These are interesting times. An open letter to the Modern Marketer…
Hey marketer,
What’s marketing today if not a cat & mouse game between you and your customer? Today, you’re having to chase your customer to pay attention to you, it’s not like the old days of mass media. Advertising works but only when backed up by a solid customer engagement strategy. Lo & behold, what just happened?
Madtech. That’s what.
Madtech = martech + adtech.
Madtech happened when the worlds of advertising, technology, and marketing collided in a sort of big bang, and everything changed. Madtech is about hyper-personalisation and conversational marketing, but most importantly, madtech is about walking alongside the consumer. You can do this only when you know who she is and what does she want.
As a result, advertisers and marketers cannot afford to be working in silos, being on separate teams is out of question. Integrating advertising, marketing, and sales is today’s mantra to achieve your marketing goals. Your customer has moved from being a passive target of your messages to a place where she expects you to reach out to her at the time, platform, and channel of her preference, with the right offer. You are expected to deliver on this with the use of technology: analytics, AI/ML, and chatbots are hot on your heels.
Time is short. Tech is flying. Times are achanging.
Given the situation, your marketing must evolve into Integrated Marketing. Here’s how:
Go Mobile: You see, 51% of all digital ad budgets in 2016 were spent on Mobile (A https://www.iab.com/insights/iab-internet-advertising-revenue-report-conducted-by-pricewaterhousecoopers-pwc-2/ PwC report). An advertiser should know that this is where we need to take our messages; a marketer should know that this is where the customer is. Emails are great. Add Browser Push Notifications to your marketing mix and use these to target and re-target your customer. Not to be pushing the point but the average smartphone conversion rates are up to 64% compared to the average desktop conversion rates (https://www.hottopics.ht/14471/what-is-madtech-and-why-should-you-care/ ) . BPNs ensure a much wider reach because the use of browsers is far wider than any particular app.
Get close to your consumer – focus on conversations: Consumers have increasingly become sceptical of paid advertising – 11% of the global population on the internet is blocking ads (https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/ ) – and respond a lot better to personalised engagement over digital platforms, social media, chats, via influencers, review websites, etc. Your customer wants authentic conversations. To do this well, use a reliable marketing automation software to plot their journeys across all touchpoints using a multi-channel approach. Then, use the data to build detailed profiles, and tailor your messages to suit these.
Be a good friend – with a lean & mean strategy: 70% of buying experiences are based on how your consumer feels they are being treated (McKinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/the-moment-of-truth-in-customer-service ). Your consumer’s comfort level with you will go up if you do not bombard them with unnecessary, irrelevant, repetitive, and/or boring communication that sucks their time and/or patience. Instead, do:
- Give them a choice about how you’d like to engage, how often, and where
- Help them with information they need; update your sites often and well.
- Respond quickly on appropriate channels – the days of the customer coming to you are gone
- Make your communication easy and interesting
- Take every engagement opportunity seriously because the world is watching you
Want proof? Look at Amazon or Facebook: Amazon is known for putting the customer first, while Facebook recently changed its news feed algorithm to cut out fake news even as its user-base eroded significantly for the first time since its inception.