Fernando Amaral, VP of Marketing at Landbot and host of the Ungated Marketing Podcast, tackles how we are shifting to a moment-based marketing approach with the bi-directional experience, building the next generation of marketing.
Fernando is a Computer Science Engineer with over 15 years of experience working in online marketing. Supporting businesses to increase their awareness and growth through inbound and outbound marketing strategies, Fernando founded two online marketing companies and is an expert in lead generation, marketing automation, affiliate and content marketing and building online communities.
Over the last two decades I have seen the landscape of the marketing sector shift dramatically. From traditional marketing approaches promoting rigid campaigns with generic audiences, to the data-led marketing economy of today. It’s exciting to see approaches have changed to maximise conversions and provide a greater personalised customer experience.
Marketing and consumer habits are intertwined. Consumer behaviours with marketing efforts mirroring the same energy. Nothing is constant and year on year, marketers have had to review strategies to be reactive. But times are changing. We are moving into a predictive marketing realm.
A new-ish world
The world that we live in today is one that is heavily focused on the digital space. We are now at a stage where nearly all elements of life can be lived virtually. From music events, to business meetings and even social gatherings, digital alternatives have offered new ways for people to enjoy traditional in-person events from the comfort of their homes. With consumers spending the bulk of their days on the internet, marketing efforts have also followed suit.
Plain and simply, the importance of in-person leads have weakened due to pandemic-led disruptions and digital strategies have quickly risen in importance. New technologies have proposed a wealth of opportunities for marketers to explore, pushing the boundaries to capture new leads.
Heightened customer expectations
Personalisation is now an essential requirement from brands. Off the shelf, generic engagement no longer cuts it in the contemporary customer experience. Targeted, relevant, communication is essential as the war for customer attention continues. Without the right strategies in place, brands can be called out and reputations damaged.
Customers crave content that feeds their attention. It is not that they necessarily want to be sold a product or a service, but they want to see content that resonates with them. Content marketing is something that platforms like Netflix have been able to excel at, from reigniting the public's passion in Formula 1 with ‘Drive to Survive’, to discovering new hobbies with ‘The Queen’s Gambit’. And marketers have been able to target individuals through similar multichannel marketing campaigns.
Personalisation is paramount
Personalised content has been revolutionary in increasing conversion rates. Under the guise of subconscious marketing, it’s successfully built engagement empires for brands with intriguing stories in one hand and their product in the other. According to Mckinsey, businesses who adopt such measures increasing revenue by 5 to 15 per cent, the results speak for themselves.
However, personalised marketing is reactive. Advances in technology means marketers have the full capability to move away from this and deploy predictive tactics. The intended purpose of personalisation is to maximise lead conversions. There is room for improvement when deploying personalised marketing.
The primary reason for personalised marketing not meeting its full potential is because it is missing a vital ingredient. A customer’s context is pivotal in their decision to engage with a company. If the product/service that they are viewing does not matter in the very moment that they are viewing what is on offer, then there is no urgency for a customer to engage.
This sense of urgency can be created by shifting towards a predictive approach to marketing, understanding a customer’s context, and moving towards moments-based marketing.
Final piece of the marketing jigsaw
Moments-based marketing is a timing-oriented, context-driven, marketing strategy. It utilises zero-party data to capitalise on the very moment a customer needs a product or service through automation. It incorporates the best elements of personalised marketing like providing customers with interesting and relevant content but considers real-time external factors that may influence decisions too.
The entire customer journey must be broken down to implement moment-based marketing. Gaining an understanding of the ‘moments’ that have led, or will lead up to a customer engaging with your brand is key. It can be used to streamline marketing efforts to guarantee a curated sale to prospective customers. Every piece of data is important and valuable. For marketers,it is just a case of how it can be harnessed to drive a conversion.
Real-time, individualistic and instant data insights help businesses make informed marketing decisions about who their campaigns are most suited towards. Chatbots, for instance, have been a reliable tool in providing real-time data insights and instant omnichannel responses to consumers.
Low-code/no-code chatbot builders have made implementation quick and easy for businesses ensuring a smooth process from start to finish.
Martech and CX, hand-in-hand
Employing a moments-based marketing strategy benefits both consumers and businesses. Consumers benefit from a quality product or service that is tailored to them. Data from prior interactions are drawn from all touch points to ensure customers receive what they want.
Businesses further benefit from such a strategy as they harness the data profiling of their target consumer base, their needs, desires and habits to achieve maximum fulfilment. Without this, it is purely guesswork, which at the end of the day holds businesses back.
An example of the success of a moment-based marketing approach is the Arora Project. The team were able to increase leads by 40% by automating their marketing processes, as well as harvesting real-time customer insights. Arora Project understood that when the focus is shifted from trying to capture lots of leads, and understanding the granular elements of the customer journey, the process of lead generation becomes much more fluid.
Real-time insights have allowed Arora Project to A/B test in their marketing efforts, turning all stakeholders into virtual focus groups, enabling higher conversion rates through higher quality leads. Arora Project has shown how a moments-based marketing approach is successful. and how marketing efforts should be moving towards a similar, methodical approach.
People are everything in business
Business does not have to be all about numbers. When profits and revenue are not considered as primary motivations, and customers are placed first, then businesses can start to see real strides in their campaigns. Moments-based marketing transforms generating leads and customer wins into relevant, contextual, timely marketing efforts.
Do not let your business miss out on achieving its full potential.
