Provide meaningful value to your customer or risk losing them

In a world of information overload, brands will need to work hard to win the trust of their customers and to do so will require them to communicate with authenticity, warns Ansa Leighton, lead platform and media consultant at DQ&A, while speaking at the 5th episode of IAB’s Insight Series.

While it is vital to pay attention to the technology to deliver, measure and adjust advertising strategies, too many agencies and digital professionals are neglecting the quality of the content they are spending money on disseminating. More than that, they are failing when it comes to getting the right information to their potential customers at the right time, tailored to the most appropriate device.

Marketers no longer have the excuse to blast generic messaging to the masses in the hope that their brand will be seen and heard. This connected world along with the ubiquity of technology has revolutionised the consumer's journey. It is now a complex multi-moment environment leaving a trail with numerous, relevant, instants or moments where a brand could engage.

A Core.dna blog claims a lack of relevance can lead to an 83% decrease in engagement rates and rather boldly states that increasing personalisation can result in a 500% increase in consumer spending.

How do we get there?

We can no longer ignore data and a brand's ability to leverage data in order to anticipate their client's needs will define its ability to grow. However, data is only useful when there is context. It is important to consider where on the user's journey you will serve a particular piece of content. Moreover, you need to clearly define the objective of that piece of content at that particular point in the user's journey.

Let’s unpack this journey to conversion a little.

A user should be served content that will resonate with them based on the context of their engagement with your brand. We need to differentiate those who are familiar with your brand (known audience) versus those who are not, and then provide a seamless experience - no matter where they are or what device they are using.

The customer behaviour can be defined as "I want to know/go/do/buy" moments, which Google refers to as 'micro-moments'. At each 'moment', a relevant piece of content should be served in order for the message to resonate. In essence it is to give context to the user's journey.

To achieve any of this you must first understand who your customer is.

By consolidating your online and off-line data, then organising your data in such a way as to build an audience framework, based on the different audience signals, you are able to form the foundation of your media-strategy going forward.

This will allow you to consider which moments of engagement matters and what messaging or content is valuable to share and when.

Technology can help

We have done several proofs of concept where we work with GA360 and the Google Marketing Stack (GMP). As a first step Google groups your first party data into useful affinity and in-market audience segments. These segments, together with your conversion or engagement data, can be a strong indication of what your customers are interested in, and also what solutions, products or services they are searching for in-market.

By analysing the engagement behaviour on your site, as well as bounce rates, drop-off rates, and time-on-site stats, you will have useful metrics at hand when measuring the level of engagement on the website itself. It’s also worth remembering that lengthy conversion funnels tend to result in a serious decrease in volume from one step to another, so keep it short and to the point.

Client centricity or bust

We have moved into an era where data, algorithms and analytics rule, and marketers need to be trained to join the digital dots.

More than that, tracing those dots and making meaningful sense of them means seeing one consumer, one budget and therefore the need to have one measurement system across all marketing activities.

Using data to ensure transparency, relevance and personalisation has to be the gold standard we are striving towards. Digital marketing professionals need to deliver on these, or go back to the drawing board, rather than risk the potential damage of further alienating an attention-depleted consumer.

About IncuBeta

IncuBeta, through its brands, NMPi, DQ&A and Joystick, is a global integrated data, performance marketing, digital media, creative and technology group.

Since its inception in 1995 the group has expanded rapidly, acquiring several digital and media companies including Clicks2Customers in 2011, as well as UK-based NetMediaPlanet. It acquired global technology specialist, DQ&A, in 2015 and international digital creative specialist, Joystick, in 2018. The IncuBeta Group has access to over 400 digital marketing experts in 13 markets across five continents.