This time of year tends to be a time of reflection, when we make resolutions to build on our past successes and change our bad habits. My resolution this year, at least in terms of this blog, is to keep offering valuable information about marketing and lead generation, and to be open to experimenting a little bit in order to keep things interesting! What I usually do in these blog posts is drill down into an infographic, and explore all of the information that it shares. Today, I’d like to change things up a bit, and briefly look at three different infographics that all touch on the same theme: online communication. One covers personalization in online marketing, another talks about trends in online behaviours, and the third tackles those dreaded communication blunders. Hopefully, looking at this issue from a few different perspectives will offer you some great insights to apply to your own business!
Work on Your Personalization Efforts
91% of marketers are looking to personalization as a way to improve customer experience over the next year, but so far only 16% of them are able to deliver real-time, behavior-based marketing across their channels. 40% of consumers are disinterested in (or have opted out of) marketing promotions that aren’t relevant to their interests. Almost that many just delete most of the email offers they receive, without even reading them! Using multiple, siloed data sources makes it difficult to really get a clear view of a customer, which can stop a company from really offering consistently relevant customer experiences. 70% of marketers found much better results when using data collected from a single-customer database, which also makes it easier to use real-time marketing across multiple channels. Is it worth the investment to change your marketing strategy and tools? Well, 66% of consumers say that they are more likely to buy a product or service when provided with personalized offers or content!
Take Online Behaviours Into Account
It’s important to stay up-to-date on online trends in order to make the best use of technology for marketing. Your best bet in terms of social media marketing can change depending on your location in the world. For instance, Japan and Venezuela have high rates of Twitter usage, while LinkedIn is extremely popular in the Netherlands.
The shift to mobile devices is a real trend – An AddThis study using the data of over 2 billion users worldwide found that 54% of them were using mobile rather than desktop devices. But users may use different devices for different purposes. As an example, in the US, people are more likely to use a desktop for business, career, or education content, and a mobile device while looking at or sharing websites related to parenting, entertainment, and religion.
Beware Common Communication Mistakes
No one wants their company to be associated with an embarrassing gaffe on social media. Not only does it look bad for the company, but it may even affect their reputation and sales. 29% of businesses and consumers have switched vendors because of a communication blunder. Communication is important for relationships with prospects, clients, and your own team – most lessons can be applied across the board from lead generation campaigns to in-office communications.
Some common mistakes:
- Sending communications that don’t seem respectful of privacy
- Responding too slowly
- Sending irrelevant information
- Using a one-size-fits-all approach
- Using an over-familiar tone
- Being too repetitive
- Failing to proofread or edit
- Responding emotionally instead of calmly and professionally
A good online marketing approach is a holistic one that puts some work into making the content relevant, accessible, interesting, respectful, and customized. Does your business have a new year’s resolution for its marketing strategy? Let me know in the comments.
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