MARKETING

Regenerate compelling customer experience through effective digital marketing

Dec 19, 2019

GianChrister Tome
International Marketing
PCCW Solutions

In a world where consumers are constantly connected and flooded with digital clutter, marketers need to rethink their digital marketing strategies in order to capture the right audience and deliver the correct message across all channels. Based on Gartner report by 2020, executives predict nearly half of their revenue will be allocated to digital marketing while 56% of CEOs have seen their digital marketing innovations improve profits 1. With the ever-evolving development of disruptive technologies, digital marketing strategies need to adapt best practises to provide a complete and holistic customer experience.

Targeting the right audience

Every digital marketing campaign needs to correctly identify one important factor to be successful: target audience. Targeting the right set of audience is extremely crucial to the success of any business as marketing has always been about connecting with the right audience in the right place and at the right time. Most importantly, businesses would be able to identify the challenges and needs of their target audience while building the audience persona to be able to build compelling digital marketing campaigns.

In building the overall audience persona, there are three main factors to consider: demographics, psychographics – which relates to consumer’s habits, hobbies, values etc., and technographic – which relates to the technology adoption and usage habits of the customer 2. These factors will help in defining the persona along the customer journey, enabling marketers to understand core customer segments to create targeted messaging for each group as well as discover improvements and opportunities to create better customer engagement.

Content personalisation is a must

As technology continues to expand its influence and create new digital channels for customers to consume information, companies need to be highly creative in delivering their message based on what customers want and in the channel they most likely use, notably through mobile devices. This remains a strong reason that the content only succeeds if delivered according to the consumer requirements. A study showed that approximately 70% of people spent their digital media time using their smartphones 3. Content should also be personalised beyond mobile devices, touch points like websites, web/mobile apps, and direct mails are channels that should contain fresh contents relevant to the target audience.

Done right, content personalisation not only enhances customer experience, but also further increases engagement and brand loyalty, resulting to increase in revenue and cross selling opportunities. This is why recent findings revealed that 83% of marketing leaders and C-level executives increased their investments in personalisation efforts with 32% pointing to a significant budget increase 4.

Prioritise analytics-driven marketing

Data analytics is considered to be an important element for marketers to consider in creating campaigns. This is what empowers them to fully understand customer behaviour and where to channel their digital marketing campaigns effectively to minimise costs while maximising audience coverage. Powered by AI, analytics deliver critical customer data for companies to better understand client behaviour and specific needs.

Analytics-driven marketing is the future of digital marketing campaigns to make data-driven decisions and strategies. Backed up with the right set of technology tools, it empowers the overall digital strategy, improves overall business process, and saves time and money to stay competitive. This is why studies showed that 64% of executives strongly agree that analytics-driven marketing provides a competitive edge in deciding on how to compete with other companies 5.

Focus on video content

Video is considered to be a highly effective form of content companies use to reach their customers. In fact, 83% of marketers believe that video is becoming increasingly important, which signals the start of companies using it as part of their digital marketing strategies for 2020 and onwards 6. Video content can be created just by using simple recording tools such as smart phones, what makes it relevant is that it should be entertaining, informative, and story-driven, which are things that consumers can relate.

Most of the videos that companies produce can range from product demos, customer testimonials, instructional content and explainers relevant to customers. With its easy accessibility through mobile devices, built-in value, and highly viral nature, video content is the future of effective digital marketing. Creating visual stories that customers can relate to is the most intelligent strategy to achieve effective marketing content. Customers always wish to feel great about their choices, and with video content done right, is an incredible way to create this engaging feeling.

Drive social media presence

Social media and customers have become intertwined with each other. Customers live and breathe their lives within the social media world that companies expand their presence through these channels in reaching their target audience to reinforce their brand and eventually increase sales. Based on studies, 90% of all marketers say social media has increased their business exposure, where in 66% of them who spend at least 6 hours on social per week have seen more leads 7.

It is an essential way to validate your brand story and gather important customer insights by implementing effective social listening tools. If done right, companies would be able to track content that generates the most interest, engagement rates on social posts made, and track conversions through lead ads to find out the type of audience to engage for better customer interaction.

Outsourcing that works

Companies do acquire services to digital marketing agencies since some businesses doesn’t have their own in-house digital marketing team or in some cases, their marketing team doesn’t have the proper skill set. This is crucial to have considering that technology and customers are evolving and changing. It is then logical to outsource digital marketing strategies to an agency with the right set of expertise and experience.

In choosing the right digital marketing agency, companies should understand the services and solutions the agency offers in accordance with what they want to achieve in order to come up with the right strategy. Most importantly, the agency should have expertise in implementing best practise digital marketing platforms to help companies grow their business online.

Right digital marketing is key to business success

Digital marketing is a challenging discipline because it is always changing and requires marketers to think outside the box for unique ways to interact with their target audiences. With the technology ever evolving, companies should adapt and incorporate digital marketing platforms to stay competitive. The businesses that survive are the companies that develop a deep level of understanding for their customers’ needs and continue to provide new innovative solutions through technology to create better customer experience.

1 https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2017-04-24-gartner-survey-shows-42-percent-of-ceos-have-begun-digital-business-transformation
2 https://digitalmarketingphilippines.com/digital-marketing-how-to-discover-and-reach-your-online-target-audience-infographic/
3 https://marketingland.com/mobile-now-accounts-nearly-70-digital-media-time-comscore-210094
4 https://martechseries.com/sales-marketing/customer-experience-management/new-soda-study-reveals-significant-increase-customer-personalization-budgets-despite-lag-capabilities/
5 https://www.business2community.com/marketing/data-driven-marketing-tops-list-of-priorities-for-55-marketers-today-02252580
6 https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-platforms/video-marketing/video-marketing-trends-2020/
7 https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics#Social%20Media