The Next 7 Things you Should Do for Context Marketing Success

If you are still confused with content marketing vs context marketing, you’d better stop it right now because that’s the case when one small letter makes a huge difference. The content was a king for a long time, but today the crown belongs to the context. If your content doesn’t hit the target, it does not matter how good it is. This is where context marketing comes into play: it aims to make the customer get the proper content at the right time and place. Long story short, context marketing is about personalization. And if you want this personalization to be successful, check out the following 7 things to do.

1. Watch their every move

There is no other way to know what makes your customers tick but to follow them everywhere (of course, not literally). Here is what you need to know about them:

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands of things that can help you understand the customer. You can find a bunch of useful info on social media, ratings, mobile apps, geo-location data, reviews and so on. Just gather and analyze.

2. Segment customer’s database

Database segmentation helps you to send your offer to those customers who are the most likely to need it. For example, a sporting store is running a sale on bike accessories. Instead of sending invitations to all of the registered customers, they are sent to those who have already bought a bike.

Segmentation creates leads instead of transferring your offers into spam or junk emails. Remember that people won’t pay attention to your letters or may even unsubscribe if your content is not what they need.

The majority of segmentation methods include the following variables:

Other ways to segment your customers include but are not limited to:

3. Use tools to improve customer interactions

One of this tools is CJM (Customer Journey Map). The idea is very simple: the map tells a story of customer’s engagement with your company starting from the initial contact. You need CJM to build a solid relationship with your client, make him/her loyal and ensure collaboration at every stage.

There is no single formula or standard view for CJM. However, most of them look like infographics.

Here are a few examples what you can do with CJM:

Another useful tool is a product recommendation one. It scans the user’s real-time behavior and recommends the most relevant products. Suppose you own an online clothing store. When the customer visits your website, the tool defines that this guy likes sportswear and display the most relevant products in real-time.

4. Work with social media

You know what a focus group is, right? Imagine that social media is a very big focus group, which lets you analyze your brand appearance over the internet. And you don’t even need to ask users’ permission to do it. Simply use various tools to find out what people think about your product, what impact your advertising campaign has, what your customers’ values are, etc.

Indeed, social media can do you good. It is an endless source of data. Just grab it and use wisely.

5. Combine customer’s info from various sources

Yes, social media is a solid piece of data, but for better context marketing you need something beyond. Combine customer’s information from different sources and analyze it all together. This is the way you can improve the accuracy and better personalize each customer. Here are some sources you can benefit from:

Note that social media is the fastest promotion channel. Their hundreds of thousands created every hour but few of them become truly successful.

Fact: Only 20% of news are shown in your Facebook feed. Others are filtered.

One of the most effective ways to create stunning content is to use the power of newsbreaks. People want to read, watch and listen to what’s happening right now: news, holidays, trends, days from history, showbiz, etc. If you catch the right moment when the topic is just gaining momentum and add a little bit of creativity to your post, it can easily become viral. But if the trend is already overused, you’d better skip it.

6. Use triggers and events

Triggers: Triggers help you to play your cards right. For example, a customer added several items to his shopping cart in your online store but didn’t finish the order. In order to encourage the customer to buy the product, you need to send a letter-reminder. Now, chances that the customer will complete the purchase are much higher. In this case, abandoned shopping cart is a trigger. Of course, sending emails manually is out of the question. There are quite a bit of tool to automate your triggers.

Other triggers’ examples include:

Triggers will also keep you posted about what is happening with your business. For example:

Events: True context marketing mastery is to use predicted and unpredicted events to develop your business. A good example is an April fool by Virgin Airlines to launch the first ever glass-bottomed jet. Although the post appeared on the 1st of April, many mass media re-posted the news in all seriousness. The joke did not cost the company a penny but made people talking about it once again.

On second thought, every event can be profitable for your brand. All you need is to be creative.

7. Control the full marketing process

Starting from data collection and finishing with marketing campaigns – every step should be under control. Moreover, every next activity should be based on the previous one. Bring together all parts of your context marketing and run campaigns over various channels. If you have a big team, make sure that the collaboration between all participants is going smoothly.

Finally:

Achieve mind-blowing results at the lowest cost. If properly harnessed, context marketing will ease your business, automate the processes, increase brand awareness, and definitely, increase your income. The reason is simple: it allows to offer the customer exactly what he/she wants. And this is the key.

This article is written by Kristina Pototska. She is a CMO at TriggMine, email marketing automation service. She is great when it comes to email marketing tips & increasing conversions. During pasted 2 years she successfully launched more than 50 email campaigns for e-commerce websites. She’s also the voice of TriggMine. Kristina performed as a speaker at 100+ events in Europe & Asia. She believes that email marketing rules and data are the kings. Follw her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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