How UPS Thinks Like Their Customers For Content Marketing

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Some companies just get it.  UPS does.  You see, it can be amazingly simple and yet it is the blinding obvious.  Gaining insight into how customers and buyers think gives you the ability to tone down the brightness and see what is on their minds.  Often, not articulated directly but yet it is just right there for you to grab.  In the case of buyer persona development, it may take a good number of qualitative interviews to get to it.  And when you do, you will hit yourself against the head and have one of those “I get it” moments.  

With a simple question, UPS is able to strike at the heart of what customers and buyers are thinking.  What is it?

Need more time at the end of the day?

This doesn’t look like a big deal.  But you can be sure it is a very big deal.  Like FedEx, UPS is in a battle to get into the minds of their customers and buyers.  And that battle takes place at the end of the day.  That is the time when buyers will determine which service to select.  During an engagement experience with FedEx, we were able to observe and talk about this phenomenon that exists in this industry with a good number of buyers.  There is enormous pressure at the end of the day; both on a business and personal level.  Businesses need to get important shipments out at the end of the day and there are family members waiting at home.  Depending on the industry, there were varying degrees of this “end of day” pressure but it is always there.

Both UPS and FedEx have invested in buyer personas.  This is a good example of “buyer persona thinking” in action when developing a content marketing strategy.  All things being equal, customers and buyers don’t give a hoot which company might be marginally better or worse.  It can boil down to a simple critical moment.  For example, in this case, it can come down to – “it’s my turn to take Johnny to baseball practice tonight and I’ve got to get out of here and yet get this shipped out by today.”

Getting into the minds of your buyers can make a critical difference in how an organization communicates.  And it can be something that is blinding obvious – you can’t see it but you start to get a feeling for it.  It is not articulated yet after an appropriate number of qualitative non-directed conversations, you start to get a glimpse.  And once you do, you can build a content marketing strategy around it.  Just as is the case for UPS.