath never had a chance.  David was a skilled slingshot that had the ability to sling a rock with the speed and accuracy of a modern day pistol.  There was no armor that could defend against a shot to the forehead and David knew this.  It’s kind of like that scene in Indiana Jones when he confronts a swordsman who pulls out a giant sword and after showing off some impressive moves, Jones simply pulls out his gun and shoots him.  Simply put, David changed the rules of the game such that the odds were in his favor, much to the shock and demise of his opponent Goliath.  In the agency world it’s the same.  The mammoth network agencies have the size, scale and capabilities that make them as successful as they are, and as long as they’re playing that same game, say in traditional TV advertising or CRM, they will always have the edge.  But an agency that is smaller, less resourced but more focused at the bleeding-edge of where the industry is going, say in social marketing or CEM, stands to change the game in such a way that tilts it in their favor and effectively exposes the mammoth agency’s apparent strengths into glaring weaknesses.  In this situation, as in history, Goliath does not have a chance.  Never did. 

 

The Inverted “U”
One of the most fascinating concepts in this book is the notion of The Inverted “U”.  Basically it is the principle that suggests that having too less of something is not only not good, but having too much of that same thing is not good either.  In essence, there is a point where having too much of something starts to get just as bad as having less of it.  To illustrate this idea, Gladwell uses the example of income and parenting effectiveness.  Here’s a literal illustration of the idea:   

At one extreme you have parents with low income, living in poverty.  Their ability to provide effective parenting is challenged because they often have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, are often a single parent, and can’t afford the time or resources towards their child.  Not surprisingly, increasing that income would proportionally improve their situation as it would mean more resources for the child, more happiness, thus enabling more effective parenting.  Makes sense when you think about it as I’m sure most of us parents would think we’d benefit with more income (I know I would!).  But as Gladwell points out, there’s a point where mo’ money means mo’ problems.  There’s an income level that when passed, makes it more challenging to be an effective parent.  Take the other extreme example.  Parents who are millionaires face a different set of challenges in that their prosperous circumstances make it increasingly difficult to instill the very values and perspectives they grew up with.  It’s hard to teach your child the value of money when they know you can afford everything, and it’s hard to teach your child the value of hard work when they really never have to work a day in their life – at least not out of necessity.  This idea of The Inverted “U” is very applicable to the agency world.  Having too little revenue, resources and clients certainly make it difficult for any agency to invest in the activities that will help them grow and become more effective.  Conversely, having too many resources, projects and even clients, at some point starts to decrease the ability to be an effective agency as increased bureaucracy may limit flexibility and agility,  increased processes may stifle innovation and creativity, and an increased client-base may challenge the ability to focus.  The Inverted “U” suggests there’s an optimal point for all this, and being on either side of this point is not ideal and it might make those agencies vulnerable to competitive threats.  

Big Fish, Little Pond
Another intriguing idea explored in the book is the idea that being a big fish in a small pond is better than being a small fish in a big pond.  In other words, for the agency folk, you’re better off being the best in a small agency than being mediocre in a large agency. The analogy Gladwell uses in the book is choosing what university to attend.  In one story, he points out a student whose passion was in the sciences and wanted nothing more than to be a scientist.  Having excelled in high school and doing everything right, this student earned her acceptance into a top Ivy League university as well as a local state university (her safety school), both of which offered great science programs.  But she decided to attend the Ivy League school for the same reasons any student would: more prestige, better reputation and unparalleled academic excellence.  What she found out quickly, however, was that she was consistently near the bottom of her class, found it difficult to keep up, and later dropped out of the science program altogether to pursue a different field of study just to stay at the school.  Relatively speaking, she couldn’t compete at the same level as her Ivy League classmates when it came to science, not because she was not intelligent (afterall she was the top of her class in high school), but because there were simply a disproportionate number of highly intelligent people in her class (like any top school).  She was on the wrong side of the bell curve, a bell curve that would put her at the top at most other universities.  But worst of all, it forced her to drop out of a field she was so passionate about and no doubt took a few hits to her confidence along the way.  Had she gone to a local university, Gladwell argues, she would’ve been more likely to stay and excel in the science program, pursue a profession in the field she was so passionate for, and be happier and more confident as a result (and in classic Gladwell fashion, he shows remarkable statistics that prove this point).  When it comes to the agency world, this principle suggests that the agencies that have a competitive advantage in one area, say in analytics or mobile, are far better off to compete in those specific areas than to compete in areas that cover a broader spectrum of services where other agencies might be bigger and stronger.  Of course, the ideal situation is to be the big fish in the big pond!    

Disadvantage as the Advantage
Finally, one of the more contentious but more intriguing concepts in David & Goliath is the idea that there are some disadvantages or “desired difficulties” that actually serve as advantages.  The case in point Gladwell makes in his book is that Dyslexia – a developmental disorder that makes reading difficult in otherwise normally intelligent individuals – is a desired difficulty and can turn into an advantage.  He argues that having Dyslexia, which often labels individuals as disadvantaged in the classroom and therefore classic underdogs, often serves to be the single biggest advantage of successful individuals with the disorder, such as David Boies, Richard Branson, and Charles Schwab.  Gladwell explains that having the disorder meant that they had to inordinately develop other skills such as listening succinctly, or paying close attention to detail, or deconstructing arguments to compensate for their lack of ability to read fluently.  And by mastering these complementary skills, it uniquely prepared these individuals to succeed in their respective fields that places high value on these specific skills.  It’s really a remarkable concept, and the story of David Boies is inspiring.  So how does this apply to agencies?  Well, for agencies seemingly having a disadvantage might actually be a “desired difficulty” in that having such a “disorder” would allow them to focus on solutions that work around the problem such that it might develop into a competitive advantage.  For example, say an agency’s disadvantage was that they lack experience in a specific industry.  This may actually be a desired difficulty in that an agency would be forced to apply existing solutions from other industries they’re familiar with to create new and innovative solutions for the industry that they know little about, potentially creating a new value proposition that other agencies with more experience in the industry haven’t thought of.  Now, you wouldn’t necessarily wish to have this disorder as an agency, or would you?

/LC
 

The 7-book MBA

For those that don't have $100K kicking around

In the movie Good Will Hunting, there's a great scene where Matt Damon's character handily outsmarts a cocky pony-tailed Harvard student trying to impress his friends at a bar, and one memorable line he said was “you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you could’ve gotten for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.”  With the skyrocketing cost of b-schools and the ever-escalating competition for jobs, I wonder if that could be true with an MBA.  I often get asked by undergrads, interns and young professionals alike if it’s worth doing an MBA.  It's a hotly debated topic and one that I’m not going to get into here, but having completed an MBA and reflecting back on my career since, I’ve noticed that my answer to this question is gradually changing.  5 years ago I would’ve said “absolutely” without hesitation; worth every penny.  But over the years I've found my opinion shifting.  Not that I wouldn’t recommend it today, as I believe an MBA can still be a key stepping-stone in getting to where you want to go in your career (provided that you have a clear understanding of how it’s going to get you there) and nothing can match the invaluable experience and network you build. But it does seem to be harder and harder to justify the monstrous price tag as it may have gotten to the point of diminishing return on investment.  Again, whether that’s actually true or not is a whole other debate and potential blog post.  In the meantime, however, to those of you who are putting off that decision and are looking for alternative ways to help boost you your career while not sinking your bank account, here are 7 books that I feel capture the essentials of being an effective marketer.  Now how do you like 'dem apples!

 

1. Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman

The next big thing in Marketing is the application of a field called Behavioral Economics.  Essentially it is the study of why people (and by extension, consumers) make the decisions they do.  One of the foremost thinkers in this space is Daniel Kahneman, where in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow describes some key findings from his research, one of which suggests that humans have essentially two modes of thought: one that is fast, instinctive and emotional, and the other that's slower, more deliberate and logical.  It offers up some revolutionary thinking around why people are not always rational when making decisions, and why we as humans struggle to think statistically as we're heavily influenced by inherent biases and learned heuristics (rules of thumb, educated guesses).  This is an amazingly well-written book especially given the complex topic and is full of great analogies and examples that really drive home the point.  It's one that you'll frequently go back to for reference.  

2. The Tipping Point
by Malcolm Gladwell

 

My favorite author, Malcolm Gladwell, covers in his book The Tipping Point the concept of how ideas, products, messages and even behaviors spread like viruses in an epidemic.  Among his theories, he explains the power of the 80/20 rule (also known as the Pareto Principle) and how a few key "agents of change" – i.e. the "Connector" who has a wide-reaching network; the "Maven" who is the subject matter expert; and the "Salesman" who is the charismatic persuader and negotiator – are really the only combination of factors required to reach a critical mass or threshold of influence to spark an epidemic.  From a marketing perspective, it certainly provides perspective in understanding the principles of how to amplify a message and why things go viral.  Gladwell brilliantly illustrates these theories through recognizable, historical events like the British Red Coat Invasion and the New York City crime rate in the 80s, to name a couple.     

 

 

3. The Opposable Mind

by Roger Martin

 

Written by the former dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management (my alma mater), Roger Martin introduces the innovative concept of Integrated Thinking which remains the foundation and philosophy of the business school today.  Integrated Thinking is defined as "the ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each”.  In his book, The Opposable Mind, Martin explores the notion that like the opposable thumb – the unique ability of humans to use our fingers and opposing thumbs to do remarkable things that no other species can do like typing on an iPhone – great leaders use their opposable mind to generate new innovative solutions to problems.  It is an intriguing concept and the book covers a perfect balance of academic theory and practical real-life examples. 

 

 

4. Grown up Digital

by Don Tapscott

 

In Grown Up Digital, Don Tapscott provides an in-depth profile of a coming-of-age demographic cohort he calls the "Net Generation": a generation roughly between the ages of 11-30 that literally grew up in the digital age with social media, smart phones, video streaming, music downloading and photo sharing.  As the Net Generation enters the workforce and becomes increasingly the target consumer demographic, it’s becoming more critical for brands and marketers to understand their behaviors, motivations and drivers that ultimately make them tick.  Tapscott reveals how they process information in a very unique way compared to any other generation before it, and how to ultimately communicate and engage with them.  This book serves as a useful how-to guide in understanding this important generation and provides valuable insights that every company is scrambling to wrap their heads around.  

 

 

5. Competing on Analytics

by Thomas H. Davenport

 

There's no question that in a world that's becoming more digital, and with huge advancements being made in technology, there's an unprecedented convergence of Big Data, Science and Marketing that's transforming how businesses view their customers and how they go to market.  In Competing on Analytics, authors Davenport and Harris lay out a framework on how organizations can assess their analytical potential and outlines key steps in building a capability that not only enables data-driven, fact-based insights, but why it should become embedded into an organization's culture whereby every decision from product design to customer experience is driven by the insights derived from analytics.  With markets becoming ever-more hypercompetitive, companies are racing towards finding any sustaining competitive advantage, and analytics is increasingly becoming that core differentiator.  The book highlights some great case studies on how major companies like Netflix, Best Buy and the Boston Red Sox compete with analytics. 

 

 

6. How to Wow

by Frances Cole Jones 

Arguably the most important skill that any professional should learn and master is the ability to present effectively.  Content is king, sure, but the delivery of that content is what ultimately persuades and influences a colleague, boss, client, prospective client and consumer. In her book How to Wow, Frances Cole Jones goes way deeper than the typical presentation book of ‘telling a story’ and ‘projecting your voice’.  She shares her very practical strategies on how to sweat the small details and focuses on subtle but important situational tips and tricks that make a lasting impact, like what to wear, having the proper posture, making an entrance, dealing with nerves, reading non-verbal cues, and how to harness the power of emphasis.  This book will feel like your personal presentation coach that you can take with you and is laid-out for easy reference for when you need that quick refresh before the big meeting. It’s a great book that covers all the details from presentation prep to meeting follow-up, which is helpful because the key to any great meeting is to be prepared for it.  This book will definitely help you do that.

 

7. The First 90 Days

by Michael Watkins 

 

As you become more upwardly mobile in your career and face new roles with exciting new challenges (along with all the new responsibilities that come with it), you want to make sure that you hit the ground running in your new role and get off to a productive start.  In his internationally bestselling book, The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins outlines a step-by-step framework to transition into your new role and provides proven strategies to set you up for success within the critical first 3 months of your transition by securing early wins, setting the right expectations and criteria for success, accelerating your learning curve, and matching your strategy to your situation.  Whether you’re a first time Manager or a Managing Director, or are in a Start-up, Turnaround, Realignment or Sustaining situation, the strategies in this book are applicable to all managers in transition and provides a VERY useful and structured approach to managing that transition.  Oh, and did I mention the book also includes checklists, tools and self-assessments to track your progress?  Definitely a must have.

 

 /LC

Moneyball Marketing: How to Beat Your Competition Using Analytics

And change the way the game is played.  

One of my favorite books, Moneyball, written by one of my favorite authors, Michael Lewis (also the author of Liar’s Poker, The Blind Side and The Big Short), reveals the concept of Sabermetrics – the application of analytics to the sport of baseball.  More specifically, the book (I’m told there’s also a Hollywood movie of the same name) tells the story about how a team in Major League Baseball, the Oakland Athletics, applies analytics to try and gain a competitive advantage over 29 other teams that essentially have the exact same product, and goal: winning the World Series.  It’s not hard to draw the parallels between baseball and business.  In baseball it’s about becoming World Series champions, in business it’s about becoming the market leader.  In baseball it’s about stealing wins from the other team, in business it’s about stealing market share.  In baseball it all comes down to winning baseball games, in business it all comes down to winning customers.  So as your market becomes ever more crowded and hyper-competitive, it’s becoming ever more critical to find a competitive edge over your opponents to win.  Like how the Oakland A's did - and continue to do - leveraging analytics and finding your Sabermetrics can give you that edge.  Here’s how:

Determine what kind of team you want to be

"Guys wait, you're messing up Johnny Damon's hair!"

In Major League Baseball, it’s pretty straight forward: the teams with the most wins during the regular season make it to the playoffs, where they then battle it out until one team is crowned World Series Champions.  And in order to win games, one team needs to generate more runs than the other – it’s that simple.  And there are endless strategies and tactics that try and do that, but when all is said and done, you can essentially boil it down to two basic strategies: generating more runs than the other team by focusing more on offense; or mitigating the other team’s ability to generate runs by focusing more on defense.  The difference between the two strategies is like the difference between The Godfather, Part 1 and The Godfather, Part 2: one is not intrinsically better than the other – it's just a matter of style.  But the risk of doing too much at once will likely end up like The Godfather, Part 3: a huge disappointment.  So determine who you want to be and how you want to play (i.e. as the Run-and-Gun offensive team or as the Staunch defensive team) and what strategy makes the most sense for you based on your resources, circumstance and market positioning.  Because figuring out which strategy you’re going to employ will not only inform how you’re going to approach winning, but it will ultimately drive the type of analytics that will help you get there.
 
Numbers don’t lie. The trick is to find the right numbers.



"Another walk, another bonus. I think I'll pick up that G6." 

To this day, the success of baseball teams and their players are largely measured by a set of traditional, generally accepted metrics that essentially haven't changed for the last hundred years.  For offensive players, high Batting Average, Home Runs, Stolen Bases and Runs Batted In (RBI) are regarded as the cornerstones of high performers.  Defensively, a pitcher’s Earned Run Average (ERA), Shutouts and Strikeouts are key measures of success.  Interestingly enough, as the book points out in detail, if you were to statistically analyze how these metrics actually impact a team’s ability to generate runs, you'll find that none of these metrics have any significant impact.  None.  Instead, it turns out that non-traditional statistics such as On-base Percentage (OBP), Walks and Slugging Percentage were much better predictors of a team’s ability to create runs.  Not only were they much better predictors, but they were effectively the only stats that had any meaningful impact on an outcome of a game, and thus should be the only metrics worth considering.  So while your competitors may be tracking the same old industry metrics they’ve been tracking since Fenway Park was built and players were catching pop flies with their bare hands, consider differentiating by using analytics to uncover new, non-traditional metrics that might actually be driving truer impact to business performance.  The main point here is that there are underlying factors that are positively contributing to performance and using analytics is an effective way to help uncover those factors.  

Make it a whole new ball game
Changing the way you look at performance will essentially change the way you play the game.  So instead of building a team full of players that hit over .300, hit 40+ home runs and drive in more than 100 runs, you should be building a team full of players that optimize your new metrics i.e. the number of times they get on base (OBP) and the total number of bases they achieve on a given hit (Slugging percentage), thus maximizing the number of runs generated in a game.  Now you might think that Batting Average, Home Runs and RBIs are, in fact, indicators of how often a player reaches base and brings in runs, but they only really tell part of the story.  For example, Batting Average only looks at the probability that a batter will make a hit on any given At Bat, and it doesn’t take into account getting on base via walks or getting hit by a pitch.  And at the end of the day, it's all about getting on base because without getting on base, you can’t score runs.  So it really shouldn’t matter how you get on base.  The same thing applies to business – it’s all about winning the customer.  So building a strategy around how to do that, whether it’s through the use of analytics to identify and predict your most loyal customers or investing in a platform that’s going to engage with your customers in real-time based on their interactions with you, it’s about building the capabilities that will ultimately lure key customers away from your competitors - and keep your best ones.  In essence, you’re changing the playing field for which you have the upper hand.  Now that’s true home field advantage!

Swing for the fences

"You're outta there, Trumbo! And here's a reverse punch for questioning my call."

My high school baseball coach always use to say “110% or nothing”.  The statistical impossibility of that statement notwithstanding, and ignoring that he was a calculus teacher (and a great one at that!), the essence of that statement is still powerful and are words to live by.  So don’t go about implementing a strategy half way.  If you truly stand behind your strategy, go at it with full force and with the same vigor you apply when competing against your rivals.  Now, you might swing and miss along the way, but if there's one statistical certainty in baseball it's this: you miss 100% of balls you don't swing for.

/LC

The Complete Guide to Customer Engagement: 21 Rules for Understanding and Engaging your Customers

This is my first blog post.  For years I've been meaning to start my own blog to share my experiences, thoughts, ideas and points of view on all things marketing, particularly in the red-hot emerging field of Customer Engagement.  But life, as it were, kind of got in the way (in a good way!).  But now that I've finally mustered up the time (and courage) I am completely hooked!  

So my first topic is my personal how-to guide on getting to know and engaging your customers.  I've basically spent my entire career in this field working for some of the biggest brands in the world, and over that time I have come to the conclusion that there are some fundamental rules that need to be followed in order to get to true Customer Engagement.  So, here is everything you need to know about how to get there, including what data you need, how to mine it for insights, and the platforms, tools, and communication strategies you need to engage them.  Hope you enjoy.

Rule #1

Tag and track your customer data

First thing's first: it all starts with the data.  But even having all the data in the world on your customers is useless unless you can properly match it back to your customer's profile.  So make sure you're tagging your data properly.  Not tagging it is like forgetting to write down your parking spot number at an airport parking lot.  You'll get lost.

Rule #2
Build a proper customer datamart

Having all your customer data in one centralize place is a good start, but ask yourself if it's truly organized in a way where you have a single customer view? And can you access it efficiently?  

Rule #3

Nail down your ETL

Some say insights are only as good as the data it's based on.  I would go a bit further and say that insights are only as good as the Extracting, Transforming and Loading of the data because it serves as the foundation of how data is prepared, so it's worth spending the time getting it right.  

Rule #4

Cleanse your Data

Cleaning is a chore and the more you put it off, the more dust bunnies form under the sofa and the more effort it takes to clean it.  I'm not sure what the data equivalent of a dust bunny would look like but I'm pretty sure it would be scary and would keep me up at night.  

Rule #5

Create a 360 view of your Customer

Creating a holistic picture of your customer means stitching together all of the data sources that surround your customer.  So not only do you know what your customer's purchase history is, but you also know her demographic profile, that she's an active fan on your Facebook page, she frequently provides reviews on your products, prefers online shopping on her tablet vs. shopping in the store, and that she's loving your new app.  Now that's holistic!

Rule #6

Identify key engagement drivers

Out of the increasing ways a customer can interact with your brand - whether it's online, in the store, at promotional events, in social media, on their mobile phones, etc, etc, etc - believe it or not there's really only a handful of these interactions that a customer will find engaging. What's more is that different customers will find different sets of interactions more engaging than others, since every customer is unique.  This is where analytics comes in.  The use of analytical techniques to identify - and quantify - what key interactions are driving your customer's engagement, and ultimately how it correlates to their lifetime value with you, will provide a completely new view of your customers.  Afterall, it's well documented that the more engaged your customers are with you, the more loyal they tend to be.  So yes, you absolutely need to measure customer engagement because if you can't measure it, how do you know definitively that you're improving it?

 

Rule #7
Identify your best customers, worst customers and everyone in between

Just as important as knowing your best customers,  you need to know your worst customers.  More importantly, you need to know why they are your best and worst customers.  Having a good sense of where all your customers plot on whatever segmentation schema you have (preferably one that's based on engagement) will provide clear strategies on how to move them up the value chain. But again, you have to know where they are first.

Rule #8 

Profile your customers

Once you know where your best and worst customers are, get to know them. Who are they? What do they look like? What's their lifestyle? How do they think and feel about you? What feedback do they have about you?  Basically what makes them tick?  Over-laying these insights to your customer segments literally bring them to life and puts a face on who you're communicating to.

 
Rule #9
Design a customer experience
When you set out for a trip, you typically plan out where you want to go, what you want to do and when.  In other words, you plan exactly the experience you want.  Designing a customer experience is exactly the same (although probably not as fun).  You want to map out the journey you want your customer to take with you and plan the exact experience you want them to have.  Then your communication strategies should live and die by this experience.  This exercise provides a longitudinal dimension of your customer segments and almost serves as your Customer GPS - you always know where your customers are in their journey with you.
 
Rule #10 
Define your objectives and KPIs
We can't forget about the top and bottom lines, and understanding what levers drive those numbers up and down are obviously critical.  But at the end of the day, your customers are what drive those numbers.  And the more engaged they are, the more loyal they are.  And the more loyal they are, the more they spend with you vs. your competitor.  So by simple deductive reasoning, it follows that you should have KPIs around customer engagement.

Rule #11 
Build a communication strategy
If you've gotten to this point - adhering to many of the rules above - then serious congratulations are in order!  It's certainly not an easy feat.  So you (and surely your client and/or your boss) should give yourself a huge pat on the back because this is where the organizational benefits really start to pay off.  Now that you have a clear picture of who your good/better/best customers are; know what they look like and what engages them; and mapped out the exact journey you want them to take, now it's really about detailing the type of touchpoints you want your customers to receive that will maximize their engagement i.e. what message, when, and in what medium. 

Rule #12 
Create engaging Creative
What getting to this point also does is that it paints a clear picture for your creative team/agency to develop laser-focused art & copy that's going to resonate with your customers: creative that's going to be more relevant to your customers; creative that's ultimately going to be more engaging for your customers.    

Rule #13 
Pick the right CMT

Organizationally, achieving the above also informs the type of Campaign Management Tool or platform you'll need in order to enable the communication experience you want your customers to have.  So if your communication strategy is multi-channel, real-time and multi-directional, does your CMT have the DM, email, social, mobile, web, interactive and dynamic content management capabilities to support it?

Rule #14 
Create a Measurement & Learning plan
Just like a project plan, creating an M&L plan should start first with the desired output then work-back to the strategic plan.  Identifying what learnings you want upfront will highlight what you need to measure and how.  And the more specific you are the more targeted your plan will be.

Rule #15 
Test, Learn, and Test Again
If Alec Baldwin's "art of selling" scene in Glengarry Glen Ross was remade today, he would definitely be talking about ABT: Always Be Testing!  Not only should you test everything - and by this I mean every interaction point throughout the journey, and even the journey itself! - you should do it ALL the time!  How else are you going to know what's truly impacting the behaviors you want?  The good news is that with the proliferation of all things digital it's becoming more cost-effective and trackable to do it.  So there's really no good excuse not to test.  (Warning:  scene is laced with profanity) 
 
Rule #16 
Tag everything for measurement
This goes back to Rule #1 but it's worth repeating here.  As strategies and plans become more and more evolved and optimized from the insights and learnings gained from every touchpoint, it's important to stay on top of tagging your data (particularly new data sources) to keep deepening your relationship with your customers. 

Rule #17 
Measure effectiveness
Did your campaign increase your KPIs?  Did it achieve the objectives you set out?  If yes, apply the good things that worked into your next campaign plan.  If no, fix yourself a stiff drink, brush it off, and tomorrow start doing a thorough post-mortem and go back to the drawing board.

Rule #18 
Measure impact on engagement
Measuring engagement is one thing but changing it takes a lot of time, effort and nurturing.  Just ensure that you have a longer-term view when assessing engagement and if any of your efforts are impacting it.  If you just can't wait, a little trick is to look at how your key engagement drivers are moving as they can serve as leading indicators. 

Rule #19 
Reconcile with what your customers say
Don't always take your customer's actions word for it.  Customer's don't always do what they say or say what they do, so always check back with them to reconcile their comments with their behavior.

Rule #20 
Refine your communication strategy
Take all your insights and learnings and refine your strategy accordingly.  Your communication plan should be a living and breathing plan that should be revisited often and flexible enough to change on the fly.

Rule #21 
Innovate or die
Pretty harsh statement but a general business rule worth highlighting: Never rest on your laurels.  The market is always changing.  Competitive pressures are always increasing.  Growing your share is becoming more challenging.  Your customer's needs are constantly evolving.  Their expectations are growing and they're demanding more and more from you.  All the more reason to constantly look for new and innovative ways to keep your customer's engaged with you.  Because guess what?  Your competitors certainly are!    

/LC