Step by step approach

Besides acting on uses-cases that can yield value right away, you must also come up with future use-cases. These future use-cases, often referred to as vision use-cases, build on having a clear vision and goals of these uses-cases. One example could be to have an omni abandon cart flow – to secure conversions. The vision is that you want to use the most cost-efficient channels for your respective users, in combination with vouchers codes for high value customer. Achieving this kind of vision use-case would require several different data types in place, ranging from customer data, campaign/channel preference data, products, web-data, vouchers as well as integrations towards many channels.

Waiting for all the data and procedures to be in place could take if not years, at-least many months. Hence, a crucial part of scaling up your CDP is to create MVP (minimal viable product) versions of your vision use-cases, and iterations towards the full vision.

To exemplify how these different iterations and versions could look, we revert to the vision use-case of having an omni abandon cart flow. Here is how different versions could develop as you collect new data:

• First Version – smallest effort. Abandon-cart reminder/blink on the website if the user returns.
• Second version – Add an additional channel. Abandon cart-email, without products.
• Third Version – Add products. Abandoned cart-email with products.
• Fourth version – Add voucher codes. Abandoned cart-email with products and voucher code. Voucher code in the reminder/blink on website if the user returns.
• Fifth version – Adding Google Ads as a channel for Abandon cart use-case.

Naturally, there can be many more iterations and versions than 5 since you will always strive towards optimizing your work and the value. This can entail in our example for instance to continuously optimize the channels which you use.

Beware of the MVP trap

As mentioned, it can sometimes be hard to quickly reach your vision use-cases and goals when you are progressively scaling up your work and initiatives. Hence, we accentuated the importance of pursuing MVPs. However, out of experience, we often see companies referring to pursuing MVP solutions, but without having any idea of what the end-product will be. It can almost come off like people refer to MVP solutions as an excuse for not having any clear vision or idea about the end goal. An MVP always originates from the idea of what a product is, although the end-product might be something different from the original idea.  Without a clear idea or vision, it is likely you will not utilize the full capabilities of your data.

Finding and building new use-cases

To continuously find new use-cases for your customer data, and to prioritize them accordingly can often be a challenge. Especially when you take in consideration the vast number of new capabilities that a CDP brings. We often see that investments in the CDP platform come to a halt from lacking initiatives related to using the system or tool, not related to the actual implementation itself. To overcome this situation and to combat halting your investment, we at Remotion typically encourage to use simple design thinking methodologies and tools for use-case generation, with frameworks such as the double-diamond and a priority matrix.

In short, the double-diamond is a twostep process, where the first step focuses on defining the problem. Meanwhile, the second step focuses on solving the problem. Each step has an exploring/diverging and a validation/converging phase. If this is new to you as a user we recommend reading more here.

As you can see it’s quite extensive and demanding work that is needed to progress from discover to deliver, and it can for some feel overwhelming. To combat this, we many times see companies start directly in the middle which may in fact be counterproductive. Since we have been working with this process for many years, we have also compiled some tips and insights how you can be working with it efficiently. Here are our best tips for carrying out a more efficient double-diamond process:

Working with the “problem space” (left side of the double diamond)

• Often user-research related material exists since before, if a customer Journey analysis have been done for one purpose, its likely you can find some interesting points in there. Else, ask a few customers – typically you do not need to talk to more than 4-5 to get a completely different understanding in terms of user-research. Even asking customer service is a good starting point.
• Often there are a lot of companies sitting on quite a few strategy documents (a.k.a. known as paper products) that outlines the discovery and definition phase of a problem. (Hence, to be fair the author of this has created a few of these).
  
  
• Sometimes the problem is often already discovered, but it’s not defined, many people at the company talk about the obvious but it’s not clearly stated – getting key stakeholders together from various departments and conduct a workshop can often directly lead to a definition.

Working with the “solution space” (right side of the double diamond)

• Steal with pride – do not re-invent the wheel.
• Looking at the industry in other markets.
• Look at other verticals, they might have similar problems.
• Look at services you love – How have they solved a similar problem?
• Use a simple priority matrix: Defining effort and user-value to something can be very hard, however often it’s the relation between initiatives that is interesting. Is this more difficult to achieve or brings more value than “this”. So just start by placing the first item in the matrix. The interesting part is how it relates to the next item. The rest will solve itself. Read more about the matrix, and the rationale behind it here.
  

• For Marketing it can be important to acknowledge that volume is an important factor. If the use-case is relevant for many users, that often implies a high value.
• If the CDP supplier has pre-built templates or best practice use-cases that can be used in the deliver phase – use them for the first iteration.
• Use the MVP approach described above (but remember to be aware of the MVP trap)
• If you did your homework with defining the problem and a delivery item is not working, don’t jump to the conclusion that the problem was wrongly defined, often it’s just the solution. Thus, do not start all over – analyze, learn, and try something other.

Finding and prioritizing use-cases is as you can tell both complex, but also extremely important for your CDP initiative. As referred to in the beginning, if we see the CDP as a refinery, and the customer data as oil, it becomes obvious that you will need to work with the data you have (just like a refinery must refine the oil) and create use-cases to gain any valuable output. So even though the double diamond approach might seem complicated at first glance – it provides a pivotal tool for use-case generation, and ultimately value generation from your CDP.

Team structure & Way-of-working:

We have now highlighted the need of a vision and strategy for use-case generation. And also, the need for process methodologies, but we also want to highlight the need for a cross-functional way of working with an agile approach. It is impossible to scale the CDP work without cross-functional team-structure and efficient way of working. As a CDP enables cross-channel communication and puts the customer in the middle – we hope that it is obvious to you after reading our series that the channel centric way-of-working is not working anymore. But relax, there are many alternate ways of thinking with a non-channel-oriented perspective, we have experiences from forming cross-functional organisations from multiple perspectives, such as:

• Campaign types (Brand vs tactical)
• Customer Journey (Before, during, after)
• Customer Segments (Recurring, loyal)
• Customer Life Cycle (Acquisition, new, active, inactive)
  

There are many different agile methodologies that can be implemented and used to support a cross-functional way of working. The important part is to work with an iterative approach, where you break down the big-bang deliveries into smaller batches with the purpose to deliver value repetitively, and often to learn along the way as well.  Cross-functional teams come together and learn from each other and provide their respective expertise and knowledge. This will allow for understanding how the actual data can be used for different departments and help in terms of consolidating common and shared goals and KPIs. Additionally, this will also make the double diamond approach easier since you will have a broader scope and understanding for both the problem and the solution space.

If it feels like too big of an initiative to set-up a cross functional organisation, start small by making sure that at least in parts of the Double Diamon Journey, that you are working cross-functionally. To revert yet again to the oil refinery analogy, departments must always work together to have a refined oil to be sold and gain return on investment. From the employees that do the drilling and retrieving the raw oil from the ground – to the employees that refines it and put the oil on the market. What is shared is that employees must work closely together over different functions to not slow down the process. And this is true either if it concerns delivering the value from a CDP or if it is in the roam of the oil refinery. For the CDP it all about gaining valuable output from the raw unstructured data, competences and resources who can refine that data and execute on it must come together and work towards the same goal. Otherwise, both the data and oil will remain raw, and stored without any purpose, end-goal, or value contribution.