Make Your Brand Matter

CHAPTER 10Looking to the Future

Chapters 4 through 9 cover six key strategies that brands can employ to capture customer attention, drive customer commitment, and, ultimately, foster customer loyalty through experience strategies. In this new post‐digital transformation era, when it's impossible to predict when and how the customer will engage with your brand, adopting one or all of these strategies will likely have a positive effect on your marketing and sales key performance indicators (KPIs) across the customer funnel, engaging more customers in an evaluative dialogue, encouraging more customers to transact and commit, and, once converted, inspire those customers to both return to the brand and advocate for the brand in public forums.

However, when I'm working with clients to define their experience strategy and shape their approach to this rapidly changing era, inevitably the conversation steers to the question of “These strategies are great, but the world keeps evolving. What do I need to be preparing for next that I can start to invest in today?” It's a great question, and one that I encourage every brand to explore. While there are plenty of initiatives that your teams can and should invest in today, it's important to keep an eye on the future and consider what opportunities are emerging to differentiate the experience, create novelty, demonstrate innovation, and, overall, reinforce your brand strategy.

Predicting the future, in all sincerity, is an exercise in educated ...