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Applied

Good marketing decisions rarely start with an answer. They start with a better question.


Applied is where I take the principles and frameworks behind customer acquisition and put them into real-world situations.
 

See my thinking applied!

Everything is working. What's next?

THE SITUATION

  • The business is growing.

  • The marketing is performing.

  • Customers are coming in.

  • Nothing obvious is broken.

  • So what should happen next?

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THE QUESTION

  • How do we find the next meaningful opportunity when nothing needs fixing?
     

WHAT I WOULD LOOK AT

  • The business economics.

  • Customer behaviour.

  • Existing performance.

  • Constraints.

  • Untapped demand.

  • The customer journey.

  • Available capability.

  • And where the next improvement could create meaningful value.

 

THE HYPOTHESIS

  • There doesn't need to be a problem before there can be an opportunity.

  • There is always a next hypothesis.

 

THE APPROACH

  • Understand > Hypothesise > Test > Learn > Improve > Repeat

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Improvement doesn't require failure.

We're spending more, but growth isn't following.

THE SITUATION

  • Marketing investment is increasing.

  • Activity is increasing.

  • But the business outcome isn't moving at the same rate.

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THE QUESTION

  • Where did the relationship between marketing investment and business value change?

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WHAT I WOULD LOOK AT

  • Business economics.

  • Customer quality.

  • Proposition.

  • Channel performance.

  • Conversion.

  • The customer journey.

  • Measurement.

  • Incrementality.

  • And what happens after acquisition.

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POSSIBLE HYPOTHESES

  • The problem might be media efficiency.

  • It might be the proposition.

  • It might be the conversion experience.

  • It might be customer quality.

  • It might be measurement.

  • Or the additional investment might simply be reaching the limits of the opportunity.

 

Don't assume the answer is to spend differently before understanding why the existing investment isn't producing the expected business outcome. Make your marketing investment create the business outcome needed.

We found a channel that works. Should we scale it?

THE SITUATION

  • A channel is producing customers at an attractive return.

  • The obvious next step is to increase the budget.


THE QUESTION

  • How far can we scale before the economics change?


WHAT I WOULD LOOK AT

  • Available demand.

  • Audience size.

  • Customer quality.

  • Marginal acquisition cost.

  • Marginal customer value.

  • The rest of the customer journey.

  • Operational capacity.

  • And what happens as investment increases.


THE HYPOTHESIS

  • A channel can work extremely well at one level of investment and become much less attractive at another.


THE APPROACH

  • Find what works → understand its limits → scale deliberately.

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Scaling isn't about finding the biggest budget a channel can spend.
It's about finding the level of investment where the next euro still creates enough value.

People are interested, but they're not buying.

THE SITUATION

  • Traffic is coming in.

  • People are engaging.

  • There is interest.

  • But customers aren't moving forward.

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​THE QUESTION

  • What is stopping the right customer from acting?

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WHAT I WOULD LOOK AT

  • Whether there is genuine intent.

  • Whether the proposition is clear.

  • Whether the customer understands the value.

  • Whether they trust the business.

  • Whether the experience answers their questions.

  • Whether there is unnecessary friction.

  • And whether the right people are arriving in the first place.

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THE FRAMEWORK

  • INTEREST → INTENT → CONFIDENCE → ACTION
     

THE DECISION

  • Don't immediately optimise the conversion.

  • Diagnose the customer.

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Don't optimise the conversion. Diagnose the customer.

We know our customer, but we can't seem to reach them.

THE SITUATION

  • The business understands its target customer.

  • But acquisition isn't reaching enough of the right people.

  • The instinct is to try another channel.


THE QUESTION

  • Where does this customer naturally pay attention when the problem matters?


WHAT I WOULD LOOK AT

  • Customer context.

  • Triggers.

  • Behaviour.

  • Where they search.

  • Who they trust.

  • Where they spend attention.

  • How they make decisions.

  • And where genuine intent appears.


THE FRAMEWORK

  • CUSTOMER → CONTEXT → TRIGGER → ATTENTION → CHANNEL


THE DECISION

  • Don't start with the channel.

  • Start with the customer.


The customer determines the marketing.

We have customers. We're just not staying relevant to them.

THE SITUATION

  • The business has acquired customers.

  • But the relationship between purchases is mostly driven by campaigns and scheduled communications.

 

THE QUESTION

  • What would actually be useful to this customer now?

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WHAT I WOULD LOOK AT

  • Customer lifecycle.

  • Previous behaviour.

  • Milestones.

  • Product usage.

  • Potential needs.

  • Timing.

  • Communication preferences.

  • And whether there is any reason to contact them at all.

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THE HYPOTHESIS

  • The answer might be an email.

  • A recommendation.

  • A reminder.

  • A service interaction.

  • A conversation.

  • An offer.

  • Or nothing.

 

THE DECISION

  • Build communication around the customer relationship rather than the campaign calendar.

 

Nurture isn't about staying in touch. It's about staying relevant.

Our marketing team is busy. We're just not sure what's important.

THE SITUATION

  • There is plenty happening.

  • Campaigns are running.

  • Requests keep coming.

  • New ideas appear every week.

  • Everyone is busy.

  • But priorities aren't clear.

 

THE QUESTION

  • What should the team do next?

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WHAT I WOULD LOOK AT

  • Business impact.

  • Customer impact.

  • Evidence.

  • Confidence.

  • Effort.

  • Dependencies.

  • Existing commitments.

  • And the capacity of the team.

 

POSSIBLE DECISIONS

  • Some work should happen now.

  • Some should be tested.

  • Some should wait.

  • Some should be stopped.

  • Some ideas should simply stay in the backlog.

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A busy marketing team isn't necessarily a productive marketing team.
The question isn't “What else can we do?” It's “What should we do next?”

Tell Me About Your Business

Tell me about your business, what you're trying to achieve, what's happening today and where you think the opportunity might be.


I'll take a look and let you know if I think there's a meaningful way I can help.
 

Tell me about your business →

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