In the marketing industry everyone preaches about being proactive over reactive. You want to be on top of the game and know the most up and coming, trendy things happening. You should be on Pinterest for business before Pinterest was even on using it for business, right? As a marketer, I’m here to do my job and implement the strategy that I worked hard to create. I read my daily dose of articles and learn as much as I can about all the new tools and ideas out there.
At some point however you have to accept that life throws curveballs and as much as you try to be innovative or at the very least keep up with the times, things change. This is where the idea of responsive marketing comes in. To understand responsive marketing think about what responsive means in terms design first- creating a page that behaves differently depending on what size screen you’re using. Now take that concept and apply it to marketing- responsive marketing is building processes and strategies that behave differently depending on audience and clients. Essentially, you have to be proactive with your strategy but also reactive to your audience analytics and your client’s needs.
How a marketing agency implements responsive marketing
As an agency, we enjoy creating inbound marketing strategies for all different types of clients. And one of the pillars of our strategy is that they are completely customized. We look at your current website, content, and goals then we identify what’s working and what isn’t. Then we contextualize our services with your business and suggest a customized implementation of services. This strategy is put together to solve your business’ problems and push you forward in your industry in a dynamic and attentive way.
That’s how we start out with our strategy but in order to make it responsive you have to keep an eye on all the areas and channels you could get feedback from. This could be anything from social media interactions and blog comments to direct customer complaints and internal restrictions of the business (like time and technology). It’s important to always be checking on these things and taking information and analytics to understand how best to manage them.
Let’s look at an example. Say you work for a brand like Nike. Obviously you want to capitalize on current events and you are well aware that the World Cup is fast approaching. You’re going to check your social media channels, see what everyone is saying about the World Cup and try to be part of the conversation. You’re reacting to the fact that your audience wants to celebrate and learn about the World Cup and that’s the place you should be. It’s less about what product to push on your customers and more about what conversation to be a part of.
It’s all about satisfaction
The big synonym for responsive marketing could be satisfaction marketing. You want to show your customers and/or clients that your number one goal is their satisfaction. And all of that can be done by setting up a strategy and then monitoring the channels. If you’re not monitoring, then you’re missing out a big chunk of information on how to satisfy your customers.
The thing about inbound marketing is that it’s ongoing and involves a lot of analytics and adjustments. Having a strategy that isn’t responsive means missed conversations and lost leads. Staying on top of the conversation and providing customer satisfaction as part of your strategy will prove to be beneficial at growing your business.
