Post GDPR many businesses have been reviewing their marketing strategies and plans. This is the perfect opportunity to think of innovative ways to actually connect with your existing customers and attract prospects. Many of you previously sent out multiple emails but haven’t thought of ways to really connect post GDPR. Most importantly have you thought how can you add value to your communications so that you really build loyalty with your customer?
Compelling content
Brands and businesses often make assumptions about their target audience rather than being able to categorically list any factual insights about them. This takes us back to the first essential step you must implement – yes, clean data (you can read our guide for some help with this here). We hear so many people shouting “data is dull” – but it’s not. It’s information and insight which is actually quite exciting – honestly. To do anything in life well we need information – so why do we skimp with marketing? Surely our customer deserves better than that? Insightful information will help you engage your customer. Done brilliantly it will enable you to treat each of your customers as individual real people. It will prove you value them, ensure they look forward to you contacting them, encourage them to buy from you and build loyalty. Just imagine if the only emails or letters you received from a brand or business contained content that you loved. How would you feel if those emails recognised the exact issues you faced in your sector and helped you solve them? How happy would you be to receive details on ways to save money on products or services you are really interested in? Maybe you’d appreciate information that enabled you to keep abreast of changes in your industry? As consumers or businesses I am absolutely certain we would all prefer a world of relevant communication.
Keep it personal
Once you’ve looked at the data basics needed, you can get smart and creative with ways to add to that data. Occasional surveys, conversations, buying behaviour can all be recorded to build a picture of your customer. By creating fields and filling them in you can easily segment your data to ensure you contact customers with utterly relevant information. Use the person’s name and even their company name, but only if you would naturally. Your communication should always aim to make the recipient feel that it was personally written for them. Sometimes we would almost prefer the honesty of a broadly generic mass marketed mail (the type for which we can just click “junk” ) than one that “pretends” to be personal but gets your name or the content completely wrong. Don’t ever forget that you are trying to build and maintain a relationship. It takes effort. It needs thought.
Be an expert
Why does your customer buy from you in the first place? You will be providing them with a service or product that they don’t have or can’t do themselves. You must never forget that it is quite likely that you will know more about what you do than your customers. They are engaging with you for your expertise. So share it with them. Gone are the days when businesses tried to keep their ideas and ways of working to themselves. There is no point now. There is so much information freely available on the internet why not make it easy for you customers and let them find it out from you.
When compiling your nuggets of insight, try to refrain from too many industry acronyms and jargon – that’s not what makes you a specialist. Visit The Plain English Campaign for a dose of straight talking.
So this year, make sure your data is insightful, your content compelling and show your customers you really care.