Lost in Found: Todd Unger

The CXO and the 10-Second Customer Journey

On the latest episode of the LOST IN FOUND podcast from Catch+Release, host and C+R ECD Tom Christmann sat down with Todd Unger, Chief Experience Officer, SVP Marketing and Member Experience at the American Medical Association to talk about X.

Not X as in the platform formerly known as Twitter. X as in Experience. Only Todd the CXO doesn’t think the X should stand for that either. (“Stop saying Experience,” he says. “Nobody understands it.”) Instead, he says the X in CXO is about an intersection between the customer and the organization.

“And the X has four components,” says Todd. “Product, marketing, commerce, and service. And my job is the integration of those elements toward growth and retention of customers. For the customer, those things all go together. When there's a problem and you're trying to buy something or do something, you’re not blaming the marketing department or I.T. You just want all those things to work together.”

Authenticity, Enthusiasts, and Tornadoes

At the heart of Todd’s ethos is a book he’s writing called The 10-Second Customer Journey: The CXO’s Playbook For Growing And Retaining Customers In A Digital World. In it, he says it’s time to put away the old idea of a slow and steady marketing funnel and start thinking of marketing as a tornado.

“When you think about the typical way we think about customer journeys, it's pretty long and sequential. Awareness leads to consideration. Consideration to conversion. Conversion to loyalty,” says Todd. “The steps aren't necessarily sequential anymore. Now all of those steps are kind of whirled together. You can take someone from being completely unaware of who you are to checking out their shopping cart in 10 seconds.”

The key, says Todd, is to start with defining your target.

“People forget to start with the customer,” he says. “They usually start with the product. I came out of a marketing background, P&G, and then advertising with a big agency, Leo Burnett here in Chicago. And we always started with the target and the brand proposition. Until you have those things defined, there’s going to be friction in the system.”

Once you’ve defined your target and your brand positioning, the storytelling begins. And that doesn’t just mean advertising. A lot of it, says Unger, comes down to treating them as enthusiasts and helping them find what they need. Like answering the questions they’re typing into Google.

“You’re not just telling some made up story,” he says. “You’re helping people connect with your brand.”

Find Your Enthusiasts

Want to find the enthusiasts in your category? Catch+Release can help. By collecting and curating user-generated content from social platforms, brands can gauge the authentic sentiments, preferences, and inclinations of their audience. This can be a game-changer in shaping brand strategies and messaging.

And, who knows, you might just find some really cool content to license.

Thank you to Todd Unger for coming on the show. The 10-Second Customer Journey: The CXO’s Playbook For Growing And Retaining Customers In A Digital World is now available for pre-order wherever you get your books.