Always-on Marketing… always effective

Always-on marketing, as defined by Dr. Dave Chaffey, is “a planned approach to scheduling and optimizing continuous marketing activities which support customer acquisition and retention. These activities aim to maximize visibility and persuasion through the customer lifecycle.” Below are 5 of the most important things a brand needs to know about this very effective marketing technique.

Know Your Customer
Every brand, every product has a key persona that it is trying to attract or retain. Likes and tastes can change at the drop of a hat, and it’s extremely important as marketers that we understand what these likes, wants, and needs are at all times. When we know what our customers wants, we can then craft our messages to touch the customer in the way we want.

Tell Your Story
People don’t want to hear about your product’s specifications. They want to hear HOW your product has impacted someone. They want a story. When crafting a message, whether it’s an ad, a social media post, or a website, it’s important to show how your brand is touching lives, not just how well it does the job it’s intended to do.

Be Ready!
Life moves at lightning speed these days, and so should your marketing. This ties very much with the first point of knowing your customer. When we can anticipate their moves we can also meet them at different points of their customer journey with content that will make an impact. It’s also important to always be ready so we can handle anything that can negatively impact your brand.

Keep it Personal
Personalization is more than just including a customer’s name in an email. With the abundance of big data at our disposal, it’s easier to now personalize our messaging to our consumers. Keep in mind however, that privacy concerns can limit just how personal we can get, but in the end, when we can tailor our messages with more personalized key points, we can engage our customers on a better level.

Embrace Technology
Social media is key in always-on marketing. It’s the best tool we have to gauge customer sentiment and to keep tabs on what our consumers want and need. It also serves as the best way to address their issues or concerns immediately. As we all know, customer service is an incredibly important part of the customer experience and should not be ignored when creative integrated marketing campaigns for our brands.

Marketing in a 24/7, Always-On World is very hard to do, but the advantages are well worth the effort.