Today's targeted marketing is powered by data and automation

 Marketing is always more effective when it is more targeted. As a result of integrating data and algorithms, marketers are able to now deliver a personalized customer experience at scale. 

There are various ways to target specific customers, and approaches range from lumping customers into very broadly defined categories to getting a lot more fine-tuned about the segments and responsive to individual customer behavior .In collaboration with Google, Deloitte put out a Digital transformation through data: a guide for retailers to drive value with data that took a closer look at these gradations. 

It ranked them as follows:

• Limited segmentation: All users are analyzed in broad segments. 

• Basic segmentation: Uses standard characteristics (e.g., gender, geography) for segmentation.

• Detailed segmentation: Segments are based on personal and behavior

• Dynamic segmentation: The UX / UI can respond to a customer’s in-session behavior as he or she exhibits different segment characteristics.

Achieving the detailed level depends on much more data than the static kind that is used for basic segmentation, and advancing to the dynamic level requires a level of automation that will enable recommendations and responses to go out in real-time. 

 The coming AI revolution in retail and consumer products invoked the women’s clothing store,  Avenue Stores LLC as an example of dynamic segmentation. It explained that  it brings together “data across multiple touchpoints, including in-store activities and market trend analysis, to learn and reason about what customers want and when they want it.” On that basis it can reach out to customers with communication tailored to their situation in real-time, which makes it possible to capture their attention while in “‘shopping mode.” 

Marketing for loyalty

Being in touch with your customers to let them know you’re there for them without pressuring them to buy can pay off in winning their loyalty and business later. In this case, your automated messaging doesn’t have to respond to segment your audience, as you would be working off a general form of communication.

When you don’t have history

But what if you do need to sell your products now? Marketing recommendations can work even on the more basic level, not just for new customers for whom you have no history to flesh out a profile but for the type of marketing communication that depends on general trends. For example, a very broad segment of all people in the United States can work for promotions tied to events shared by all due to the calendar, whether it’s Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, etc. 

You don’t need to know much about your customer other than that they’ll know what these days are because they are on their calendars due to living in the United States for the trending algorithm to work well. That makes using this approach ideal for customers for whom you don’t have first-party data.

It doesn’t matter so much what they are normally interested in or what they’ve bought before when you’re sending out a marketing message about buying their mother something before May 10. However, if you do have information about the customer, say you know they’ve ordered flowers for their mother last year, then you can combine the trending recommendation with what you know about their behavior.

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Advanced Segmentation and Automation Are Changing the Marketing Game

You've come a long way, baby, but you haven't yet arrived

The current state of marketing to women has a vibe that harkens back to the print ads for Virginia Slims cigarettes that ran through the 1970s and 80s with the tagline, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” The backgrounds were a representation of the bad old days of restrictions on women that contrasted with the confidently posed model holding her slim cigarette.

The bad old days for marketing featured blatantly sexist ads in which women aspired to nothing more than pleasing their husbands or on catching a husband by being pretty and ladylike. We have moved on, but not altogether.

Marketers have become aware of the need to move with the time and have adapted ad images accordingly. The way women are represented in ads is no longer limited to airbrushed models who exhibit the “right” figure, skin tone, hair, and age.

While ad imagery has come a long way, surveys of women indicate that marketing still has a long way to go.


Only 29% of American women believe advertising portrays them accurately is the title of Callie Schweitzer’s LinkedIn article posted on March 9, 2021. The statistic comes from Morning Consult. Even men weren’t fully convinced, as less than half (44%) said they considered women’s representation accurate.

That's not exactly passing marks.

A flame-broiled fiasco on International Women’s Day 2021

You don’t have to look hard for the brand that seriously misread the room in issuing a Tweet in honor of International Women’s Day, and the Internet made sure you knew about it even after the Tweet was deleted.



The extremely provocative-sounding declaration was meant to reference support for women who become professional chefs and its project called HER (helping equalize restaurants). But without that immediate context provided only within the print ad that you can see below, there was the apparently sexist declaration alone, and that boomeranged against the brand.



The backlash was so strong, that the account had to offer the combination of an apology and reason for deleting the tweet.



Burger King fell right into that marketing hole that Schweitzer complained about with an assertion that “perpetuates centuries-old cultural stereotypes of what society ‘expects’ women to be.” It should be obvious that marketers should steer clear of marketing to women in such forms. But it is still trickier for them to identify what women do want to see and hear in marketing.

Read more in What Women Want to See in Ads

Podcasts may be the missing ingredient in your marketing mix

• Brands that want to strengthen their relationship with their customers are discovering the medium of podcasts. 

• Podcasts have proven effective for targeting audiences, engaging their attention, and converting customers. 

• Purchase intent rises significantly for podcast listeners as it captures their attention even when TV, radio, or digital ads fail to. 

Podcasts take off  

The term “podcast” was not something you would have associated with marketing a decade ago. But that has changed drastically as podcasts have been steadily rising in popularity. 

The number of podcast listeners in the United State rose from a mere 32 million in 2013 to a projected 120 million for this year, Statista reported. It derived a compound annual growth rate of 17% that anticipates an audience of 164 million for podcasts in 2023.’ 

 Podcast ad revenue has also risen tremendously, more than tripling over the space of just four years. According to Music Oomph!, Podcast ad revenue in 2017 was $317 million, but it is expected to hit $1.13 billion this year and to rise to $1.33 billion next year. 

Become the best CRMer you can: 

Read more in Why It May Be Time to Add Podcasts to Your Marketing Arsenal

The Big Three in Crypto: Bitcoin, Ripple and Ethereum

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cryptocurrency_logos.jpg 

In the beginning, there was Bitcoin, then came Ripple, and then Ethereum. Along the way, many others came and went as cryptocurrency and blockchain protocols moved from the fringe to the mainstream, but these are still arguably the top three.

Cryptocurrency shares the fundamental definition of all forms of money: it is a medium of exchange, a measure of value, and a store of value. What sets it apart from fiat currency, though, is the following:

1. It has no physical form and exists solely as a digital bit of data.

2. It is not issued by a government entity.

3. It is completely decentralized and clears transactions through network consensus rather than through the authorization of a central bank.

4. Transactions cannot be reversed or charged back as is the case for those cleared by banks.

Beginning with Bitcoin

Though there had been some plans for a system of digital currency set out in the late 20th century, for the early part of the 21st century, the Bitcoin system and its currency unit, bitcoin or BTC was synonymous with cryptocurrency.

In October 2008, the name Satoshi Nakamoto appeared on the paper, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, which explained how the setup of blockchain technology was used in the cryptocurrency.

A blockchain is a decentralized ledger that allows a peer-to-peer network to obtain confirmation of transactions without waiting on a central clearing authority.

Read more in  The Differences Between the Top 3 Cryptocurrencies

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CRO is like basketball

free image from https://www.dreamstime.com/photos-images/basketball-hitting.html

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the term for what marketers do to determine which versions of landing pages or sites yield the best conversion rate. The conversion itself depends on the specific goals in place, the call to action (CTA).

The conversion for an e-commerce site is usually completing a purchase. But it can also be just getting that customer to take the first step on the purchase journey. In such cases, the goal may just be having the prospective customer indicate some level of interest and establishing some kind of connection.

That’s why you have to be clear on your metrics for CRO. It can count as a conversion to have the customer sign up for a subscription to a company newsletter, put in a request for a quote, or even just sharing an email address by signing up for an account.

The way CRO works is like finding the techniques a basketball player can use to get more of the balls he throws into the basket. He’s not taking more throws but throwing more effectively to achieve his goal and score points for the team.

 
That doesn’t assure that they will win every game, but it will tilt the odds in their favor.

 

How to calculate CRO

You calculate the conversion rate by dividing the number of conversions generated by the number of visits to that page, whether it’s a home page, landing page, or blog post. That means that if you have 10,000 visits, out o f which you have 150 conversions, you have a1.5% conversion rate. If your optimization results in getting 200 conversions out of the same number of visits, you’ve achieved a 2% conversion rate.

Given that it is a percentage, a high conversion rate is not a function of a larger number of visits but of more of those visits translating into conversions. That’s what it means to optimize the rate, getting more value out of your existing traffic. It’s not about generating new visitors but out of getting more of the ones you draw to convert.

Phases of conversion rate optimization

CRO involves testing various attributes, from colors to picture placement, to button shapes, to the steps involved in checkout. The first phase in the process of CRO is the research and hypothesis phase, in which the particular attributes that are correlated with better conversions are identified. They are then subject to A/B testing to discover if the site with them does indeed perform better with a lower bounce rate than the one without them.

Why conversion rate optimization is important

Before CRO was adopted as a data-driven practice, the only way to discover if something was promoting or hindering conversion was to set up your site that way and wait a while until you had results. You would then have to guess what needed tweaking, and through trial-and-error may have finally arrived at an optimized site. So while you may have arrived at the same point in the end, it would have only been achieved at the cost of lost conversions for all those months of trying to figure out what are the bottlenecks in your conversion funnel. Now A/B testing tools make it possible to discover the most effective way to set up your website by working through different versions to get data on what works more quickly.

Conversion rate optimization best practices

In general, conversion rates improve when visitors have to do less work to find what they want. That means that sites designed according to CRO best practices typically include a clean look like that allows them to easily navigate to where they want to go, obviously placed and colored specific call to action buttons, and no jumping through hoops for the contact information that provides leads and builds connection, whether that is a phone number, email, or live chat. All those contribute to expediting the customer's buying decision.
Benefits of CRO

Applying CRO makes your sites work better to achieve your goals, and that brings several benefits:

Better bang for your marketing bucks
When your landing page delivers more conversions, you get better returns from your ad spend. CRO helps drive site visitors toward what they seek to complete the purchase journey. Having that in places on your site delivers a better return on all of your marketing investments, and you will see revenue growth as a result of more conversions.

Improved understanding of your visitor customer experience

Conversion research reveals both quantitative and qualitative data about visitor responses. It reveals which parts are sticking points that can prevent them from proceeding through their customer journey, as well as what they do find appealing in your site. Working off that information, you can better plan your content and layout going forward based on deeper insight into your target audience.

Getting a leg up on your competition

Better conversion rates indicate increased visitor engagement that can boost your traffic as well as reduce bounce rates. Because Google takes bounce rates into account in ranking, getting visitors to stick around a while on your site can improve your search engine ranking to achieve a leg up on your competition. That, in turn, allows your site to draw more visitors that will convert at a higher rate.

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7 ways to grab customer attention in subject lines

                                                  Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
 

If you don't capture your audience's attention in the subject line, they'll just hit delete without even opening the email. So choose a subject line that offers them a compelling reason to click. Here are seven types of appeals that can be very effective.

1. Desire for value

Coupons are especially effective, seeing higher open, click and purchase rates than emails without. That’s why major retailers regularly refer to coupon codes offering specific percentages off. Standard retailers frequently offer savings that range from 5% to 20% off, though clothing retailers will typically offer an even wider range of 10% to 60%, depending on what point in the season they’re at. Subject lines that let people know how much they can save are effective in attracting attention and getting your customers to click through to purchase.

Understandably, though, that’s not suitable for all businesses and overusing them can make your communication seem overly salesy, even spammy. So don't rely too much on this approach unless you're the type of retailer that automatically factors 30-50% discounts into pricing like department stores and Gap brands do.

Even if you are not inclined to cut prices, you can appeal to value by describing to your products’ quality. So you don’t have to say “Our jeans cost less than theirs” but can say “You’ll wear our jeans twice as long as other ones; they’re that durable.” In more general terms, you can say that they don’t need to break their budget to look good, eat well, or have a good time.


2. FOMO

Fear of missing out. To achieve that, you have to work in a sense of urgency. Possible applications include emails from mutual funds warning you that the deadline for this year's IRA contribution is approaching or an eyeglass seller saying “This year’s flex spending account: use it or lose it.” It can also work in conjunction with the desire for value when promoting a particular bonus or sale offered for just that day, say “Order before midnight when your 25% off turns into pumpkin.”


3. Curiosity

 The thrill of discovery that we sometimes experience stems from the wish we have to find the answer to the questions we have. Channeling that can be a powerful motivator for someone to open your email. This can be combined with FOMO or the incentive to save money with a “mystery offer” or that only reveals how much the customer will save after clicking through to the site. It can also work with a “mystery gift.” Even without a monetary incentive, you can work off curiosity with something like “See our 5 best-selling pieces” or “How to wear the color of the season.”

4.  Appeal to laziness

 People may not be proud of being lazy, but they do appreciate not having to exert themselves. Subject lines can target that when you refer to easy, one-click checkout, effortless outfit ideas, recipes that require just 4 ingredients, cleaning hacks, etc. that can even be used to market training for a particular skill like “Learn coding on your lunch breaks.” 

5. Appeal to vanity

We’re all vain about something, and that’s not necessarily limited to our looks. If you know what your customers are proud of, you can appeal to that in your subject. For example, women who pride themselves on looking young may respond to “Warning: once you use this, you may get carded at the liquor store.” Fashionistas may respond to something like “exclusive styles for those who know fashion.” For pet owners, you can have a message like “You can always spot the best loved pets by seeing our logo on their collars.” In more general terms, you can always refer to an offer to your “VIP customers” to give their vanity a boost.

6. Humor

 Even if you’re in a bad mood, seeing something funny can lighten it, even if it just coaxes a smile out of you, even more so if you laugh out loud. That’s the attraction of humor, and you can use it for email subject lines, drawing on the humor of breaking expectations. For example, an email seeking to market for Father’s Day shoppers can say, “Don’t get him another boring tie.” One aimed at graduates could say, “Remember how you complained about school? Prepare for something worse.”

7. Addressing pain points

 Drawing on what you know about your customer or contextual knowledge of what they would be experiencing or anticipating, you can use those in your subject lines. When marketers were sending out messages under lockdown, they had to consider what people would want under those circumstances to be comfortable and avoid boredom at home.


There are many seasonal opportunities to address pain points. For example, when a heatwave is in the forecast, your subject line can be “Keep your cool in these shorts.” or “All you need is air-conditioning and this ___” for drinks, warm weather clothes and accessories, or a summer line of beauty products. When cold weather hits, you can say, “Don’t go out in the cold; we deliver!”


Even when there is no particular occasion on the calendar, you can utilize empathy with a light touch by, say, emailing on a Monday with “Need a lift to carry you through the next 5 days? We have it here.” Or in situations in which weekend plans have to be shifted, “Weekend fun starts here.”

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How chatbots have evolved

 

The origins of the chatbot

The proliferation of chatbots over the last decade may give the impression that they are only a product of the internet. In truth, though, the roots go all the way back to 1966 when Joseph Weizenbaum a German computer scientist and Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a program he called ELIZA.

The all caps make it look like an acronym, but ELIZA doesn’t stand for anything. Instead, as explained in the original Stanford article about it: “Its name was chosen to emphasize that it may be incrementally improved by its users, since its language abilities may be continually improved by a ‘teacher.’”

The reference there was to the character of Eliza in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (more likely recognized by people today as the character in the musical version My Fair Lady). Eliza was hoping to convince others that she was something she was not -- a well-bred lady. Likewise, the program was designed to come across as a human therapist and convince users “that they were having a conversation with a real human being.”

While ELIZA definitely counts as the first chatterbot, the term was only born decades later. In 1994

Michael Maudlin invented a program he named Julia and called the function of a chattering robot “ChatterBot,” and the term soon got shortened to chatbot. 

Chatbots now
While users enjoyed their conversations with those early chatbots, most of us would not mistake them for actual people. But today’s chatbots are a different story. 

They’re able to carry on much more natural-sounding conversations thanks to the application of machine learning, artificial intelligence , and natural language processing. Adding in ML and AI enables them to learn by identifying data patterns and then to apply their knowledge to answer questions and carry out tasks without any human intervention. 

Their greater functionality translates into far more use by businesses and their customers. Today businesses use bots for a range of communication needs, ranging from customer service to product suggestion, scheduling, and various forms of marketing designed to engage the audience.

But the biggest area of growth for chatbots may be in sales. In Chatbots: Vendor Opportunities & Market Forecasts 2020-2024, Juniper Research anticipates consumer retail spend over chatbots will hit $142 billion by 2024, quite a jump from the $2.8 billion we had in 2019.

Juniper also predicts that by 2024 more than half of retail chatbot interactions will go through automatically and that “80% of global consumer spend over chatbots will be attributable to discrete chatbots” that are used through a mobile app rather than a browser. 

On that basis, the report “urges retailers to implement chatbots as part of a wider omnichannel retail strategy in order to maximise their presence on a number of key retail channels.”

Read more in  Choose Your Chatbot Wisely