It is has been scientifically proven that humans respond best to situations that include their own name– we’re an egotistical bunch, aren’t we? And with algorithms to battle, SEO strategies to implement and online customers to convert (in a pool that is flooded with competitive advertisers) personalised marketing in a digital world has never been more important.
Hubspot reports that “Nearly three-fourths (74%) of online consumers get frustrated by websites with content (e.g. offers, ads, promotions) that has nothing to do with their interests.
Get inspired – learn from the brand masters
In 2013 revolutionists Coca-Cola was the first to create a personalised marketing campaign and take it to the next level; consumers went crazy for customised coke bottles, which were purchased 150 million times and generated 998 million impressions on Twitter.
Fast forward five years later, where online advertising is at the forefront of marketing; businesses are ditching print methods for technology to push out personalised marketing campaigns – take Channel 4’s ground-breaking Alien Covenant TV ad that used watchers’ registration data to include viewers in its trailer; clever stuff.
David Amodio, Channel 4’s digital and creative leader said: “The most attention-grabbing word for anyone to hear is, without doubt, one’s own name, so to be able to offer advertisers the chance to speak directly to our millions of viewers is not just unique, but an immensely powerful marketing tool which adds even more value to All 4’s increasingly personalised experience.”
With social platforms and search engines favouring communications that are driven by expenditure, online marketing can be costly, so make sure it’s worth your buck. Ensure your adverts aren’t being viewed as spam. Reach the right audiences by maximising data capture. Generate engagement. Sell products. Give your brand a voice.
Direct messages to consumers via Social Media
Facebook’s Ads Manager allows businesses to re-target consumers who have previously shown interest / engaged with a product or service and have not necessarily been converted into buyers. Here’s how you can use your collected data to tailor your marketing and accumulate revenue.
- Use customer data from ticket sales and sign up forms to target (or re-target) consumers using Facebook’s Ads Manager. To do this import a CVS or TXT document – containing your captured customer email addresses – to create a Custom Audience. *Create an ad with this Custom Audience, ensuring your expenditure is relevant to the audience size – if your audience size is populated with an amount larger than 200,000, then you will need to allow for a budget of about £30+ per day.
- Similarly, you can create a Custom Audience with the users who have visited your website in the last 365 days. *This is available if you’ve installed a conversion pixel, linking your Facebook page to your website.
- Target consumers who’ve engaged with your videos or are ‘interested’ / ‘attending’ your Facebook event. This is particularly advantageous if you’ve multiple pages, or have pushed out various events in the past. Target audiences who’ve engaged with any of your pages or events that are linked under the one account – if a user has shown interest in your accountancy page, they may love your business marketing page too.
- Run multiple social media campaigns simultaneously as ‘dark’ posts, to appeal to many different audiences at once. Dark posts are posts that aren’t published to your timeline, meaning you can sneakily reach out to conflicting audiences – adapting your message each time – off the radar. To do this, head to Ads Manager, create an unpublished post, and then create a sponsored ad from said post – when creating the initial post, ensure the box ‘Publish to Timeline’ is not checked.
- Create lookalike audiences using Ad’s Manager to reach new customers that fit similar criteria to the consumers you’ve already been marketing to. Again, you’re able to adjust the tone of your post where appropriate and alter the cause of action. For example, you may want to prompt a new audience to ‘sign up’ to your services, as opposed to purchase a product (giving them the chance to learn more before they buy). To do this, simply click the Create Audience drop-down in Ads Manager, and choose Lookalike Audience, there you can select your Custom Audience source (the audience you’re paralleling).
A Marketing Masterclass with Tesco – give your brand a voice
Customers talk to people, not brands. Take a leaf out of Tesco Mobile’s book for instance! Notorious for their social media sass, the network operator has been known to cause up a stir and pick up thousands of retweets from adding a sprinkle of personality to their customer replies.
Cleverly refraining from highlighting an issue or discrepancy, Tesco defend their brand with a tongue-and-cheek response that is personal, hilarious and engaging – #marketingmasterclass
Are your Email Subject lines tempting enough?
E-blasts are often under-looked, especially by small businesses, and play a huge part in giving consumers a nudge during their browsing time on the net. To keep content regular is a given –weekly e-blasts are encouraged – but ensure your subject lines are provocative enough to increase open rates; things just got personal!
According to Experian, personalized marketing emails received 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click-through rates than those without.
“71% of mobile purchases are influenced by emails from the retailer” – (Adobe)
Using merge tags to customize subject lines with recipients’ names or locations is an impactful tactic that works particularly well when combined with targeted automation such as birthday deals and post-purchase follow-ups. Top tip: post-delivery, organise your databases into segments, whereby you can clearly distinguish between the consumers who’ve already received post-purchase ‘Thank you’ emails and those who haven’t – if consumers are overloaded with e-blasts they may be inclined to opt-out.
Are you engaging with your consumers on a personal level? Put our tips and tricks to the test to boost interaction, open rates and revenue.
