Marketing Optimization for Building Better Customers

Today’s businesses are more concerned about acquiring better customers, a segment that sustains the repeat business of a company. But the ground reality for the companies is that these customers are not acquired shortly. This requires a comprehensive customer engagement process. From attracting customers to the business to nurturing their expectations across the customer life cycle needs huge marketing efforts. As new channels of communication are evolving, the marketing department is getting the heat of channel optimization. For example, if some customers are eager to connect through social media, some prefer a more direct communication through phone or chat. The diversity of customer interest is another hurdle for the marketers to roll out an optimized marketing campaign. Although personalized communication is the best option to transform a stranger to customer, the logistics of execution sometimes restricts a marketer to adopt a particular channel.

In real-world scenario, companies face many constraints while executing an optimized marketing program. Multiple channels, various offers, and diverse customer segmentation increase the complexity of marketing optimization. However, smart marketers prioritize campaigns, channels, and customers singularly or in groups depending upon company’s business objectives. For example, a company desiring to increase the number of customers in a particular segment would certainly like to prioritize the customer segmentation, but at the same time it can’t ignore the campaign and channel. For any marketer, the judicious balance among the three elements – campaign optimization, channel optimization, and customer optimization - is the key to successful marketing optimization.

In each optimization process, a company wants to measure the returns on investment. As marketers define a strategy to acquire a customer base for a new product, the first thing that triggers off the debate is customer segmentation: knowing more about their priorities, buying behavior, and brand affinity. For instance, customers consistently using a product for many years are difficult to be trapped by a mere campaign. Here the marketers need to understand the priorities of the customers, the reason behind brand loyalty, and if they need a better product within the same price range. Well, the customer prioritization depends upon a number of factors: the offerings, the pricing, and most importantly some opinion leaders to claim the value of the product. With competitive market intelligence a company can develop a better product to enter a particular market; design a campaign to address the customers’ expectations; and prioritize the channels to reach out to them. In marketing optimization, the marketers should focus on the following best practices to optimize the results.

Invest on Quality Data

Data plays a major role in marketing optimization process. Trusted data can multiply the power of marketing campaign. Any marketing campaign requires information about the demographic information, risk information, prior customer response to a campaign, and profitability. While these data sets can be availed from different sources, the credibility of data plays a critical role in the success of a marketing campaign. If a company can access to the workable data, programmatic marketing can deliver the desired results. Thus, businesses should invest judiciously to aggregate customer data. If the quality of data gets jeopardized, the investment made in the marketing campaign will be at risk.

Prioritize Optimization within Constraints

Every company has certain constraints; however, the business objectives are always kept sacrosanct. In marketing optimization, a marketer may find some limiting factors while strategizing a program, but these factors should be considered as the parameters of innovative disruption. For instance, when a particular factor doesn’t support the marketing program, a new factor should be considered to play a viable alternative. If a company wants to launch a campaign within a low budget, the marketers shouldn’t lower their business target, but they should apply different methods of low-budgeted campaign methods to target the customer base and derive the expected results.

Select the Right Technology

Today’s marketing is increasingly technology-centric. The evolution of social media platforms, mobility, big data, and CRM has transformed the marketing automation process. But there is a catch. Though all new technologies can magnify the intensity of a marketing program, a specific technology can always deliver better results. A campaign that needs real-time response from the customers can’t be done through print media, but it can be effectively managed through social media. Based on market demand, the CRM vendors are coming out with feature-rich products to ensure exceptional customer service. The marketing heads should focus on the right technology to optimize their marketing efforts.

Increase Customer Contacts

Customer contact information is critical for launching a marketing campaign. Larger the customer base, customer segmentation can be more meaningful. Recently, the social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn are the largest source of user information. Using these network exchanges companies can roll out a programmatic marketing campaign and can achieve the desired results. Companies can also leverage big data to access to these contacts and derive a predictable buying analysis.

Leverage Existing CRM

An existing CRM is the primary source for customer touch-points. A company can use the CRM to analyze customer behavior, buying habits, spending modality, etc. The customer data available in the CRM can be used to propel a marketing campaign. Before adapting to a new CRM, the companies should devise a data transition plan so that no historical data is lost.

Pilot and Replicate

Large marketing programs need huge investment. Without verifying the marketing returns, investing on a new program could be risky. To avoid such risks, companies to start a pilot on any marketing program and analyze the returns on investment. If the program is successful, then the companies can replicate the strategy and scale up the execution.