IN OUR HEADS
December 02, 2022
No brand is immune to the shiny object syndrome. It can be tempting to dive into whatever new tactic is being used to reach a target audience. While some trendy approaches will admittedly drive results, far too many are nothing more than distractions that ultimately lead to wasted spend. Worse yet, these new tactics don’t always align with the business, its problems, or its customer base — and could result in some damage to your brand reputation.
Precision marketing always centers around the customer first. Though this should go without saying, it’s critical for marketing agencies to understand the customer, understand the uniqueness of each segment, and recognize its key challenges in the journey if they ever hope to improve conversion rates. Only then can they craft the right strategies and develop the high-impact content necessary to reach customers at various points along their journeys.
Agencies also need to keep a close eye on technology. Digital marketing that drives results often relies heavily on a unique set of tools, and an agency should work on how to best leverage such technology to create a unified experience for the brand and customer alike. It shouldn’t be about adding yet another touchpoint to the mix. Instead, the goal is to determine how the technology might best improve the experience and drive business results.
What Is Critical for Marketing to Have Future Success?
For any marketing initiative to be successful, there needs to be an intersection of data, technology, and creative. But not just any creative — one that puts the prospect at the center. The creative is the driver to get the prospect to take action. If you don’t speak directly to that person (or company), address the friction points found in the data, and address a specific problem, the interaction will be lost. It won’t provide the intended results.
In the recruitment space, for example, simply understanding the friction point of taking the next step — and then serving up personalized content to incentivize action — has delivered a lift of up to 21% for our clients. The same has been true for fundamentally understanding how a business works and where there might be a natural tension between marketing efforts and sales efforts. When we’re able to drive alignment between both groups, conversions have increased by two times.
What Are the Keys to Marketing Success?
So what are the keys to success in marketing? In our experience, it often comes down to three intertwined components:
- Strong analytics practice
When it comes to digital marketing that drives results, data influences decisions — or at least it should. Problem is, it can be difficult for companies to make sense of the data and how the information might apply to the business. Strong data analytics helps shape a picture of the prospect, extract preferences, and unearth behaviors essential to marketing, messaging, and business in general. It creates value.
- Customer-centered design
The customer should be at the center of the journey. It’s the customer who is making the decision to spend their hard-earned dollars with a brand. While the journey will vary from one customer to the next, and while it’s not always linear in nature, it is our job to make the journey as frictionless as possible to get the best possible business results.
- Marketing automation
With advances in technology, prospects have grown accustomed to personalized messaging and customer experiences tailored to their distinct needs. It’s really the only form of digital marketing that drives results these days. Technology teams need to understand how to deliver on this promise, using a combination of data and dynamic creative to make every brand interaction come to life.
Precision marketing is all about understanding the brand and the customer. Each party provides direction for the marketing efforts. They tell us what challenges are on the path to a purchase, as well as where we can optimize the messaging and streamline the journey to drive the desired results.
