Today’s marketing is highly focused and highly targeted. Truly successful campaigns first know who their consumers are and how they are going to want to connect with the brand. The marketing is only then developed to meet the needs of the consumer and to deliver relevant content to each consumer at an appropriate time. Individual marketing or Consumer connected marketing is a key element we all must become more in tune with to succeed in this new era of marketing.
Individuality In The New Era Of Marketing
by Bart Heilbron
CEO & Founder
BlueConic
Consumers have more options than ever. They can explore the Internet to find the product or service that’s right for them, and during this process they expect an experience catered to their specific needs, no matter the device or channel they’re searching on.
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS:
- A happy customer usually leads to a loyal customer that spends more over the long term.
- It’s important to understand what devices visitors are on, and how often and on what devices they return.
- Brands that can understand individual behavior are leading the marketing charge.
So how can you, as a marketer, break through the clutter and connect with consumers on your own (first-party) channels?
It’s no secret that delivering relevant, personalized content throughout a customer’s journey is an important way to build relationships, but many marketers don’t realize they need to deploy this strategy on their own channels, including their desktop and mobile Web sites, social channels, and mobile apps. In fact, according to a recent survey fielded by BlueConic to more than 15,000 marketing professionals in the U.S. and Europe, only 34 percent of marketers are targeting content catered for a specific individual on their own channels.
What follows is a look at the ways in which CMOs can implement and deliver an individualized cross-channel, cross-campaign experience to build loyal customers.
Why Individualized Marketing Is Important
As marketers, it’s obvious that the more targeted and personal you can get with your messages, the easier it is to convert prospects to customers. Data supports this theory: According to BlueConic’s survey, brands that are using online engagement tools are seeing real results, including an average of 30 to 100 times more clicks, 60 to 70 percent greater conversion rates, and 50 percent increase in revenue.
In addition to driving conversions, delivering the right content to a consumer keeps him satisfied with his experience with a specific brand. A happy customer usually leads to a loyal customer that spends more over the long term.
Now that you know why personalization is important, it’s time to take the right measures to prepare for the implementation. The first is goal-setting. Do you know exactly what you’d like to accomplish by delivering individualized content to each of your customers, regardless of the device or channel? For example, hotels that want to find customers to book rooms will likely have different goals than car companies looking to promote their latest cars in a longer sales cycle. Understanding what exactly you want from the delivery of your individualized content will set you up for success.
Once goals are set, the next step is to determine the right technology partner that can help you deploy the right process, use case, or campaigns. Can the company easily collect and store customer data in a format that works for you? Can the vendor scale quickly and easily? Do you need IT involvement? How quickly can you start and see your ROI? These are all important questions to consider before getting started.
Steps For Implementation
Now it’s time to get to work. Web analytic tools enable organizations to measure sales and gain fresh insights on how visitors reach, interact with, and spend at their Web sites. But does an analytical tool understand if a person is a customer or just a visitor? And, if it does have this knowledge, how could that immediately effect what you offer this person?
It’s also important to understand what devices these visitors are on, and how often and on what devices they return. That can’t happen unless you identify and build a profile for each person who does visit your Web site. If you don’t know someone has already been to your site (perhaps from a different device than he is now), the journey has to start over–clearly not an ideal experience for any customer.
Enabling the building of individual profiles is something you would deploy first, ahead of implementing the right process, use case, or campaign. Deploying cross-channel engagement is just a matter of connecting channels to these individual profiles. If a person switches channels, the process or campaign will not start over again. It will continue on the channel the person is in at that moment.
Once a system is set into motion, it’s important to continue monitoring and engaging with customers throughout the entire customer journey, whether that spans months or years.
Brands that can understand individual behavior and know the actual state of the individual at any moment throughout the buying process are leading the marketing charge. They will deliver the most enriched customer experiences and, ultimately, become the most successful companies.
TPG Social Media