The next “game-changing” tactic chase
Ever feel like marketing is a never-ending game of musical chairs? One minute, TikTok is the hottest thing since sliced bread; the next, it’s all about Threads, and you’re scrambling to keep up. By the time you think you’ve got it, it’s already moved on. Many brands have either lost interest in figuring it out or have become hypersensitive to every expert warning that if they don’t change something, their competitors will leave them in the dust.
It’s a lot. Brands, whether large and established or new start-ups, have numerous competing priorities. They often lack the mindshare, the team, or the desire to delve deeply into why they need to change, especially when the fear of a new algorithm update looms over every decision.
While all those marketing changes do matter, obsessing over them isn’t the best use of any brand’s energy. At the end of the day, customers aren’t hopping from one channel to the next because they woke up thinking, “I love this marketing tactic, so I’m going to spend time with it.”
They get up with a problem, and then they are on a journey.
It’s not about the platform. It’s about the customer experience and the individual preferences that shape how that experience unfolds.
Don’t get me wrong, there are platforms they will prefer and trust more than others. However, that should not be the starting point.
If you focus on the tactic or channel first, you end up deprioritizing the journey. Before you know it, you are basically designing experiences for algorithms or finding shortcuts instead of helping people.
That’s what marketing is all about: helping people solve a problem.
The Tactic, Competitor, Channel Obsession
If marketers find something that works and has proven results, they will recommend it. That’s not a bad thing. It becomes a problem if the recommendation is made without considering who your customer really is and what they’re trying to achieve.
Sometimes we become obsessed with the latest channel, the newest trend, or the next shiny object. And in doing so, we forget the bigger picture. Channels come and go, but the customer journey? That’s the constant.
That’s why we’re excited about new tactics and channels (they are awesome), as we aim to improve the customer journey. That said, sadly, many marketers are spending on new tactics without actually knowing their customers:
- They lack customer segmentation.
- They don’t see the pain points in their customers’ language.
- They don’t understand how their customers solve the problem today.
- They don’t know how customers feel about decision-making in the context of their day — what they need to feel comfortable, build confidence, and move forward.
Most of what they know is high-level, surface-level, or outdated.
Now, just in case someone reading this is thinking, “So what, Mel?” Let me paint a picture: Operating at a very high level with any tactic today is like taking your money out of your pocket and tearing it up. Marketers are adopting new tactics so fast that they often can’t or won’t assess effectiveness.
For example, according to MarketingWeek, 60% of marketers don’t measure whether their work is delivering real business outcomes. The rapid adoption of channels has outpaced our ability to understand the impact on experience and ROI.
How do you connect with customers operating at that level?
You need to get specific. Demonstrate that you understand and can relate to a person. That you understand the problem beyond the benefits of whatever you are selling. Without this, you’re going to miss the mark, and now the algorithms won’t help either. They want you to be more specific as well.
So are we doing the one thing we can control: understanding and optimizing the entire customer journey?
Appreciate the Entire Journey
It’s not just channels. Competitors change fast, trends shift overnight, and new entrants disrupt markets. Even offline tactics are making a comeback, such as events, trade shows, and face-to-face sales. People value human interaction and are craving more of it.
You can’t just react to one phase of the customer journey. You have to appreciate all seven stages: Awareness, Research, Evaluation, Consideration, Decision, Validation, and Loyalty. Customers move across multiple sources of information at each stage, and their context for your brand changes constantly.
The gift? If you meet your customers at each stage, they’ll teach you something you didn’t know or fully appreciate before.
Taking Action: Understanding & Owning the Customer Journey
Here’s the good news: this is all within your control. You likely have more data than you realize. Taking time to understand your customers won’t slow you down. If anything, it will speed things up, re-energize your team, and allow decisions to be made with confidence.
When you have a high level of confidence, you move fast, and you don’t need all the FOMO communication you scroll through today.
Customer Research
Once you assess what you have, you jump into really knowing your customers:
- Customer Interviews: Speak with current customers, prospects, and former customers. Hidden friction points often emerge that can completely change your positioning.
- Surveys: Collect structured quantitative data across segments to uncover patterns and validate assumptions.
- Behavioural Data Analysis: Look at website analytics, CRM, social channels, and dashboards. Often, the insights you need are already there; they just live in a report no one reads.
Once you have all of this, the first thing you need to do is appreciate the different customer segments, and no, this doesn’t mean just demographics. If you want to dive into the impact of customer segmentation, check out my previous post, Customer Segmentation: The First Step to Smarter Marketing
Customer Segmentation
Don’t rely only on demographics. Use behaviour, motivations, pain points, and decision-making context to identify real segments.
Identify meaningful differences that influence how people interact with your brand and make decisions.
For example:
- Behavioural segmentation: How do they actually use your product or service? Which channels do they prefer? How often do they make a purchase or engage with the brand?
- Needs-based segmentation: What problems are they trying to solve? What motivates them? What fears or goals shape their choices?
- Decision context segmentation: How do they make decisions? Who else is involved? How long does it take, and what information do they need to feel confident?
Mapping these out helps you figure out how many journeys you actually need — maybe it’s one, maybe it’s six — and prepares you to answer questions like: What are they thinking at this stage? What will surprise or scare them? Who else might influence them right now? Where will they go next? Doing this well turns guesswork into strategy, helping you create experiences that truly resonate with your audience.
Journey Mapping
Once you’ve defined your segments, it’s time to dive into the journey itself. This isn’t a simple, linear path. Customers don’t move neatly from awareness to loyalty like a checklist. They jump between research, evaluation, and consideration, often revisiting stages or consulting multiple sources along the way. Understanding this flow means stepping into their shoes at each moment: what questions are they asking, what doubts are creeping in, what external influences are shaping their choices? The more detailed your view of each segment’s journey, the better you can anticipate friction points, craft experiences that feel intuitive, and guide them toward confident decisions without forcing the interaction.
Here are a few questions to get you started when you plot each stage of the journey:
- What are they thinking?
- What questions will they ask?
- What might scare them a bit?
- Who else influences them at that exact moment?
- Where will they go next?
- And, more…
When you do this, marketing decisions stop being about chasing the newest tactic and start being about how that tactic actually works, or doesn’t, in the context of your customer’s journey.
How We Can Help
Chase the journey, not every tactical shift you hear about in your feed. By focusing here, you can create experiences that resonate with customers and stand the test of time.
Ready to take control of your customer journey? Reach out for a free consultation today.
