In this ruthless business world, it all starts and ends with your brand reputation. It is what gives strong businesses a boost and wields out those incapable of adapting to the ever-changing marketplace demands.
However, with the rise of the internet, the way your brand’s reputation is built has changed significantly.
Maybe there was a time in the past where your blood, sweat, and tears were enough to reach out to your target customers, drive them to your store, and persuade them to buy from you. You could book a billboard, send out a few leaflets, make a TV ad and you were golden.
In other words, investing in marketing was optional, but not obligatory.
Today, this is not so.
Your competition is rising at an astonishing rate. They are selling products similar to yours, targeting the same group of people, and even using the same acquisition channels. So, to set yourself apart as highly authoritative and grab your customers’ attention, you need to be unique.
Doing marketing is no longer about making the difference between the physical and the digital world. The VR and AR revolution is making the line between these approaches blurrier with each passing day. It’s not about having an awesome site or being present on social networks, either. These are just some of numerous inevitable steps you need to take if you want to survive.
A powerful marketing strategy revolves around getting to know your target audience, keeping pace with the industry trends, and merging all these techniques together to raise brand awareness. Above all, it’s about offering the outstanding and highly targeted user experience not to a bunch of your customers, but to a single customer.
That’s the basis of on-demand marketing.
The Omnichannel Approach
In the past, business owners focused on bringing their brand to multiple devices and making it as approachable as possible. However, with the inception of what we today call the hyperconnected world, the mere notion of the touchpoint has changed a lot.
Today, different customer acquisition channels shouldn’t be observed in a vacuum, as singular opportunities to connect, engage, and convert. On the contrary, you need to observe them as an intricate web of highly sophisticated and predictive options that allow you to deliver a personalized customer experience.
All devices, apps, platforms, ecommerce stores, websites, social networks, email marketing campaigns, content marketing techniques, and telemarketing efforts have been merged together, creating an inseparable whole and allowing you to shape your communication with your customer according to their liking.
The creation of this holistic approach allows you to reshape your sales funnel and make it more powerful. With it, you will be able to lead your customers from the awareness to the decision-making phase almost effortlessly.
Most importantly, it has never been simpler to move your customers from physical to digital and vice versa.
Just take an example of quick response (QR) codes that can be implemented with your business cards, direct mail, storefront displays, or even your promotional products. Once the user scans your code, it will take them to the desired destination in a matter of seconds, be it your product page, another dedicated landing page, Facebook page, etc.
Another perfect example of this omnichannel communication is your contact information. Today’s customers are tech-savvy. They don’t want to waste their time on finding your phone number on your site and then switching between apps to call you. They want to do so instantly and, by making your phone number clickable, you will take their interaction with your brand to the next level.
Finally, your different online acquisition channels are intertwining, as well. For example, social networks give your customers the chance to find out about your brand, engage with it online, participate in discussions about it, and connect with you in real-time via chat. Most importantly, if executed properly, your social media campaign will guide your customers through different stages of your sales funnel, towards your website and making a purchase.
Offering the Element of Surprise
When it comes to your customers’ expectations, the bar is constantly getting set higher. Once you do your target audience segmentation and start tracking the way they engage with your brand and make purchases, you will have a detailed idea of what they expect of you. But, apart from constantly striving to meet their needs, you should also give them something they wouldn’t expect, even in their wildest dreams.
Perfecting this element of surprise is one of the most prominent aspects of on-demand marketing. Focused on all the personal data about your customers you need to examine and analyse, this approach can help you build a strong relationship with your target audience, turn them into your loyal customers, and retain them.
Now, your efforts can be as simple as providing custom promotional products, giving out personalized visa gift cards upon signing a contract or sending an exclusive piece of content once they sign up for your site.
Of course, the main purpose of these techniques is not always to sell, but to establish yourself as a trustworthy, boost your performance, and offer customised solutions, tailored to the needs of every individual. This is why building customer personas, doing customer segmentation, social media listening and observing your customers’ shopping habits serve as an invaluable source of information.
Delivering an Exceptional User Experience
The omnichannel communication mentioned above gives you the opportunity to provide your customers with the outstanding user experience.
You should never forget that we live in the mobile-first era and, to survive in this highly oversaturated marketplace, you need to adapt your digital marketing efforts to it.
Since in this field of marketing, your website is your first and last line of defence, you need to make it highly interactive. And, the only way to do so is to adopt the so-called responsive design.
Now, you’re probably thinking: “Well, my site has been optimized for mobile, so I’m good.” Unfortunately, you’re not right.
A mobile-friendly design and a responsive design are not the same. Like its mere name says, a mobile-ready design is used to make a user’s mobile search experience more effective. It is created for mobile devices only and it looks the same on all types of screens.
On the other hand, there is a whole philosophy behind the responsive design. Namely, this design is intelligent, fluid, and highly flexible and it gets modified according to the device used. In a way, it is created to make every stage of your browsing experience impeccable. You can start your search on your laptop, continue it on your desktop, and then switch to your tablet, without coming across any obstacles.
Now, keep in mind that your mobile users are handling a much smaller screen space. They want the sight, sound, and media options to be tailored to them. And, that’s exactly what you should provide them with. Here are a few golden rules of responsive design you should keep in mind:
- Make your navigation simpler and touch-friendly.
- Offer expendable content.
- Make your customers’ reviews and testimonials easy to spot.
- Make payment options prominent.
- Have a large and visually appealing CTA.
- Make your contact forms easy-to-fill in.
- Make sure there is a lot of white space and never write your content in blocks.
- Give your page load speed a boost by using compression, lowering the size of your photos, cutting redirects. You should also consider turning to Google’s AMPs, which are one of the hottest trends right now.
Bringing Value with Personalized Content
You invest a great deal of time and effort in creating super-informative content, optimizing it for search engines, and promoting it online. However, your clicks, views, shares, and conversions stand still, while your bounce rates grow.
What’s the problem, then?
Well, maybe your content isn’t engaging enough.
Creating a 500-word article is a walk in a park for every experienced marketer. You add a bit of a fluff text, a couple of keywords, and a few external/internal links and that’s it. But, that’s not enough.
In this case, this would mean that you’re writing content for search engines and not for your visitors. And, it’s visitors that matter more, remember?
This is why you need to focus on custom content, the one that engages.
Start by creating your customer personas. Know their preferences, needs, and worries. Create content tailored to them.
Let’s say you’re a digital marketing agency. In this case, your clients would be Marry the digital marketer, Larry a small business owner, Barry the SEO enthusiast, and so on. So, your content needs to be valuable to each of them.
Experiment with different types of content, such as:
- Infographics
- Data-backed case studies and white papers
- Quizzes
- Extensive guides
- Videos
- Photos
- Gifs and memes
Apart from writing new content, you can also repurpose your old one. Turn a ragged article into a gorgeous infographic or merge a few small articles on similar topics into an informative and click-worthy guide.
Building a Consistent Brand
What’s the aim of doing digital marketing?
Jumping high in the SERPs? Maybe.
Boosting your traffic? Maybe.
Generating more leads and turning them into conversions? Maybe.
But, all this is impossible if you don’t invest in raising people’s awareness of your brand.
You need to be authentic and recognizable. You need to stand for quality and to inspire. Most importantly, you need to be consistent.
But, how can you achieve this brand consistency?
Well, you need to integrate it with every aspect of your marketing campaign.
Start with your site. Have a unique logo and add it to your content. Use the same colours and fonts throughout your website. Instead of stock photos, create your own ones. When it comes to publishing content, have a detailed content calendar and stick to it. Dedicate each day to a different type of content. For example, you can share infographics on Mondays, articles on Wednesdays, and guides on Fridays. Your readers will love to know what to expect.
The same goes for your social networks. They’re an immensely important asset in your branding toolbox. Every platform serves a different purpose and you should know that. Use Instagram to share inspirational quotes and photos from some major events you participated in. Twitter should be a perfect place for updating your target audience with the hottest news and your latest content, while Facebook is where you should humanize your brand and let your customers meet the people behind your brand. When sharing photos, make sure you use the same filters, colours, and patterns.
Finally, make your customer services highly personalized. Use social media monitoring tools to stay on top of your brand and product mentions and answer all your customers’ questions. Also, check your email and Facebook regularly and respond your customers in real-time. When chatting with them, always use the same tone, voice and language. If you want to use emojis memes, or hashtags, then use them all the time.
Conclusions
Never forget that your every digital marketing tactic, every communication channel, and every decision is purpose-driven. Its aim is to help you build and nurture stronger relationships with your target audience and turn them into loyal customers.
You’re not writing content, sharing posts on Facebook, or building links for Googlebot. You’re doing so for people. This is what on-demand marketing is about.
