05 Jan Adaptive Content: Personalizing Your Customer Outreach
Posted at 09:06h
in Integrated Marketing
By Nick Rojas
The name of the game in today’s marketing is personalization. Interactions with modern audiences are more successful and meaningful when they are personalized across multiple channels. This has become increasingly important in recent years, as 94% of companies say that personalization is a vital component of their success.
All businesses and revenue models can be influenced by personalization. One important thing that changes with personalization is content. We live in a multi-screen world where 90% of the media interactions today are screen-based. Content needs to be multi-channel and adaptive to meet these modern needs.
Why does content need to be adaptive? Context and personalization are crucial to success in a multi-screen, multi-channel world. Content needs to changed based on where the user is, who they are, and what they are doing. Customer expectations for businesses evolve as new technologies become more commonplace and available to the average consumer. They rely heavily on mobile devices to aid in their decision-making process - in fact, 48% of shoppers want to be able to use their phones while shopping. Adaptive content allows brands to meet customer needs as they evolve, and many of these needs relate to the growing popularity and adoption of mobile devices and technology.
And why, do you ask, do I need a photo of a mad scientist in the 2015 Marketing Plan? Here is where we begin to think about how we'll test the efficacy of our marketing programs. For most entrepreneurs and small businesses - well, for most people really - we mainly just look at sales. Did we sell more or didn't we?
If you wait that long until you review your results you could be dead in the water. Waiting until the end game means that you hold your breath, click your heels three times and hope your marketing works by looking at your numbers every three months or so. Yeah, that's pretty stupid...and why most people hate marketing.
Instead you've got to test your results - and you have to test at the tactic level. And in order to do that, you have to decide if the tactic has contributed to the strategy. You've done enough work now to know that your strategies are pretty solid. So here is where you put the guarantee into your marketing plan.
Take the 2014 tactics you want to keep - and you know they're good because a) they contribute to a chosen strategy and b) they were effective (3 or more). Add the new tactics you've chosen. And then write down how you'll know if they worked and when you'll check. Here are our tactic examples again, with the test criteria added. What you're really measuring here are the conversions that lead you to your best customer and ultimately to more sales -