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I became a huge fan of customer journey mapping (CJM) the first time I was introduced to it. And after a few years of mapping, tweaking and presenting maps, my team and I started looking for other more exotic uses of this technique. The law of the instrument at its best, I suppose. Well, seek and ye shall find.

Customer journey mapping is a visualization technique that helps marketing specialists, user experience designers, and product and business owners see the journey people take when interacting with products and services. It is a great way to put on your customer’s shoes and see where your business fails to deliver a great user experience.

The way CJM works is pretty straightforward: You collect user research data, break down the entire funnel into steps (i.e. stages) and describe each stage from multiple points of view, such as your business goal, the customer’s goals, touchpoints (the very moments of interaction), customers expectations and pain points, their thoughts and feelings, etc. In the end, you have a table that looks something like this:

From this table, you can tell at which points customers are not happy, and you can come up with some ideas to improve the situation.

Сustomer journey mapping is mainly used to find flaws in the entire path of the user, but I was curious if there was some unconventional way to use this technique. Turns out there is, and here the story of how it found me.

It’s Not A Journey Map… Or Is It?

After reading Baremetrics CEO Josh Pigford’s brilliant article about an email campaign that Baremetrics created to reduce churn and convert customers, our team at UXPressia decided that we needed something similar for our app.

Fast-forward a few weeks, and we had a sequence of emails ready to fly to our users’ mailboxes. They looked somewhat like this:

These printed emails stuck around on our whiteboard for a while. Then, one day, while we were having coffee after a long and tedious CJM workshop, one of the participants glanced at the emails still hanging on the board and asked, “What’s this journey map for, guys?”

“Oh no, that’s not a journey…” — I was about to say that this was not a journey map, but I suddenly stopped. Our guys looked at each other. “Are you thinking what I am thinking?” Yes, our email campaign had stages and our business goals, so it could be. After all, we made a tool for mapping customer journeys, so it was a great opportunity for us to put it to the test. The question was: Is it OK to just cut out one channel from the entire user journey and focus on it solely?

On the one hand, customer journey mapping is all about a holistic approach, so it isn’t entirely right to focus on just one channel. On the other hand, we want to follow the “individuals and interactions over processes and tools” principle from the agile manifesto.

Besides, we tried our best to make our emails as personal as possible. Today, email campaigns are no longer carpet-bombing monologues. They are more of ongoing conversations in which we try to bond with our users. And customer journey mapping is all about finding a better and more personal approach.

So, why not try?

Everyone in the room started pitching ideas. Someone noticed that we had our goals linked to every email. “If we could add our user goals and see if both goals match…” he said.

At this point, it was clear that this was going to become a map. But two CJM sessions on the same day? You have got to be kidding. We took a break and agreed to sleep on this idea.

Doubts, The First Draft

The next day, after rebooting our brains, we gathered in the same room and asked ourselves, “What is the problem we are trying to solve here?” And is there any problem in the first place?

Well, have you ever seen how email campaigns are stored, organized and manipulated? We had a Google Doc with text and pictures, and it was kind of fine, although it was not easy to get a bird’s-eye view of the whole campaign all at once.

Our campaign was not very long and complex. It was a sequence of about 12 emails in which we welcome our users, give them tips and do some upselling.

Now, imagine if you had a longer campaign consisting of 50 emails triggered at different moments. I remembered my friend telling me how his company had an enormous spreadsheet file linking to different sources with multiple emails.

And there is no way to evaluate each letter out of the context. Setting up your campaign in some tool like MailChimp or Intercom would make your campaign a lot less messy, but you would still have to open each email to see the details.

Turns out that hundreds of people working on email campaigns have terrible experiences themselves while crafting a better experience for others. Trying to unweave webs of interrelated email letters scattered over a spreadsheet would drive anyone crazy. This had to stop.

So, we rolled up our sleeves and drafted the first map using emails from our campaign.

By mapping out the whole chain of emails on a single canvas, we could finally see everything in one place. Timing, email texts, business goals at each stage, as well as goals of each letter — it was all there. Having it all aligned in such a way instantly raised (and even answered) questions like:

• “Are we bombarding our users with a number of emails from the same person? Would it be more appropriate to introduce someone new?”
• “Is the timing correct and in line with the overall experience?”

And these questions were way easier to answer once we saw the whole picture. This alone was valuable enough because this clarity turned out to be a huge time-saver.

For example, shortly after the launch of our campaign, we noticed a pretty high unsubscribe rate from our emails. We tried to understand why this was happening and what we could do to fix it. Then, we looked at our email map and realized that the time gap between the first two emails was quite short, so we increased it. Guess what? The unsubscribe rate slowed down. This would have been more difficult to troubleshoot without the clear picture we had from customer journey mapping.

But we decided to take it up a few notches.

Leveraging Personas

Remember I said we were trying to find a better and more personal approach? That’s what personas are best at. And having a well-researched persona when creating this email campaign was a game-changer for us.

By that time, we had already defined our customer personas, so it was no biggie to take each email and read it as if the reader was our persona.

A Brief Example

In one of our letters, we asked our users to tell us about themselves, so that we could make some suggestions and offer personalized help just in case. We expected them to drop us emails with some really short stories. So we “read” this email to our personas. Hey, picture a bunch of fellows reading to a poster on a wall. Bonkers!

We tried to understand why this or that persona wouldn’t answer, and we realized that what we had in mind was not the way to go. What if our business-owner persona didn’t have time to sit there and compose emails? What could we offer to eliminate this objection? A quick call? Meh. Maybe. An online poll with predefined answers? Better!

So, using personas certainly had a great impact on our email campaign in the end.

Campaigns For Different Personas And A/B Tests

By the way, what if you have multiple personas in your email campaign? That poor spreadsheet! Unless, again, you use customer journey mapping. In this case, we’d be able to easily map different letters to corresponding personas — and even find where these emails intersect!

Example

In her case study, one of our customers told us an interesting story. She was working on a complicated email campaign for multiple personas. The tricky part was to bring together all possible scenarios and see which email she should write for each specific case.

And she was quite amazed by how customer journey mapping saved her a lot of time and effort. Once all emails had been mapped out, it became apparent which letters repeated, so she could merge them into one.

This applies not only to scenarios like this one, but also to A/B tests. Imagine doing the same without customer journey mapping. Ugh! But wait, the best part is yet to come.

Email Campaign On CJM Steroids

And here is it. Once we started putting our campaign on CJM steroids, there was no going back. Customer journey mapping offers a ton of sections that we could use to take our email campaign to a whole new level. We tried some of them, and the results were quite surprising.

User Expectations and Goals

Adding user goals and expectations to our map cocktail changed the way we saw our email campaign for the better. When sending an upsell email, is this what our user expects from us at that very moment? Does the goal of this letter match the goal of our customers?

By that moment, we had already rolled out our campaign, so we had some stats on hand. And adding these sections and answering these questions made us realize why the unsubscribe rate for some of our emails was so high. Speaking of which…

Key Performance Indicators and Other Metrics

Now, what if we had real statistics under each email? Seeing how this or that letter performed enabled us to instantly find where our campaign hit the dirt. It did require some maintenance, but in the end, it was totally worth all the effort.

Quote or User Response

Because we believe that email campaigns are conversations rather than monologues, we expect our users to say something back. Why not add some of their responses to our map? They could be from a single quote or an entire response. And based on their reactions, we were able to draw an…

Experience Graph

The experience graph made it so easy for us to see the whole flow of our email campaign. Tracking performance enabled us to see which emails failed most and which did the best job. For us, this was priceless.

Problems and Ideas

Finally, once we had identified problematic emails in our campaign, it was time to think about what caused fails and how we could improve their performance. We pitched some ideas and started testing them ASAP!

Wrapping Up

When we finally called it a day (or, rather, a night), everyone was so inspired. Using customer journey mapping to map our email campaign turned out to be not just a huge timesaver, but a well of insights, too. Not to mention that we were able to achieve a 40% open rate! Not a bad result in today’s world, where users develop email-blindness syndrome.

Of course, using CJM for mapping email campaigns will not work for all cases, but it was a lifesaver — and not just for us.

One of our customers transformed their existing email campaign the same way shortly after our debut. What they did was compare the email journey they created with the customer journey map they already had. Once they saw all emails on a single CJM canvas right next to the customer journey map, they got quite a few insights, like:

• The first email in the campaign promoted the web application heavily right after a user downloaded the mobile app. The business goal at this stage was to decrease the number of users leaving the mobile app, but they were encouraging people to do just that!
• The second email was pushing people towards providing more personal data. But from looking at the CJM as a whole, it was obvious that the timing was completely wrong: It happened at the stage when the majority of users were not yet ready to share anything — they simply hadn’t yet perceived any value from using the app.
• The third email promoted the blog, which indeed had some great content. But the content was focused on just two personas, whereas the email campaign was sent to everyone. The majority of users were obviously not interested, so they kept unsubscribing.

These were not all of the insights they had, but even with these, it was pretty clear that the campaign needed some rethinking. Even more importantly, they already knew what had to be changed.

Anyway, here are some ideas about when transforming an email campaign into an email journey map will work for you as well:

• You are working on a massive email campaign that you want to be consistent and well crafted as much as sympathetic and humane.
• You believe that your team should try CJM, but people hesitate to engage because of the time commitment and unclear value. Seeing how it works for one channel would be less time-consuming and might help to convince your team to try a full-blown customer journey map after all.
• You want to present campaign content to clients or stakeholders (which would be way more attractive than the bunch of separate files mentioned before).

The worst-case scenario here is that you would put your emails in order and save a lot of time in the long run.

Plus, you can do the same thing not just with emails but with virtually anything, be it call scripts for support or sales, alongside postal or face-to-face interactions.

Oh, and one more thing. We created a free template you can use to start mapping your email journey now! It has a predefined persona and all the sections we used in our own journey map.

But what about you? Have you tried using CJM for email campaigns? What insights can you share? Do you know of any unusual uses of CJM? Share your ideas in comments!

Links and Resources

(al)

via Smashing Magazine
Level-Up Email Campaigns With Customer Journey Mapping

Today’s Photo Of The Day is from Norway. The Norwegian Home Guard (in Norwegian “Heimevernet” or just “HV” for short) works as a rapid mobilization force in the Norwegian military. It was founded in1946 and has land, sea and air defense units, with volunteers and conscript personnel with backgrounds from all branches. The Norwegian Armed […]

Read More …

The post POTD: Gas! Gas! Gas! appeared first on The Firearm Blog.

via The Firearm Blog
POTD: Gas! Gas! Gas!

The FCC may be bent on killing net neutrality, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay silent or offer mostly symbolic protests. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a web tool that makes it easy to ask your members of Congress to fight for an open internet. All you have to do us plug in your address, personalize your message (if you like) and hit "submit" — your representatives and senators will receive your concerns and hopefully do something about it.

The FCC is likely to vote in favor of gutting protections on December 14th given its current composition and refusal to investigate anti-neutrality spam, but there’s a hope that Congress might raise the issue of defending net neutrality and even implement some safeguards. If nothing else, this puts your opposition to the FCC’s moves on the record. Politicians need to know how you feel if they’re going to act on your behalf, after all.

Via: 9to5Mac

Source: EFF Action

via Engadget
EFF tool tells your members of Congress to fight for net neutrality

Transcript

Doctor: The MRI shows unusual activity in the laziness region of your brain. Normally, I would recommend brain surgery, but your brain also registers an unusually high level of happiness. Wally: So… how do we handle this? Doctor: I’m going to operate on myself to make me more like you.

via Dilbert Daily Strip
Comic for November 23, 2017

In some cities, the most common electric vehicles are likely to be two-wheelers like bikes and motorcycles. But cities aren’t really designed for them — you have to compete with cars on the road and at charging stations. BMW and Tongji University think they can do better: they’ve developed a concept, Vision E3 Way, that gives e-bike riders their own roads. The paths would be safer and reduce traffic congestion, as you might expect, but they’d also take advantage of the electric nature of the vehicles to make two-wheel riding more accessible.

The routes would typically sit above regular roads, and would be decidedly cozier thanks to covering and a cooling system driven by purified rainwater. An automatic speed limit (in the concept, about 15.5MPH) and AI-driven traffic management would prevent the faster vehicles from crashing into scooters. And you might not even need to own a machine to use it — BMW envisions a rental system where you’d pick up a bike at an access point if you need to get across town in a hurry.

You won’t necessarily see something like this in markets where cars dominate, like North America. A system like Vision E3 Way could be very useful in countries like China, however. It’s not just that many more people ride bikes in these areas — it’s that high population densities could necessitate separate, automated roads to keep traffic flowing. The challenge is getting cities to take up the idea. Even if these roadways don’t cost much to build, it’s no mean feat to significantly alter the urban landscape.

Source: BMW

via Engadget
BMW hopes AI-managed electric bike roads will ease traffic

GIF

Chewbacca, how dare you.

Every day we get closer to The Last Jedi, more and more snippets of footage come out. But today, dear reader, instead of delightful shots of Poe Dameron drifting in an X-Wing or Luke Skywalker emotionally entering the Millennium Falcon, we have something sinister. Something cruel.

DON’T HIT THE PORG, CHEWIE! Ever since the fluffly little darlings wormed their way into hearts, we’ve been excited for the Chewbacca/Porg relationship. This little guy’s feathers were even designed to make him look a little like Chewie! And yet, the poor porg is swept aside, all so Chewbacca can do something like not make the spaceship they’re in crash or save the day or whatever Wookiee co-pilots do.

So rude. I thought better of you, Chewbacca, I really did.

via Gizmodo
New Star Wars: The Last Jedi Footage Features Shocking, Unadulterated Porg Violence

via MakeUseOf.com
4 Sites With LOTS Of Completely Free Ebooks That Don’t Suck

The Philips Norelco OneBlade is the shaver of choice for every guy on our staff, and Amazon’s offering an unprecedented 50% discount on it for Black Friday.

If you aren’t familiar with this thing yet, Shane shared his thoughts about it on Lifehacker Gear:

I’m pretty blown away by the Philips OneBlade. I was expecting a deconstructed electric razor or a souped up Gillette Power-style situation, but the OneBlade is more like the next evolution of beard trimmers.

The OneBlade can be used to get a close shave, edge, or trim down to your preferred length. It’s also washable and rechargeable, and the replaceable blades that last an estimated four months are already available on Subscribe and Save.

The OneBlade can be used in the shower or over the sink, with or without shaving cream or oil. To be clear, this is not going to give you a straight razor-close shave, but it’s going to get you 99.5% of the way there in no time and with no irritation.

The OneBlade usually sells for $35, and occasionally sees modest discounts to $25-$35, but $17 blows away every previous promotion. I paid full price for it back in March of this year (I’m still on my original blade, for the record), and have zero regrets.

via Lifehacker
The Philips OneBlade For $17 Might Be the Best Deal In the History of Shaving

We’ve talked before about what exactly an 80% lower is, and even talked about finishing an 80% lower.  Today, we’re going to go over the best AR-15 80% or unfinished lowers out there, at least in my humble opinion.  

We’re also going to look at some of the things to be on the lookout for when it comes to choosing an 80% lower so that you can be better prepared to evaluate these lowers when you come across them.

Note: an 80% lower requires some pretty advanced machining, so the quality, fit, and finish of the final product is going to depend entirely on you, or the person who’s working on it and their skill level.  There are a number of machining jigs available to make your job easier.

Brief Overview of 80% Lowers

First,  should really, really, really, really check out our other article on what exactly an 80% lower is.  If you’re one of those people too lazy to click links in articles (don’t worry, we’ve all been there) you really just need to know that an 80% is an unfinished lower that is nominally sold as a “paperweight” or other novelty, and not a firearm.

If you’re buying a finished AR lower, you’re technically buying a firearm in the eyes of the ATF.

Meanwhile, an 80% lower is technically not a firearm until you finish machining it, so you can get them delivered straight to your house without paying FFL fees.  As long as you’re manufacturing the firearm for personal use, and are otherwise allowed to own said firearm in your state, you’re good to go.

Be sure to check out our Gun Laws pages to see if such things are legal where you are.  

Note: California compliance requires a serial number and other changes to your lower, so be super duper sure to check the laws there and in other less-than-gun-friendly states.

To finish your upper, you’ll need an end mill, and a drill or drill press, and a jig or other guide to get you as you mill out the lower.  Each lower is going to require a slightly different procedure so be sure to check with your manufacturer on what you’ll need.  

Most of them will have a free pdf or video that’ll show you how to do things.

One thing to keep in mind, even if a company advertises a 90% or 95% finished lower…they still aren’t allowed to get the lower and closer to completion than any other company.  

Measuring the completeness of a part like this is fairly subjective, so just makes sure you don’t pay extra for that ten or fifteen percent and think you’re lessening the amount of work you’ll have to do later.

This is just a marketing tactic, and isn’t worth paying more for.  I choose not to buy from companies that advertise that way cause it’s kinda shady…in my opinion.  You’re a responsible (probably) adult.  You’ll have to make that decision for yourself.

What Makes a Good 80% Lower

There are a few things to consider when choosing your first AR-15 80% lower.  First, tempting as it may be, don’t buy from Uncle Leroy’s Backwoods Firearms.  Small manufacturers are extremely hit or miss, and often lack the precision of a larger, well-known manufacturer.

If you’re on your sixth unfinished lower, or have the machining background to spot a lower machined to tight tolerances vs one that isn’t, maybe give the small-time outfit a try.  Or maybe you know a competent machinist that can make you one.  Then you’re probably okay, just make sure they have a letter of determination that says they can sell you the thing they’re selling you.

In firearms, as with most things, the “cover your ass” rule is firmly in place.

Second, for your first build make sure you’re getting one that has the appropriate jigs you can purchase, or at least one they recommend you use.  The jig is going to be what lets you finish milling out the lower and making it usable without needing a full-bore CNC machine.

Finally, take a look at the materials used.  Polymer lowers are easier to machine, but are more prone to scratching and gouging as well as full-on breakage if you aren’t careful.

Aluminum comes in two flavors, forged and billet.  Basically the only thing you need to know is that forged aluminum is generally considered to be stronger, but for most people it isn’t going to matter unless you’re going into combat, and even then it’s not that big of a difference, strength-wise.

Anodized vs Non-Anodized 80% Lowers

One final consideration is the choice between anodized and non-anodized 80% lowers, assuming you’re working with an aluminum lower.  Personally, I would go with a non-anodized lower because you’re going to be milling out large portions of it and exposing non-anodized metal anyway.

Usually, that means you’re just going to have the thing re-anodized anyway so I’d just go with the cheaper option of the raw aluminum.

Of course, you don’t have to worry about that with polymer as you’re just exposing more of the same polymer as you’re doing your machining

Best 80% Lowers

So, here’s our favorite 80% lowers, in no particular order.  These are companies that either we’ve tested, our that have a strong reputation online with other outlets that we also trust.

Tactical Machining

Tactical Machining is one of the big dogs when it comes to 80% lowers.  They make awesome AR-15 80%ers, as well as 1911 80% lowers, plus 10/22 80% lowers and even some .308 lowers.

They also make regular finished lowers that require an FFL like a normal firearm purchase.  These guys are on the shortlist for my first 80% build, and I’m excited to give them a try because I’ve heard good things about them from actual machinists who’ve made their own lowers.

Unlike a lot of places, they also seem to have an easier time actually keeping products in stock, and you will probably have an easier time getting a hold of what you want.

What’s more, they also have a number of 80% lower jigs that are perfect for putting together your build.  Trying to drill these things freehand is going to result in scratched and damaged uppers, and probably a great deal of swearing.

Go ahead and get the jig.

James Madison Tactical

James Madison Tactical makes some excellent AR-15 triggers (If you guys are reading this, I’d love to formally test one) as well polymer AR and .308 lowers.

I also suspect, but have been unable to confirm, that they make some of the AR parts kits that get branded and sold with other brand names.  That said, you can also get parts kits from them.

But, we’re here to talk about their lowers.

Personally, I’m not a fan of polymer lowers.  It’s a really stupid hangup I have that’s in no way founded off anything rational.  I own Glocks and other polymer-framed guns…but no polymer framed ARs.  Maybe one day I’ll change that.

If I do, it’ll almost definitely be a James Madison Tactical lower.  I’ve heard nothing but good things from these guys, and I know several 3-Gun and Precision AR shooters that use these lowers.  I’ve shot some of those guns, and even competed with one, and I have nothing but nice things to say about it.

Their manufacturing process is also really cool.  They use their own polymer-fiber blend with special care taken at common stress points to build a really cool, lightweight lower that is corrosion resistant far beyond what you’ll get with a metal lower.

With a metal lower, you scratch your finish, you immediately have to start worrying about moisture on those parts because you’ll get rust if you’re not careful.

Not so with a polymer lower.  You’ll also not have super visible scratch marks on your lower if you beat it up going through the woods or knocking it around at competition.

Anderson Manufacturing

Anderson Manufacturing is one of the big juggernauts of AR part manufacturers, and they bring that wealth of experience to their lowers.  With these lowers, you’re buying from people who’ve been making AR parts of years, and who sell ridiculous numbers of the things.  

There’s a certain comfort in buying from an established, reliable company.  You also get the advantage of availability that smaller shops just can’t give you.  Anderson lowers are available all over the place, and chances are you can find them at a local gun shop, though “local” may be a relative term.

Personally, I’ve built two ARs off Anderson completed lowers, so I can attest to the quality.  These things are rock solid, and in the case of my first competition gun, have been through hell and back with no issues.

Best Value

Anderson 80% Lower

49.99
at Brownells

See It

Compare prices (2 found)

Prices accurate at time of writing

If you get one of their 80%ers, and you do your part with the machining, I have no doubt that you’ll end up with a reliable, well-done product.

Anderson also has a variety of finishes and designs available so you can be sure you’re getting exactly what you want, which is again something you might not be able to find at a smaller outfit.  

All in all, if you want a straightforward experience with a manufacturer that has a wealth of resources and a large market presence, Anderson might very well be the best option for you.

Polymer80

Polymer80 is the other contender for my first polymer lower, especially if I decide to go the 80% route.  These guys and gals specialize in polymer 80% lowers…hence the name.

They also have a freakin’ ton of cool colors available which is perfect if you like to personalize your builds a bit more.

For me, I like building AR’s not just to shoot, but also for the mechanical challenge that comes with this type of thing.  Its really fun to take a box of parts and turn it into a working rifle that you can hunt, compete, and even defend yourself with if need be.

Author’s Pick

Polymer80 Lower

64.99
at Brownells

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Compare prices (2 found)

Prices accurate at time of writing

The cool thing about Polymer80 lowers, beside the awesome colors, is the jig sets you can get with them.

For $80, you can get a lower, the bits you need, and the jig to guide you…basically everything but you need except for the drill.  

That,  plus a solid afternoon of work will give you a finished AR lower of your very own.  I particularly like the idea of putting together a lower of my very own with this setup.

So much so, that I think I’m going to get one for myself.  Now I just have to decide what color I want.

Parting Shots

There you have it folks.  These are our favorite 80% lower manufacturers.  If you are looking for a truly rewarding AR build experience without having to pay FFL fees, these are the ones to go with as far as I’m concerned.

The post AR15 80% Lowers for a Truly Custom Build appeared first on Pew Pew Tactical.

via Pew Pew Tactical
AR15 80% Lowers for a Truly Custom Build

Ohio State University made a record $3.2 million in royalties and other income in fiscal 2017 from licensing technology developed by its researchers and staff.
That represents a nearly 50 percent increase from five years ago and the largest one-year jump since then.
But unless something drastic changes at other Big Ten schools, Ohio State won’t move up very far in the ranks of the conference’s tech commercialization champs.
In the prior year that ended June 30, 2016, Ohio State’s $2.66 million…

via Columbus Business News – Local Columbus News | Business First of Columbus
Ohio State tech licensing income tops $3M for first time, still low among Big Ten research schools