Pierry Blog

Each year brings big changes to digital marketing and 2016 was no exception. Last year we saw a rise in the creation of programs that are truly focused on providing a 1:1 digital marketing experience, not just when it comes to email marketing, but also from an omni-channel experience, one that takes into account all the places online customers are interacting with your brand.

Geographically, we saw the gap between how brands in the U.S. and Asia utilize social mobile apps such as Viber, Line and WeChat widen. While the popularity of such apps in the U.S. has been slow to build, if you’re doing business in Asia, and you’re not communicating with consumers on social mobile apps, you’re likely missing out on 90% of your customers.
The biggest star, however, of 2016 was the introduction of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the Automated Marketer which allows marketers to take a step back and allow technology to optimize campaigns based on what it learns about your customers and their engagement with marketing materials.

While we expect some of the trends we saw in 2016 to continue to expand, it’s clear that 2017 will see its own trends rise and fall, some of which could have big long-term payoffs if brands and digital marketers are prepared to embrace them.

 

Trends to Look out For in 2017

 

The Expansion of Automations and AI

Digital marketing technologies are getting smarter and easier to implement, meaning automation and artificial intelligence (AI) have a solid foundation for becoming more common place. In 2017, programs like Einstein by Salesforce or IBM Watson will allow marketers to set up their programs in a way that allows them to take a step back and let the technology tell them what should be done next.

Emails, social media ads, push notifications, etc. will be deployed based on the initial criteria set up by your marketing department, and further enhanced based on the real-time customer data the program collects. This means consumers will continue to see an increase in more personalized, relevant communications, and brands will see an improvement in customer satisfaction and revenue.

In the end, the goal is to bring consumers the information they need, when they need it, in order to feel confident in their purchasing decisions. Digital marketers and the power of AI will allow this to be a reality in 2017.

The Need for Comprehensive Dashboards and Data Analysis

We’re collecting so much data on customers that marketers are going to be looking for a way to better digest that data to make it actionable. This is where set-it-and-forget-it dashboards are going to become not just handy, but completely necessary.

Marketers don’t want to spend time every month sorting through data; they want to see it in a clear dashboard and analyze it. And CMOs are going to want to have a resource that allows them to quickly see the status of their various programs, as well as a big picture view of how they all fit together to help the bottom line.

For those who are new to providing more comprehensive reporting, gathering data into a free tool like Data Studio from Google may be a good starting point. However, to really get the most out of having your data all in one place, a more comprehensive data tool like Tableau or Domo will be well worth the investment.

The Rise of Complex Customer Journeys

Customer Journeys are still in their early stages and CMOs have a lot to learn about how to best use them for their different audience types. But as access to customer data improves, and the ability to automate digital marketing elements becomes easier to navigate, this will allow brands to create more complex customer journeys, those that take into account not just the “what” of the messaging they deliver, but the “where” of the messaging in as close to real-time as possible.

Take for example a retailer who already has an email program, an SMS program, several social media accounts and an app. In the past, many of these individual programs have been just that—individual. Here is an example of these programs working in concert to optimize the customer experience: Let’s say that retailer sends out an email prompting visitors to visit their nearest store for a special promotion. When they get to the store, a push notification could trigger with another promotion. When a sale is completed, an SMS notification could link them to something extra off their next visit. And finally, an email can be sent asking the customer to review their purchase online.

 

What to Prioritize

 

Know Your Customers Better

2017 should be the year that marketers get to know their customers better. Marketers need to move beyond just knowing basic demographic info and expand their parameters to include strategies for knowing what devices they’re using, what language resonates, and what mediums (email, social, search, mobile, etc.) they favor —and then formulate strategies around how each of these components can come into play for each of your audience segments.

Get IT and the C-Suite on the Same Page

We talk about this every year, but pulling all of the data your organization has into one place that a marketer is able to utilize it and organize campaigns around it key. This often means getting members from IT, the C-Suite, and everywhere in-between on the same page about when and how this data is available. Access to data will continue to be of vital importance, and without it, you could miss out on valuable information that is causing you to lose out on sales.

Communicate Where Your Customers Are

While email still has the highest ROI in digital marketing, it is starting to slowly decline. This isn’t because customers aren’t interested in your emails, rather, it’s because more and more customers are omni-channel, meaning each place you reach them can play a role in an eventual conversion or sale.

More than ever, marketers need a better understanding of where their customers are, and they need to create strategies that take into account these different modes of communication in a way that allows social, email, search, etc. to work together instead of existing in silos.

 

Potential Pitfalls

 

Resources

This is a classic problem every year for marketers, but as more brands move towards an increasingly data driven approach, they’re going to need someone not only understand their data, but help them structure it in a way that is actionable and can help them get the most out of any new technologies they’re using. This is where the use of partners to implement these technologies will be well worth the investment. Brands shouldn’t let a lack of resources in their marketing or IT departments hold them back as they move towards these more robust, technology dependent programs.

Incomplete and/or Disorganized Data

2016 was a big eye opener for many marketers in terms of how incomplete and unorganized their customer data was, and this caused some major delays in allowing them to move their programs forward. Everyone in the industry keeps saying “Personalize now!” and marketers were looking at their data and finding they knew nothing about their customers. They knew basic things like name and maybe location, but today’s personalization goes far beyond that. We’ve oversaturated consumers with content through a batch and blast approach and we need to move towards an approach that actually considers their individual preferences—an experience that is relevant and targeted. But this can only exist if the data is available and properly structured.

Lack of Patience

Many marketing teams are reactive. They see something and they react and they see something else, and they react again. The marketing landscape is changing. And marketer’s need to show some patience and take the time to set things up the right way. This means taking the time to understand their data, map out customer journeys, and give themselves the opportunity to test, test, and test again.

Complacency

On the other hand, as marketers set new programs up and allow things like automations and AI to take the reigns, they need to make sure they aren’t getting complacent. You should regularly be looking for new opportunities and making small adjustments to your programs as you learn more about your consumer base. Nothing at this point (or maybe any point) should be fully set-it-and-forget-it. Always take the time review, analyze, and test, test, and test again.

There’s still a great lack of knowledge when it comes to digital marketing technology, even in industries that are always striving to be current, like e-commerce and retail. At Pierry we’re constantly running into scenarios in which CMOs have paid large amounts for new technology, but once it’s implemented, they really have no idea how to fully utilize what they’ve bought.

Much of this stems from one of the biggest pain points in the industry—a lack of clear strategy. In 2017, it won’t be enough to just buy the latest and greatest technologies. You have to come into that purchase with a clear vision of what you want to do, that way you have the ability to make a purchase based on what you want the technology to do for you, not just based on the laundry list of possibilities a new technology could bring.

For me, going home for the holidays often means three things: lots of laughter, lots of good food, and lots of time going through old photo albums filled with family memories and lots of questionable fashion choices.

For some reason, a good portion of my childhood was spent obsessed with wearing patterned vests, a high pony tail secured by not just one, but at least three scrunchies, and a fanny pack, which, while useful for holding my Bonnie Bell Lip Smacker® was terribly hideous.

But these crimes against fashion weren’t completely my fault. After all, that was the trend.

Every industry has fads that come and go. Marketing is no exception. There was a time when direct mail ruled all. There was another time when flash-based websites were all the rage. And then there was another time when inbound marketing had a big moment.

There’s no doubt that 2017 will bring its own set of new marketing fads, particularly when it comes to digital marketing. But until then, here’s some trends we hope end up the way of patterned vests, scrunchies, and fanny packs—gone for good.

Using Clickbait to Get More Traffic

It’s old news that brands are producing more content than ever. And with content production reported to increase 600% by 2020, many companies have resorted to using clickbait strategies with the purpose of getting more eyes on their content and increase traffic to their website.

While clickbait strategies started with publishers, it has since moved on to include major retail and consumer brands, as well as B2B brands. This type of content often includes clever headlines alongside eye-catching creative. However, upon viewing such articles, consumers are often left with content that lacks quality information, and many times, don’t live up to their headlines.

While these clickbait strategies do increase website traffic, the benefits pretty much stop there. An increase in traffic that can be credited back to the content you’re producing is only worthwhile if it’s working to increase engagement, and ultimately, conversions.

Instead of using a clickbait strategy, focus on creating content that is based on your audience needs and wants. Every piece of content should have value and help maintain, if not increase, your brand reputation. And most important of all, every piece of content should have a grander end goal behind it. You may get less views, but the quality of those views will be much higher.

Using Pop-Up Banners on Mobile to Gain Subscribers

You perform a search on Google using your smartphone. You find a website that seems to fit your need. You click on the result and begin reading. And just as you’re about to scroll down to find the information you wanted, the screen of your mobile device is suddenly blocked by a pop-up asking if you want to subscriber to that brand’s e-newsletter.

True, lightboxes and pop-ups have shown to be effective in helping brands gain new subscribers. For years, this has been the go-to method for many email marketers as a way to steadily increase their list size.

The downside to this method is that many website visitors enter their email addresses hastily, using it as a way to close the lightbox and return to what they were doing. In turn, this can lead to adding subscribers that aren’t necessarily going to engage with your emails in the future, driving down your ROI.

And soon, these types of pop-ups could have an impact on your mobile search rankings. Starting in 2017, the use of lightboxes or pop-ups that make content less accessible to visitors will be added to the long list of ranking factors Google uses when determining whether or not to show your website in search results. With a reported 60% of all searches being performed on a mobile device, that little pop-up could cause big problems.

Instead of blocking your content, opt for smaller banners that can be easily dismissed and don’t poorly impact the user experience. Here are some formats Google recommends in lieu of traditional pop-ups.

Creating Content for the Sole Purpose of Going Viral

Blog posts, news articles, photos, infographics, videos—these all have the potential to achieve that “gone viral” status that every marketer, whether they’ll admit it out loud or not, hopes to achieve.

There are a number of tips that experts put out there to help increase the chances of helping your content go viral. They include things like understanding your audiences needs and wants, creating content that creates an emotional connection, creating content that is useful, connecting with influencers to promote your content, etc.

Essentially, the tips for going viral are the same best practices you should be putting into every piece of content you put out there, not just those you are creating for the sole purpose of “going viral”.

Instead of thinking in terms of viral content, which, when achieved, result in short-term traffic spikes, think about how every piece of content can work to help you reach your audience in a slow and steady manner. In other words, focus your strategy on long-term, steady growth instead of temporary spikes that don’t have a long shelf-life.

Of course, when a digital marketing trends fades away, it is quickly replaced by something new. No matter what trends emerge in 2017, it’s important to remember that not every new fad is right for every brand. Always take the time to fully strategize and formulize a clear goal around any new marketing efforts, whether you’re exploring an established digital marketing best practice or just playing around with the latest trend.

It’s marketing dogma that if at first you don’t succeed, test and test again. But if you’re not properly tracking the performance of each of your marketing efforts, what to test, and how, will be based on notions, not facts.

In order to properly surmise which of your marketing efforts are succeeding, as well as areas to test, test again, you need a way to easily identify each element of your website, social media campaigns, and e-mails. For that you’ll need a little something called UTM codes.

WHAT IS A UTM CODE?

UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module and is named after the software company bought by Google in 2005. These codes are segments of text that are added to URLs and allow programs like Google Analytics and other analytics tools to track performance at a link level. They also allow you to pull additional data from your digital marketing campaigns across different reporting platforms.

For example, say you make a Twitter post that includes a link to content on your website. By adding a UTM code to the Twitter link, you can track how many people clicked the link to visit your website. This might sound like small potatoes on its own, but when you’re running multiple campaigns to attract traffic to your site across different platforms, it’s incredibly useful to know exactly what source or campaign is helping to drive traffic.

DECODING UTM

UTM codes are made up of bits of text called “parameters” that track particular data sets. The most commonly used parameters are:

• utm_campaign = (internal campaign name)
This code gathers the data pertaining to one of your campaigns.

• utm_source = (google, newsletter)
This code identifies which website is the source of incoming traffic.

• utm_medium = (cpc, social, email, display)
Social media? Guest post? E-Newsletter? This code identifies what medium directed the traffic towards your site.

Other commonly used parameters include:

• utm_content = (ad title, ad dimensions)
• utm_term = (cpc keyword)

It may not seem like it at first glance, but setting up UTM codes on each individual link can make it easy to sort through all your data later on.

CREATING A UTM CODE

What do you want to learn from your traffic? That’s the first question any marketer needs to ask themselves before creating any UTM Code. The answer to this question could range anywhere from wanting to know if a particular content marketing campaign leads to more conversions than another. Those with e-Commerce tracking could use UTM codes to better understand not only the individual source of revenue, but the campaign that drove it in.

UTM codes are also great for helping to better understand where your most engaged audience is hiding—be it social, email, organic, or paid.

Once you know what you’re hoping to learn, you can start building out your UTM parameters. Keep in mind, consistency is key in helping you get the most accurate metrics. For example, let’s say you want to track the performance of a whitepaper that you’re promoting across multiple mediums, including paid, social and email. Here’s how you might set that up for each channel:

Source = adwords or twitter or promo
Medium = PPC or Social or Email
Campaign = MyWhitepaper11.16

Because you are mainly concerned with understanding how each individual medium contributed to the success of your whitepaper campaign, only the “medium” parameter needs to be different in this scenario.

And as a result, you’ll produce 3 URLs that looks something like this:

https://www.sample.com/?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=MyWhitepaper11.16
https://www.sample.com/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=MyWhitepaper11.16
https://www.sample.com/?utm_source=promoemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MyWhitepaper11.16

For more granular results, you can adjust the source accordingly, so that, for example, you could see how social as a medium performed, as well as how each individual social channel you’re on performed as well.

Again, consistency is key – make sure that you’re using the same UTMs within each individual effort. Assigning distinct parameters will make them much easier to track. Once you know the various layers you want better insights to, all you have to do is plug them in to a tool like Google’s URL Builder or the Effin Amazing Plugin to quickly generate your links.

PUTTING UTM CODES TO WORK IN ANALYTICS

Once in place, you’ll be able to use tracking tools like Google Analytics to put in data based on the source, medium, and/or campaign parameters you’ve established. And from there, the amount and types of data you’ll be able to find are essentially endless.

And if you follow the golden rule of consistency, you’ll be able to create custom reports based on the parameters you’ve set that, in some cases, can be set up once, and will update automatically. And since UTM parameters can be used across essentially any available reporting tool, you’ll have the ability to easily import that data when and where you need it for analysis.

So, as you’re planning out your next campaign, remember to include a plan for utilizing UTM codes. over time you’ll be able to determine which of your campaigns is most effectively driving traffic to your site, and use that information to adjust your approach. After all, it’s not enough to know that people are visiting your site. To be really successful, you’ll need to know how and why they got there, so that you can keep them coming back.

Think about the current goals you have for your digital marketing program. Do they include boosting sales? Growing traffic to your website? Increasing subscriber engagement? And how are you measuring the success of these goals? Are you using metrics like page views, email opens, and total revenue stats?

If you answered yes to any of the above, I’ve got bad news for you. Your digital marketing program has no depth.

While digital marketing is no longer in its infancy, the way many marketers define its success certainly seems to be. Goals like “growing traffic” or “increasing engagement” are all we had to measure against in the onset of the digital marketing boom; all we really wanted was to see our website getting visitors, our social channels getting followers, and our email lists growing. The access to the data we had was limited. And we used this limited data to create strategies and establish benchmarks.

Today digital marketing gives us the ability to know more about our customers than ever before. We can see how they are interacting with our marketing materials, anticipate their needs, and provided a 1:1 experience that is targeted and relevant.

So why are so many of us still relying on vanity metrics like “page views” and “email opens” to drive our marketing strategy? It’s time to move your digital marketing program forward.

Here are 5 steps you can take to add some depth to your goals and keep them out of the shallow end:

1. Define the purpose of your digital marketing efforts.

This may seem trite, but have you actually ever thought about the purpose your digital marketing department serves and its impact on your organization as a whole? Much like every business has a mission statement, your digital marketing department should have one as well.

Your purpose should go beyond the basics of maintaining a digital presence for your brand. Think about what your department is trying to achieve through that digital presence. This could include things like building and maintaining a positive brand reputation and/or bringing awareness to the benefits of your brand’s products or services in order to bring in the highest quality leads for your sales team.

Don’t feel like you need to limit your mission to a single focus. Your department likely serves multiple purposes. And keep in mind, those purposes may change from year-to-year, so revisit your department mission statement each year to re-evaluate and update as needed.

2. Establish your KPIs.

What, numerically, are you trying to achieve? This is your key performance indicator, or KPI. And establishing these up-front can help shape both your goals and the preceding strategies you’ll put in place based on those goals.

KPIs should be specific in how they will impact the mission of your digital marketing department. For example, let’s say one purpose of your marketing department is to help increase sales. Your KPI may be to increase top of the funnel leads by 15% in the next 12 months.

It’s not enough to just set a KPl to help increase sales. You need to be more specific in how you define that increase, whether it’s a percentage or a dollar value.

3. Define metrics for regularly measuring success/failure.

Once your KPIs are established, you need to determine which metrics you’ll examine on a regular basis to determine whether or not you’re on track to reach them. The metrics you choose should help you directly measure your KPI.

If you’re looking to increase leads, you’d look at conversions and conversions-to-close ratios. You might also look to see if the content you’ve created to drive in more conversions is being engaged with by visitors, as well as path-to-conversion metrics.

Sometimes identifying metrics isn’t so clear-cut. Let’s say you establish a KPI to increase brand awareness by 30%. There’s no direct data point in Google Analytics, or any other analytics program, to directly measure that. Instead, you have to get a little creative. Reach metrics and follower metrics from your social media networks are one way to help measure brand awareness. New visitor metrics in Google Analytics can also give you some insights.

Think about the data you have access to and find the most direct way to use it as a point of measurement. Rule of thumb—if you have a KPI around it, you need to have a logical way to measure it. And sometimes that measurement may have to come from a few different areas.

4. Outline a brief marketing initiative for each KPI.

What will you need to do in order to reach each individual KPI? This could include things like additional content, new pages on the website, an A/B testing initiative, a new email newsletter, etc.

You don’t have to outline your whole strategy. Just give some thought to what you would need to implement in order to reach those KPIs.

5. Put it all together.

Now that you’ve taken the initial steps, setting non-vanity driven goals will be super simple. All you have to do is take what you’ve learned from the steps above and put it all together—Marketing Purpose + KPI + Metrics + Initiatives.

So for example, “In order to help increase company sales by 15%, the digital marketing department will create a new section of the website designed to help more top of the funnel sales convert and monitor the performance of these pages via engagement metrics, conversion metrics, as well as conversion-to-close metrics.”

Okay, it’s a bit of a mouthful compared to goals like “increase traffic to the website”, but it’s also a lot more impactful as it more specifically outlines what you are trying to achieve, where you want to achieve it, how you plan to achieve it, and how you’ll measure it.

Don’t let your digital marketing department run based on shallow goals that don’t mean anything. Instead, outline goals that clearly demonstrate what you’re looking to achieve and how. When you work with goals that have depth you’re better prepared to put together a truly robust digital marketing strategy, and you’ll have access to the types of information you need to adjust your strategy month over month, and year over year.

About a month ago I saw an ad on the back of Bloomberg Businessweek that made me stop. The ad was completely bright yellow. In the middle? The familiar ghost that represents the Snapchat logo. There was nothing else. No words. No CTA. Just a ghost.

It was a bold ad, and obviously the placement is meant to send a big message to the business world: Snapchat is here and your business should be using it.

Snapchat isn’t the first social media channel to tell businesses where they need to be next. And it’s no surprise that as Snapchat has grown in popularity, they too want a piece of your marketing budget.

Marketers are always trying to keep up with the latest trends. They want to be the ones to find untapped oil in a new platform that other brands, especially competitors, have yet to reach. They want another place to share their content. They want another place to find customers.

But are these channels where customers want to find you?

Regardless of the channel or the trend, you always have to stop and consider your audience. Don’t only think about where you’re most likely to find them, but whether or not they want to engage with you in that particular space.

Here are some quick considerations to help guide you in whether or not to move your brand to a new channel

1. Why this channel?

Whether it’s social media, email, direct mail, a paid channel such as PPC or remarketing, the first question you should ask is, why does my brand need to be on this channel? And notice, you’re asking “need”, not “want”.

2. How will you measure success?

Each channel you use should have its own metrics for defining success. By defining these from the start, you’ll be better prepared to create both a short-term and long-term strategy for every channel you’re on. You’ll also be able to set realistic expectations for both yourself and any other stakeholders.

3. How regularly will you communicate on this channel?

When new channels or trends arise, it’s up to the early adaptors to help establish best practices for frequency of communication. Start slow and see how your audience responds. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different forms of content or tones. And watch what others are doing on that same channel, particularly those outside of your industry, for inspiration on what your brand could do next.

4. What content will you need?

Whether you’re moving your brand to a new channel, or creating a new strategy for a channel you’re already on, you’re going to need content to support it. Content comes in many forms including videos, images, blogs, articles, etc. Think about the resources you’ll need and add them into your editorial calendar. Don’t have an editorial calendar? Before you even think about starting up on any new channels, create one. It’ll help keep you organized when creating new assets and tracking those you already have. (Here’s a great resource from Content Marketing Institute to get you started.)

Marketers love trying something new. They love to be creative. But don’t let your creative mind push you to a channel your brand has no business being on. Always stop to consider the benefits of following the next big trend and create a strategy that fits your brand both in the short-term and the long-term.

While a platform like Snapchat may be fun the first month you’re using it, if you don’t know how to sustain it 3 months, 6 months, or 9 months down the line, everything you did in that first month will be for nothing.

And sometimes, even with careful planning, you might find that a channel just isn’t right for your brand. In those cases, don’t consider it a total loss. Instead, think about why it wasn’t a right fit and consider what lessons you can take away from the experience to prepare you for other initiatives in the future. No matter what the channel or the outcome, there’s always a lesson to be learned.

John Lydgate, a 14th century poet, once wrote “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”

This famous saying has been adopted numerous times and was even once adopted in a speech by Abraham Lincoln. Yes, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. But if the recent launch of the iPhone SE can teach us anything, it’s that you should be listening to all of the people all of the time.

Like in September 2014 when Apple introduced the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus and users were

delighted to see that they would soon have the big screens their Android counterparts had long enjoyed. And with that announcement, it seemed like Apple had listened to what their customers were telling them, and that the days of small smartphone screens were over.

Right? Wrong. Because Apple kept listening.

Bigger Isn’t Always Better

You probably remember a friend, or friend of a friend, or family member who wasn’t happy to see that the iPhone design they’d enjoyed over the years would no longer be an option. That eventually they would have to upgrade to a larger phone and a larger screen, and the classic look of the iPhone we had all come to know would be gone forever.

If you knew one of these people, you probably thought they were nuts. Sure, iPhones would be larger, but who wouldn’t want a larger screen and a thinner phone? Turns out, about 13% of all iPhones sold last year had a 4-inch screen. And while 30 million phones is a drop in the bucket compared to total 231 million iPhones sold overall, it still was enough for Apple to take notice.

Something Old, Something New, Something in the Middle

The latest Apple announcement is yet another reminder that today’s consumers want choices. This is not only true from a product standpoint, but a marketing one as well. They want to choose whether or not they see ads. They want to choose to have brands communicate with them via SMS or Email. They want to choose to keep up with a brand by following them on the social media channels they’re already on.

They also want to see content that is specific to them. According to a 2015 study from Magnet and Retail TouchPoints, nearly 1 in 10 internet users said they spent significantly more with a retailer after seeing a relevant digital ad or email, while 3 in 10 said they spent at least slightly more.

By listening to your customers, and learning more about them, you’re better equipped to segment your audience and provide them with more relevant, targeted content. Whatever that means to them.

Let’s take the example of a Consumer Packaged Goods brand that sends out a monthly newsletter with recipes you can make using their products. They may find, after listening in on their audience, that some subscribers would rather see a monthly newsletter specific to their dietary restrictions, such as low fat or sugar free focused recipes. They may find others are just looking for recipes that take the shortest amount of prep time possible. And they may even find that there are a number of subscribers that are content with the status quo. They like the variety and don’t fit into a certain segment.

And if the iPhone SE has taught us anything, it’s that this can be okay.

The Final Takeaway

So, what can business owners, CEOs, and CMOs takeaway from this? Listen to your customers. Look at what they like and don’t like. Think about their pain points and don’t assume that something new and shiny will fix it. Don’t always just chase after the latest and greatest or the new trend in your industry. Remember that for some people, if it’s not broke, you don’t need to fix it.

After all, we live in a culture that is always waiting for the latest and greatest. It seems like every six months, Apple is hosting a major event to show off it’s newest innovations—most of which are designed because Apple is so good at looking to their customers and listening to what they want. Even if this means, in the case of the iPhone SE, what seems like taking a step backwards.

Of course, it’s worth recognizing that Apple’s decision to bring back the smaller design wasn’t just about listening to their customers. The costs associated with manufacturing this style of phone have decreased significantly, taking it from one of the most costly phones to make, to one of the more affordable. Therefore, even if it isn’t their top selling version, they can still be profitable. In other words, listen to your customers, but only when it makes sense for the greater good.