Marketers today are finding they need to go beyond simply creating attention-grabbing and engaging content. They must also deliver a marketing message to customers and prospects at the right time and place. In this data-driven world, marketers need to make the most of the data associated with the slew of digital and offline channels at the consumer’s disposal. Is the data being utilized to its fullest extent?
Half the battle of delivering a timely marketing message is understanding which channels best engage your customers and which channels are driving ROI. It can be a challenge, but there are ways to help make the struggle easier.
Let’s dive into 4 tips to help you deliver the right marketing message to the right person at the right time.
Tip #1: Keep Your Content Fresh and Relevant
Depending on your audience and where they fall within the customer journey, your marketing message always needs to be relevant. No one wants to see the same tired and irrelevant messaging and creative over and over. From the blog posts and case studies on your website to your display ads and social media posts, your content needs to be updated regularly. The wrong message at the wrong time can be disastrous.
Take e-mail marketing for example: you want to watch out for automation hiccups. If a customer purchased insurance or opened a savings account with you, be sure to exclude them from your prospect distribution list. You don’t want to include them on emails with content geared towards your prospects. They no longer want to see emails offering discounts to new customers.
As consumers, we want to feel special. We don’t want to feel like a number, especially when we have a slew of options to choose from. Instead, we want content that’s relevant to each of us, and we want it at the right time.
Tip #2: Coordinate Content Across All Marketing Channels
We’re living in a connected world thanks to the technological advancements of smart devices to the IoT, which increases the need for omni-channel marketing to be more unified than ever. The consumer expects you to reach them through the variety of channels and devices that they use. They also expect you to do it in a manner that makes sense. Connecting all of these touchpoints is the only way you can move closer to keeping your marketing message fresh and timely.
Nordstrom does a great job creating a connected customer journey. You can add an item to your shopping cart on your smartphone as you’re out and about during the day, but you might delay the purchase because you get sidetracked with something else. Thankfully Nordstrom knows how to kindly remind you to come back. They’ll retarget you with mobile display ads on the browsers you search and even on Facebook, featuring a product from your shopping cart. If you added those products while logged into your account then they’re still going to be there when you go back to complete your purchase (even on a desktop). You’re also likely to get an abandoned cart email featuring those products.
To take it one step further, since you were shopping on your smartphone, you could also be re-targeted with ads featuring call extensions if you’re near a Nordstrom store. This would make sense, especially since 70% of mobile searchers will use click-to-call buttons in search ads to contact businesses.
Reaching consumers across channels and devices at the right time and place is the best way to ensure your marketing message is timely.
Tip #3: Service Your Customers Online and Offline
The marketing message doesn’t stop with digital. Consumers will call your business. Especially if they shop online using their smartphone and can’t find a product or have a question. Calling is a much easier way to convert from a smartphone. If your business displays ads driving people to call you, make sure those ads are timely.
For instance, if you’re using call extensions or call-only ads you’ll want to exclude them outside business hours. You don’t want to drive customers to call your business if no one is there to answer their call. How do you know when certain ads are driving calls to your business during certain times of the day? Call attribution technology. It helps you measure calls from your marketing, so you can make sure any marketing designed to drive calls is delivered at the right time. If you want run a promotion for a customer to call your business between 2-5pm to secure a special deal, then only run your call-only ads up until the deadline.
Another way to make the marketing seem more timely is through contextual call routing. You can quickly create a personalized experience while directing your calls to the agent that’s best suited to handle their needs. You can avoid bouncing your callers around from agent to agent, asking them to repeat themselves. This way, the experience feels seamless rather than chaotic and unorganized.
Tip #4: Measure the Right Data
Today’s consumer is heavily connected, informed, and mobile. Figuring out where and when to best reach them while optimizing your marketing budget is going to be challenge, but not impossible.
The consumer engages with products and services on a slew of digital and offline platforms. Your omni-channel marketing will need to seamlessly connect the consumer across all of these platforms, which will be possible when you bridge the data gap along their various paths to purchase. The more data at your disposal, the more you can shed light on the blind spots within your marketing strategy and accurately measure your ROI. How does one do this?
The obvious answer is to gather and integrate all the data from your digital channels into one platform that makes it easier to digest and analyze. The not-so-obvious answer is to also incorporate the offline data, such as phone calls, which for many industries convert to revenue 10-15x times faster than an online lead. If the phone call conversion is produced as a direct result of your digital programs then you’ll want to see your call conversion data alongside your digital data within your reports, like Google Adwords, Adobe Analytics, or Salesforce.
Tying all of your omni-channel programs together into one nice bow will require coordination and patience, but with the right tools, you’ll be able to grasp the full picture of your customer journey. You’ll know the right moments and times to push out the right message.
What Else Is There to Know?
Providing timely content from your digital marketing programs requires a proper prioritization of what data to measure across your entire team, from social to digital to customer service. Everyone should be involved in analyzing the data. It’s a team effort and, as such, the plan to move forward and optimize the customer journey needs to be collaborative.
Therefore, your marketing team and departments that engage with customers need to work together. It’s the only way you can create a seamless experience for the consumer that feels relevant and timely. Social media marketers can listen to your audience to understand their pain points and articulate those needs back to your customer service team, for example. Then they can anticipate a need and streamline messaging when appropriated. The digital team can attribute their marketing efforts to the proper channels and devices driving sales at specific times. The web team can update the website for the user that’s visiting. E-mail marketing can provide the right content to the right user.
Do you know if you have mobile marketing blind spots? Make sure you have all the data necessary to accurately optimize your ROI while reaching your customer at the right time and place. Check out our infographic on the mobile marketing blind spot today.