Brands enter the battleground of digital media, fighting for their most treasured prize: attention. With a near-nonexistent barrier to entry, existing in the digital arena requires little more than a WiFi connection and a laptop. However, competing and winning in the digital space requires creativity, technical understanding, and a multi-faceted strategy. Learn how leveraging innovative digital practices can make your brand essential for your customers’ lives.
1. Data-Informed Experiences Lead to Loyalty
There’s nothing better than feeling understood, and when the potential solution to your problem finds you, elation follows. In this case, it’s not a coincidence, it’s a synchronized blend of social science, technology, and strategy that makes it possible. Digital marketers can use data to bundle consumer behavior and preferences to identify trends and opportunities. Artificial intelligence can quickly identify patterns, including meta-data like customer location and search terms.
Expand upon your monthly metrics deck and step into a performance analytics process, where data guides decisions throughout your business. Performance data can inform your front line of potential queries, while marketing teams can craft ultra-effective campaigns. Production teams can also use performance data to determine how much to make of products to ensure ample supply. Consider partnering with one of the top marketing agencies to help identify and analyze the most actionable data for your specific business.
In collaboration with your agency, set goals for what level of personalization matches your goals. Develop personalized campaigns for each segment, positioning your offer in a way that calls the recipient to act. A new mother might respond best to a meal delivery service that promises to give her a break. Conversely, a senior may be inspired to buy when the offer promises to make aging in place easier. By personalizing your campaign through predictive analytics, you can increase your win percentage and earn loyal customers.
2. Authentic Storytelling Through Micro-Communities Enriches Experience and Breaks Through Algorithms
Storytelling is as old as human life, and for good reason: Stories bring people together. And while you can’t gather your customers around a campfire for story time, you can create a community. Leverage your performance data again to establish niche communities within native platforms. Brush up on your baseline social community knowledge and the current tools offered to brands. Expand your search outside of the core platforms, as micro-communities often flourish on other platforms.
Identify where these communities best fit within your brand and with your customer trends. Carhartt may have started as a workwear brand, but its appreciation by those in the skating community can’t be ignored. Here, leaning into what makes the brand appealing for this subset and showing up in their communities makes sense. Carhartt may show up in a Reddit thread dedicated to skateboarding tricks or partner with a micro-influencer. Consumer brands like this can also take on a personality that’s aligned with micro-communities, which helps build rapport.
Owned channels can peel back the curtain on the how and why of your brand, too. Think about what your customers might be interested in outside of the features and benefits of your product. Show behind-the-scenes content of how it’s made or, better yet, who made it. A member of your production line might be a terror on the half-pipe and, plot twist, she’s 60 years old. Now, your brand has a novel story to tell that connects the inner workings of your brand to its end user.
3. Interactive Opportunities Inspire Insights
Online, everyone has a voice, and while this open environment can lead to digital uproars, it can also inform decisions. At its core, this environment elevates the necessity of creating conversations with your customers. Old-school marketing is one-sided, with your brand touting how great it is and why consumers need it. Now, a healthy level of skepticism is in the midst, and proving your prowess requires a bit more effort. Lose some of the corporate walls by interacting with your customers in an authentic way.
Put your leaders out front and layer the storytelling strategy with a purposeful ask. Convey your commitment to helping your customers achieve their goals and ask them what you can do to help. A pillow-maker might seem to offer a straightforward product. However, with the goal of helping the world get better sleep, now there’s a conversation to be had. Run a poll to see what your customers’ biggest sleep problems are, gathering data and, if appropriate, offering solutions.
This strategy may return results based on a convenient sample, but this data can inform larger research investments. Your marketing partner can help you segment the results to determine what’s most actionable, but this tactic also drives engagement. Report back through social channels on what folks said and communicate what you’ll do next. If their input is being sent to research and development, bring them along the product development journey. When your final product is ready, let them test it, making a one-time quiz into a long-term customer relationship.
Invigorate Your Business With a Strategic Digital Marketing Solution
Rinse and repeat marketing practices need not apply here; in the digital age, flexibility and measured risks give you an edge. Test new strategies on known platforms, benchmarking prior performance to compare to your future results. Analyze new platforms to see if your brand could find its home there, even if competitors aren’t. You might surprise yourself, and your customers, presenting a fresh take on your brand’s offer that delivers results.
