This document discusses aligning marketing content with customers' purchase journeys. It proposes: 1. Categorizing content based on stages in a generic customer life cycle model rather than individual purchase journeys, with early, middle and late stages addressing awareness, education, and explicit requests. 2. Analyzing conversion rates of different content types ("offers") to identify higher converting content for each stage. Thought leadership and explicit requests tend to convert best. 3. Considering breaking thought leadership into "giveaway" and "gated" categories based on how actionable the content is for individual investors. The goals are to expose customers to the brand at each life cycle stage, educate them on options, and

1. INTERNAL USE ONLY
Aligning Your Content
With Your
Customer Purchase Journey
John Auble
July 2017

2. 11
Cumulative Conversion Cycle for Leads
Source: CI&A
Brokerage is a long sales cycle, considered purchase

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How Digital Leads Work Today
A very simplified view of the process
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Convert
to accounts
Generate interest
and collect contact information
Process
leads through scrubbing and
qualification
Route
to field or IRC
• Owned, Earned, Shared & Paid
• Existing Relationships
• Affluence: Investable Assets
• Engagement Score: behavioral
• MQL: engagement + business
value
• Sales channel specific rules
• Professional courtesies
• 9-month window to convert
• + 3 months to fund

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Issues with the Current State:
3
Early Stage
Mid Stage
Late
Stage
~88%
Bounce
Rate
47
Brand
Confidence
63
Return to
Site
53
Do
Business
• Reduces awareness
of WF investing
products and
services
• Breaks the Brand
promise
• Perception internally
that leads are not
“good”
• Not a best practice

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2016 Future State with WFA.com Redesign Launch:
4
Late
Stage
Early Stage
Mid Stage
Highest
Converting
~88%
Bounce Rate
+10
Brand
Confidence
+10
Return to
Site
+10
Do
Business
• Increases awareness
of WF investing
products and services
• Keeps the Brand
promise
• Focuses on fewer,
higher converting
leads
Opt-in

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To Gate, Or Not To Gate; That Was The Question
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8. 77
Categorize Offers/Reports
Source: CI&A
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
Look For Patterns in Lead Distribution
WFII Investment Topic/Life Events Brand Kit Explicit Unclassified

9. 88
List Your Offers By Conversion Rates
Eliminate Low Numbers; Look for Broad “Tiers”
Offers Leads Converted Leads
Lead Conversion
Rate
Midyear 516 23 4.46%
4 Steps of Successful Investing 262 17 6.49%
Why Own Bonds 160 17 10.63%
Outlook 424 15 3.54%
Ten Things Investors Should Know Today 21 1 4.76%
8 Tax-Saving Ideas 53 5 9.43%
Rising Interest Rates 168 2 1.19%
Affluent Tax Strategies 136 3 2.21%
Getting Retirement Right 434 52 11.98%
Diversification 237 20 8.44%
After Loss 490 43 8.78%
WFA/Envision Intro Kit 773 48 6.21%
Rollover 544 44 8.09%
WFACallRequest 987 51 5.17%
6 Strategies for Weathering Market Volatility 334 5 1.50%

10. 99
Look For Conversion Rate “Tiers”

11. 1010
Overlay Categories to Look for Patterns
Explicit Offers & Thought Leadership Reports Top the List
Excluding leads with less than
100 generated Source:
CI&A
WFII Investment Topic/Life Events Brand Kit Explicit Unclassified
0.00%
2.00%
4.00%
6.00%
8.00%
10.00%
12.00%
14.00%
* Jan-May conversion numbers do
not include FA Offers or Requests to
Call. Metric was not included in
reporting.

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Tier Your Offers By Conversion Rates
Middle Stage:
Informs and
builds brand trust
Late
Stage:
Brand/Envision
information
and explicit
requests for
contact
Early Stage:
Addresses specific needs and
builds brand awareness
11Source: CI&A July 2014 to May 2015
0-3%
Conversion
Rate
Middle Funnel Content: Thought Leadership
Upper Funnel Content: Life Events & Investment Topics
Lower Funnel Content: Brand Kit and “Call-Me” requests
Leads after September 2014 are within the 9-month conversion window as of 6/30/15
3-10%
Conversion
Rate
10%+
Conversion
Rate
Why Wells Fargo Advisors? Request A Call
FA Web Pages
Find an Financial Advisor

13. 1212
YTD Average Account Size By Offers/Types
WFII Provided Valuable Assets? Can We Parse Further?
Excluding leads with less than
100 generated Source:
CI&A
WFII Investment Topic/Life Events Brand Kit Explicit Unclassified
* Jan-May conversion numbers do
not include FA Offers or Requests to
Call. Metric was not included in
reporting.
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
350,000
400,000

14. 1313
Break Thought Leadership Reports
Into Two Different Categories
 Give Away “Headline” Reports: establish
brand/expertise “thought leadership” in top-level
analysis, commentary, news interpretation (e.g.,
“Brexit”) – topics not readily actionable for
individual investors
 Keep Gating “Portfolio Construction” Reports:
how to construct diversified portfolio, maximizing
return while mitigating risk (modern portfolio
theory), diversification, risk, retirement planning
and paying for retirement – topics that are
actionable for individual investors

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How Do You Align Content With Dynamic &
Complicated Customer Journeys?
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Customer Purchase Journey or Customer Life Cycle
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Customer Purchase Journey
Actual series of interactions &
touchpoints between a customer and a
company.
A tool for understanding and
engineering customer (brand)
experiences.
Customer Life Cycle
High-level phases and
transactions a customer
passes through or makes in an
ongoing relationship with a company.
A conceptual
framework marketing can
leverage spanning all of a customer’s
purchases.

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Use High-Level Customer Life Cycle Stages
It’s The Intent … Not The How
 brand impressions
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Evaluate
Options
Buy
Trigger/Awareness/Seek Solutions
Customer is forced to address a
specific need for information.
Goal: provide answers and
introduce your brand as solution.
Customer evaluates and compares
brands, looking for value propositions
& “reasons to believe.”
Goal: Build trust. Don’t get eliminated
from consideration set.
Customer is explicitly engaging with your
company: requests for consultations,
product/service offerings, price list/fee
schedule, search for locations/sales reps.
Goal: Get out of the way!

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Touch Point Map Against Customer Purchase Cycle
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Today’s Key Goals/Next Steps
 Align content with the consumer life cycle, not
individual customer purchase journeys
 Have as many lead generation offers as you can,
across the consumer life cycle where someone has a
specific need, explores options to fill that need and
purchases
 Offer/lead conversion rates can show you what role
content plays in converting interest into business
 When you have offers across the consumer life
cycle, you can begin thinking about content
sequencing …
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Content Sequencing Can Expedite &
Replace Customer Purchase Cycle Steps
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Thank you
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