A product or service can be as complex as a Swiss watch, but it needs to be elegant and simple enough like the dial for easy use by the customer. Brands need to focus on cleaning the clutter to convert intenders into buyers
Mastering complication is the highest test of marketing ability. Complex need not mean complicated. Simplicity wins. The reason why Google, Apple or Netflix have been so successful is reflected in their deliberate simplicity. A brand must be obliged to cut the clutter. Technical or quality differences are rare to find in our hypercompetitive world. What gives a superior differentiation is customer experience. Simpler is better. Like a Swiss timepiece, the complication sits below the dial face. Above it, there is only elegance whereas below it lies no nonsense, flawless, timekeeping.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said, “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” This is a guiding thought that all product managers, developers, innovators and above all marketers should keep in mind. Additions that complicate, follow the law of marginal futility! Feature creep is the commonest weed of digital marketing.
In 2019, I led the program management for the launch of the new Royal Enfield website. The most important criterion was to weld together multiple country sites, features and utilities. The underlying complexity was transformed in the presentation layer. The user interface is simple, elegant and effective. Based on this, a Royal Enfield App and Make it Your’s – a personalisation configurator were subsequently launched with success and rapid adoption. As I implemented GA 360 across all assets and as I saw the interactions with a social media following that grew from 4 million to nearly 8 million between 2018 and 2020, I saw in real data terms that simple, actionable outcomes mattered to consumers. Merely ramping up messaging doesn’t help. Overloading with information at each interaction positively distracts and deters. One has to consciously be wedded to minimalism, think visually and always look to cut steps.
As a part of leading a digital transformation, I have always looked for what seems to matter to consumers. What makes intenders into buyers once they are aware? I have evaluated multiple welding points for customer engagement – perception, price, consideration, promotion, buzz and many more. When it comes to the growing legions of digital intenders, what matters seems to be ‘simplicity’.
The ease with which your brand can be searched, understood, compared, booked and purchased makes you win. To understand customers’ ease, marketers have to think in terms of customer journeys. Again, it’s much spoken of but seldom done right. When defining a customer journey, many companies focus on narrow episodes of a customer’s experience—the onboarding or payment process for instance, rather than on a broader concern or need. This focus on transactional touchpoints reinforces siloed ways of working. For customers, all of these touchpoints are parts of the same journey. Customer journey programs work only when they are cross-functional and front to back in scope.
Discrete incremental improvements won’t cut it. Companies should take their cue from digital natives and reorganize change initiatives around the customer journey. Customer-journey-at-scale transformation, draws on the principles of human-centric design, agile ways of working, and the latest digital and other cutting-edge capabilities, while employing best practices in change management.
The marketer’s job is not to own mindspace alone but to mould that into a decision by offering trustworthy information that makes the intender navigate the purchase ecosystem easier, faster and more confidently.
One other common failure that breeds complexity is the inability to recognize typologies and cohorts. When data is abundant, it also leads to confusion. That’s why A/B testing and other optimisation experiments must focus on search paths, comparison journeys and purchase modalities. The most efficient way is for the brand to ensure, once logged in, the consumer has to encounter a minimum number of information sources and move smoothly to purchase. This is done via addressing use case types. Personalisation doesn’t mean breeding infinite complexity.
The way to do this is to listen well and be data obsessed. Then one must actively triangulate. Social media activity, content effectiveness, clickstream performance analysis married to qualitative pick up. The derived actions must again be put in the iterative loop. It is about the endless iterations to a never reached perfection.
Scotch makers have collaborated to marry the whiskey flavours to the map of Scotland. Any Karate student can be judged for ability by the belt she wears. De Beers categorised all diamonds via the 4Cs – Cut , Colour, Clarity, Carat.
Apple dominated the MP3 market because iPods and iTunes were easy to use. A McDonalds has standardised menu, delivery, configuration and (PPP) price across the world.
Finally, beyond comprehension, simplicity breeds trust. To repeat, customer experience is the proving ground for loyalty. Therefore look at everything with customer eyes.
The key to the kingdom is Simplicity. Simplify to solve problems, save customers’ effort and time and earn their trust.
It’s truly that simple!
https://www.forbesindia.com/blog/marketing-and-branding/simplicity-is-important-to-win-the-market/