Strategy

Conversion rate: What is it and why is it important in Digital Marketing?

Conversion rate: What is it and why is it important in Digital Marketing? 1200 800 Sara Parrón

Conversion rate is a key metric in digital marketing that allows you to measure the success of a campaign in terms of specific goals. In this article, you will discover what conversion rate is, how it is calculated and why it is important for your business.

What is conversion rate?

Conversion rate is a fundamental metric in the world of digital marketing. It is an indicator that measures the percentage of visitors to a website who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase, subscribing to an email list, filling out a form or downloading a file. In simple terms, we are talking about the percentage of visitors who convert into leads or actual sales.

Knowing your conversion rate is essential to the success of any digital marketing campaign. By knowing how many people are converting on the website, informed decisions can be made on how to improve the user experience, site content and marketing strategies to increase conversion and generate more revenue.

How is the conversion rate calculated?

To calculate this metric, we must divide the total number of visitors who completed the desired action by the total number of visitors who came to the website.

For example, if a website received 1,000 visits in a month and 50 of those visits completed a purchase, then the conversion rate would be 5% (50/1,000).

Why is it important in Digital Marketing?

Conversion rate is an important metric in digital marketing because it helps us understand the success of our campaigns. If the result is low, then we may need to make changes to the website or marketing strategy to improve the user experience and increase conversions.

If the conversion rate is high, then we can identify the marketing tactics that are working and duplicate them to maximize results.

Factors influencing conversion rate

Conversion rate can be affected by a variety of factors, such as website design, content quality, loading speed, ease of navigation, product or service offering, audience segmentation and call-to-action (CTA) effectiveness.

It is important to test and analyze each of these factors to determine what changes can help improve this metric.

How to improve conversion rate

Improving these results is a key objective in any digital marketing strategy. Here are some ideas to achieve it:

  1. Optimize your website: A well-designed and easy-to-navigate website can make a big difference in your conversion rate. Make sure your website is user-friendly and optimized for mobile devices.
  2. Offer relevant content: Make sure your content is targeted and relevant to your target audience. This can include educational, informative or entertaining content that provides value to them.
  3. Improve your calls to action: Your calls to action (CTAs) should be clear and direct, and should be placed in strategic locations on your website. Use clear and compelling language to persuade visitors to take the action you want.
  4. Test different designs and elements on your website: Perform A/B testing to determine which design elements work best for your target audience. Try different colors, fonts, CTA placements, images and content to see what works best.
  5. Reduce friction: Facilitate the conversion process by removing obstacles that may cause visitors to abandon your website. Make sure the checkout process is easy and clear, with few steps and little information required.

By following these tips and closely monitoring your metrics, you will be able to significantly improve your conversion rate and achieve greater results in your digital marketing strategy.

What is CAC and how to calculate it to optimize your digital marketing strategy

What is CAC and how to calculate it to optimize your digital marketing strategy 1200 800 Sara Parrón

In the world of digital marketing, CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) is a very important term. It is a metric that indicates how much it costs to acquire a new customer, which is essential to evaluate the performance of the marketing strategy and improve it.

In this article, we will explore in detail what CAC is, why it is important and how to calculate it to optimize your digital marketing strategy.

What is the ACC?

CAC(Customer Acquisition Cost) is a term used in digital marketing that refers to the cost that needs to be invested to acquire a new customer. In other words, it is what a company must pay to get a customer to make a purchase or contract a service.

CAC is an important metric in analyzing the performance of a digital marketing campaign, as it allows companies to determine the cost of acquiring each customer and, consequently, measure the profitability of their marketing efforts. In addition, it also allows them to identify the marketing strategies that are generating the highest ROI and those that need to be optimized or eliminated.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) | Marketing and Digital Strategy Glossary | EMD

Check out our digital marketing glossary on our YouTube channel.

Why is the ACC important?

As we have detailed, CAC is important in digital marketing because it is a metric that helps you determine whether your marketing efforts are generating sufficient return on investment(ROI).

If your CAC is too high, it means you are spending too much money on customer acquisition and may not be making enough profit. On the other hand, if your CAC is low, it means you are spending less money to acquire customers and your marketing efforts are more effective. Therefore, knowing your CAC helps you evaluate the performance of your marketing campaigns and make informed decisions to improve them.

How to calculate the CAC?

The CAC is calculated by dividing total marketing and sales expenses by the number of new customers acquired in a given period. Marketing and sales costs include all expenses related to customer acquisition, such as advertising, events, salespeople’s salaries, among others.

The CAC calculation is essential to know the real cost of acquiring new customers so you can adjust your marketing strategy to improve it.

How to optimize your Digital Marketing strategy with the CAC

To optimize your digital marketing strategy with CAC, it is important to analyze the results of your marketing campaigns and evaluate whether your marketing efforts are generating sufficient ROI. To lower your CAC cost, you should look for ways to reduce your acquisition costs, for example, by focusing on more effective marketing channels or improving the targeting of your ad campaigns.

In summary, CAC is an important metric in digital marketing that will allow you to evaluate the performance of your marketing campaigns and improve them for better results.

Do you want to start optimizing the CAC in your Digital Marketing strategy?Contact us at and our experts will guide you!

What is Below The Line Marketing and how can it help your Digital Marketing strategy?

What is Below The Line Marketing and how can it help your Digital Marketing strategy? 1200 800 Sara Parrón

In the marketing world, there are different techniques and strategies that can be used to promote a company’s products and services. One of these techniques is Below The Line Marketing or BTL.

In this article we explain everything you need to know about this technique and how it can help you achieve your business goals.

What is Below The Line Marketing?

Below The Line Marketing (BTL) is a marketing technique that focuses on promotion and advertising in non-conventional media, such as point-of-sale promotions, events, sponsorships, direct marketing, direct mail, telemarketing, among others.

The objective of BTL is to generate a direct and measurable response from consumers, using more personalized communication techniques focused on specific consumer groups.

Therefore, among the advantages of this technique are the possibility of reaching more specific and personalized audiences, the ability to more accurately measure the impact of marketing strategies, the flexibility to adapt to the needs and characteristics of each market and the possibility of creating closer and more memorable brand experiences for consumers.

Differences between Below The Line Marketing and Above The Line Marketing

Above The Line Marketing (ATL) and Below The Line Marketing (BTL) are two different approaches used by companies to promote their products or services. Both approaches are important and complementary, but differ in several aspects.

The main difference between BTL and ATL is the way in which advertising messages are communicated. Above The Line Marketing (ATL) is a form of mass advertising that uses traditional media to reach a broad audience. ATL media include television, radio, newspapers and magazines. This approach is useful for building brand awareness and increasing visibility, but is not very effective for reaching a specific or targeted audience.

In addition, in terms of costs, ATL marketing is usually more expensive, since it requires a large investment to reach a wide audience. On the other hand, BTL marketing is usually more economical and effective in reaching a specific audience.

Examples of Below The Line Marketing

BTL includes a wide variety of promotion and advertising techniques, here are some examples:

  • Point-of-sale promotions: Discounts, offers, gifts, free samples, product packages, etc.
  • Events: Tastings, exhibitions, fairs, competitions, sporting and cultural events, etc.
  • Direct marketing: Direct mail, telemarketing, email marketing, text messaging, etc.
  • Point-of-sale advertising: Posters, brochures, point-of-sale advertising, etc.
  • Merchandising: Promotional items, such as T-shirts, caps, mugs, pens, etc.
  • Guerrilla marketing: creative and unexpected actions to attract consumers’ attention, such as flashmobs, graffiti, street actions, etc.
  • Influencer marketing: Collaboration with influencers on social networks to promote products or services.
  • Experience marketing: Create a unique and memorable experience for the consumer, such as exclusive events, tastings, concerts, etc.
  • Loyalty marketing: Loyalty programs, discounts for frequent customers, rewards for referring friends, etc.

How can BTL help your Digital Marketing strategy?

Below The Line Marketing can be a very effective tool to complement a company’ s Digital Marketing strategy . While Digital Marketing focuses primarily on engaging consumers through online channels, Below The Line Marketing focuses on reaching consumers in a more direct and personalized way.

This means that by combining both techniques, a complete and well-balanced marketing strategy can be created that is tailored to the needs and preferences of consumers. In addition, Below The Line Marketing can help companies create a closer relationship with their consumers, which in turn can lead to greater customer loyalty and retention.

In short, by incorporating these techniques into your Digital Marketing strategy, companies can achieve greater impact and a stronger connection with their consumers, which translates into better sales conversion and greater success in the marketplace.

Tips for implementing a Below The Line Marketing Strategy

Implementing a Below The Line Marketing strategy can be an excellent way to reach consumers in a more direct and personalized way. Here are some tips to help you create an effective strategy:

  1. Clearly define your objectives: Before you start implementing any marketing technique, it is important that you clearly define your objectives: What do you want to achieve with your campaign, do you want to increase sales, generate more brand awareness, build customer loyalty, etc. By clearly defining your objectives, you will be able to design an effective strategy and measure your success. By clearly defining your objectives, you will be able to design an effective strategy and measure your success.
  2. Know your audience: It is important to know your target audience well: What are their needs, interests and preferences, how do they behave and what are their buying habits? By knowing your audience well, you will be able to design a strategy that adapts to their needs and is attractive to them. In our blog we explain you how to define your buyer persona.
  3. Be creative: One of the advantages of Below The Line Marketing is that it allows you to be more creative in the way you communicate with your consumers. Think of innovative and creative ideas that will catch their attention and involve them in your campaign.
  4. Personalize your message: One of the main advantages of Below The Line Marketing is that it allows you to communicate in a more personalized way with your consumers. Use this opportunity to personalize your message and make it more relevant to them.
  5. Measure your success: When implementing a Below The Line Marketing strategy, it is important to track and measure if it works in order to adjust this strategy in the future. You can use metrics such as sales, number of participants in your events, response rate to your promotions, etc.

By following these tips, you will be able to design an effective strategy that will allow you to connect in a more personalized way with your consumers and achieve your business objectives.

In conclusion, Below the Line Marketing is a very effective marketing strategy to reach a specific target audience and generate a direct and effective response in terms of sales and customer loyalty. If used properly and adapted to the needs and characteristics of each market, it can be a very powerful tool to promote a company’s products and services.

Would you like to try it? If you have any doubts, you can write us in the comments or contact us.

Online digital marketing course on February 16 and 17, 2022

Online digital marketing course on February 16 and 17, 2022 1294 648 Eric Onidi

Digital Marketing Course: “How to define and implement a digital marketing strategy”.

Objective: To learn what a Digital Marketing strategy is, how to define it, what it is based on, the tools to use, and how to implement it.

Course methodology: Theory and practice.

Aimed at: Company directors, marketing managers, sales, commercial, export, product, finance, marketing and communication managers, in short, anyone who wants to know precisely how to define a Digital Marketing strategy.

Dates: February 16 and February 17, 2022

Schedule: 16:30h – 18:30h (2 sessions of 2h each) | Online (Microsoft Teams)

Cost for Secartys members: 50€ + VAT | Cost for non-members: 100€ + VAT


Course description

For many, defining a digital marketing strategy means facing the unknown: where to start, how to proceed, what tools to use, how much resources to invest and what is the return? Etc.

To take advantage of the online world is to have a digital strategy based on clear, measurable, achievable and aligned with the overall objectives of the company. A strategy that defines the value proposition and positioning of your company online, as well as its performance in the relevant marketing channels, with a concrete action plan and an associated budget.

In this training we will have a global and practical vision of how to define and implement a digital marketing strategy in 3 phases:

Phase 1. Analysis

  • Vision and mission
  • Objectives and priorities
  • Resources
  • Learning from the past
  • Market and competitor analysis
  • Target customers (buyer persona)

Phase 2. Digital strategy

  • SMART Objectives
  • KPIs
  • Online value proposition
  • Digital channels

Phase 3. Action plan

  • Specific actions by channel
  • Execution schedule by priorities / impact
  • Content plan
  • Monitoring, analysis and optimization

Click here to register

Why it is key to have a digital marketing strategy

Why it is key to have a digital marketing strategy 850 566 Eric Onidi

Nowadays, the first choice of virtually any individual or professional when it comes to making inquiries about a service, getting advice for a purchase or simply learning something new, is to search the Internet. This is why it makes a lot of sense to devise some marketing strategies. marketing strategies digital marketing strategies that allow us to have a presence on the network and be visible to our target customers.

Reasons why you should have a good marketing strategy marketing strategy digital

A hyperconnected public

The vast majority of Spanish households have an Internet connection, and more and more users are surfing the Internet with their mobile devices. This explains why the battle that companies are fighting to reach their target audience has moved to the virtual world, and why they no longer rely so much on traditional advertising.

This frequency and intensity of connectivity makes the Internet the perfect vehicle for companies to attract the attention of their potential customers. Appearing in a medium that the user constantly consults significantly increases the chances of success in marketing campaigns .

A generalized trend

Having an online presence is inevitable and practically essential nowadays: websites, social media profiles, blog, online advertising, videos… If a business lacks a digital identity, it will be very difficult (if not impossible) for users to get to know it.

This obstacle can cause the company to lose the opportunity to attract the attention of its target audience, especially if other competing businesses are ahead in their digital marketing strategy and have already worked on their online presence.

In this sense, digital marketing is a broad concept that is a very important part of the company’s communication.

An equitable showcase

Digital marketing positioning strategies are within the reach of large corporations as well as independent professionals or small companies. This guarantees a real equality of opportunities for both to reach the public through the Internet.

In fact, the companies with the best digital marketing are not necessarily those that earn the most millions or have the best valued shares; a small S. L. could get much more out of digital marketing than the most powerful multinationals in the market.

More results with less investment

An online communication plan has a very affordable cost from the first steps; it is possible to carry out a digital marketing plan with a small budget, and then increase it as the investment returns.

It is true that the greater the desired reach of communications, the more digital marketing budget will have to be allocated. However, we will always manage lower figures than those used in traditional advertising actions.

Accurate and transparent return on investment

Measuring the ROI of these actions is relatively simple, since all the data is already digitized in one way or another. The marketing platforms themselves provide statistical tools that measure the impact of our campaigns.

ROI is calculated based on easily measurable parameters, such as clicks, visits or browsing time. There is no room for speculation: all data is reliable and accurate (as long as the tracking, i.e. data collection, is well implemented on the website).

Highly accurate traceability of conversions

A major difficulty that traditional marketing strategies often encounter is not being able to keep track of conversions, i.e. the moment when someone from the target audience becomes a lead (business opportunity), becomes a subscriber (starts to be loyal to the brand) or a customer (finally acquires a product or service).

The great advantage of digital marketing is that all this mapping is done with millimetric precision. Tracking the life cycle of each business opportunity provides a series of data on what captured the lead‘s interest, how they were prospected, how long it took to convert…

An open door to customer engagement

The idea of relationship marketing revolves around building customer loyalty with some kind of experience that personalizes their relationship with the company and increases customer engagement. engagement (with the brand.

A company with a digital presence will be able to communicate with its followers through its social profiles and promote initiatives for their participation. In this way, the brand image will be consolidated on the Internet, attracting the attention of many more potential customers and improving the image projected to existing customers.

Conclusion

The boom in Internet usage, with statistics revealing massive browsing from mobile devices, makes it essential for virtually any company to implement digital marketing strategies. Thanks to a scalable investment, a high reliability of its statistics, an easily measurable ROI and an accurate traceability of the life cycle of each customer, online communication has become so widespread that it is difficult to think of a business being successful if it does not take care of its digital presence.

And for those who have reached the end of this article, we offer you a link to a presentation on“how to define and implement a digital marketing strategy“, made by Eric Onidi, in the framework of the awareness day of the Red.es“AceleraPyme” office (organized by the“Smartech” cluster, a national organization part of Secartys‘ ecosystem of technology clusters, for the implementation of smart technologies).

8 steps to create an Inbound Marketing strategy

8 steps to create an Inbound Marketing strategy 2560 1707 Eric Onidi

Inbound Marketing is a relatively recent concept that deals with the most effective way to attract customers. Inbound Marketing is far from traditional marketing strategies. To create an Inbound Marketing strategy, we propose you to follow 8 steps. The main objective is to captivate and attract users to a website or blog to convert them into leads or registrations. After a maturation process during which we will send them the information they expect or need, we will transform them into the real customers we expected. It is not a matter of attracting attention so that potential customers come to us, but to create content thinking about providing answers to the needs of our users.

Did you know where this concept comes from? Inbound Marketing emerged in the United States and became popular in 2009, among other reasons, because of the book by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs“. Soon after, this “attraction” marketing expanded to the rest of the countries, differentiating itself from Outbound Marketing in which the company was looking for the customer and not as now, that the customer is attracted to the company and looks for it. Many new terms came from the other side of the world, here we leave you a small but key list so you don’t get lost in the marketing world.

inbound-outbound-marketing

What is Inbound Marketing for?

  • Increase the visibility of your business, i.e. the ability of your brand or website to be seen through Google results, paid campaigns, blog content, videos, email marketing…
  • Attract more traffic that generates leads, thanks in large part to content that is more tailored and not so generic.
  • Attract quality traffic that corresponds to your target, or “buyer persona” which are real potential customers.
  • Reduce investment in advertising, “paid media”, such as Google or Facebook Ads, and reallocate the budget to own media, such as a blog or a YouTube channel.
  • Generate eye-catching content: the more relevant the content, the more likely you are to convince visitors to your website or application to follow you and in the future to make a purchase or contact you. Inbound Marketing is basically composed of different contents that are disseminated through different channels. Ideally these contents complement each other, making the user access them from several channels.
  • Ease of closing the sales process. How? To implement an Inbound Marketing strategy we will invest time in studying what each person needs at each moment. The creation of content that adds value is based on knowing in detail our “buyer personas” and the individual buying process. In this way, with all the information obtained from our database, we will observe what to offer and the stage theyare in. In the face of a known need, a solution on a plate.

How to create an Inbound Marketing strategy in 8 steps?

But how do we create an Inbound Marketing strategy? If you read any blog that talks about this type of strategy, you will see that not all of them are the same or organize the steps in the same way. But we can guarantee that in summary they all coincide in the same verbs: attract, convert, relate, sell and analyze.

From EMD we will tell you in a summarized way which are the steps we use to create an Inbound marketing strategy in 8 steps.

1. Knowing the business

We must know its vision, values and mission. Define the objectives, the difference between our project and the competition, the available resources and the priorities…

2. Describe our buyer persona

It is one of the fundamental pillars around which marketing actions should be planned. In other words, it is a way to fictitiously personify our target customer. We do this so that the company can understand its customer and thus improve its customer acquisition ratios, sales or the format in which it presents its services.

If in the past we were satisfied with having a segmentation of the public based on age, sex, place of residence or socioeconomic level, today we can go much further. Knowing their concerns, relationships, interests, intentions, hobbies, day-to-day life or friends is now possible… And the more we know about our buyer persona, the closer we will get to making the right decisions related to product or service development, communication actions, sales and brand messages… As you can see, business strategy depends on detailed knowledge of what our customers expect.

There are different methods and tools to obtain this information; we will explain them soon in another blog post.

3. Purchase process

Once we have identified our buyer personas, we need to know what they are and what they are not. stages they go through from the moment they discover they have a need/problem to the moment they decide to purchase a product or service to solve it. To analyze the phases of a process The well-known AIDA model, which consists of 4 guidelines, can be used:

Understanding-the-aida-model

4. Key words

Not all words are good keywords, nor only a few are the right ones to create a great strategy. Keep in mind that they will be present in your SEO strategy, social media and in all the content you create. To choose them you must understand what needs your target customer has, so you can choose the ones that best suit and fit your target. A good way to understand which words are the closest to your target is by doing an in-depth study such as a semantic analysis, which we explain in this blog post:“Semantic Analysis in your SEO strategy“.

There are two factors to take into account when choosing keywords:

  • User intent, with searches:
    • informative: corresponding to a search for information in general on a specific topic
    • transactional: corresponding to a search for an already identified product, a supplier of this product and its price, delivery conditions, etc.
    • navigational: which are more playful searches, without a clear intention.
  • Search volume:
    • Head tail: correspond to very broad searches and with a high volume of searches, i.e. a lot of competition…
    • Middle tail: these are more specific searches, but are still very general.
    • Long tail: correspond to very specific searches, with little competition and which are mostly transactional.

5. Organize content and plan its dissemination

In order to offer the solution to the needs identified in our buyer persona, a good planning of the content calendar is key. It is a matter of assessing which of our publications are included in the dissemination plan. In addition to good planning, we must bear in mind that content is king, as long as it has the added value that attracts the user we are interested in. We could say that there are some rules when it comes to consider the publication of this content, it has to be:

  • A specific content that attracts those who are looking for something specific. “NO to eternal texts. We have less and less time and we don’t want to waste it in eternal searches among endless texts or empty posts. Let’s apply the rule of less is more.
  • The content has to be entertaining or at least educational, but not promotional, since in 80% of the cases it scares people away. This rule is valid for the website, social networks or blog, for example.
  • The design of what you show is important. Remember that the first impression is the one that counts the most, but a good impression without valuable content is worthless.

Owned, earned, paid

Once we have the perfect content we will have to see how to distribute it successfully. One of the simplest and most typical ways is with our own media and dissemination channels, through a blog, email, networks, videos.

A second way is through earned media, it is a very easy and fast way, since it is the publications made by our users of social networks, whether comments, links, repost… An organic way to be known through the opinion or activity of our audience, being able to get future customers thanks to the experiences of the first ones.

Finally, with paid media. In this case it will have a cost, although we have much more control over it, we can decide, in most cases, the segment that will receive it and its temporality, such as banners, external links…

Inbound Marketing turns your brand into a powerful magnet

Raquel, from EMD

6. Take off with advertising

Organic positioning is the pillar of an Inbound Marketing strategy, but let’s not fool ourselves, to be well positioned we will need time and sometimes Google plays tricks. That is why we should consider betting on other actions that allow us to attract traffic in the short term, such as SEM (Search Engine Marketing) with ads in Google Ads (Paid Search, Display, Remarketing) or Bing. Another interesting method to get visits to our content is with Paid Social, that is, placing advertising on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, among others.

Note: if you get dizzy with all these terms we advise you to read our “glossary of marketing terms”.

7. Automate processes

Once the previous steps have been completed, the next step is to create the automation process. You will have understood that sending personalized content at the right time and on the right channel can be a real puzzle if you have many users. There are platforms that allow you to automate and manage from a single place most of the digital marketing processes, we could call them “all in one” tools.

These software help us to execute our marketing strategies in an automated way, and allow us to have a much more complete control of the whole process, since we can know if we have achieved leads with our strategy, how and what has happened in the sales process. Among the best known platforms are HubSpot, Pardot, Zoho, Marketo, Eloqua, Spokal. Although we can also find more specialized tools in the various aspects of automation.

8. Analyze traffic and results

A regular and detailed analysis of the traffic we receive, of the audience, of the content read or consumed, is a fundamental step in modern marketing. Assessing whether the decisions taken are the right ones and are yielding positive results or whether, on the contrary, our strategy needs to be reoriented seems obvious. However, it is surprising how little time companies devote to this work.

Basic data such as the number of unique users, the evolution of the bounce rate, time spent on pages or conversions, cost per lead, acquisition, etc … are KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that we cannot ignore. To go further and get more out of analytics, current tools allow us to obtain precise data on audiences, conversion funnels or attribution; in short, key information that will give us a better understanding of our users and allow us to adapt our actions.

CONCLUSION

In this article we have presented how to create an Inbound Marketing strategy in 8 steps. Soon we will develop each of the points with case studies and interviews with experts in the marketing field.

Do you have doubts about a specific point? Do you want to ask us how to define a strategy for your company? Follow us on LinkedIn, on our blog or contact us directly through this form.

What is Return on Engagement (ROE)?

What is Return on Engagement (ROE)? 2560 1708 Eric Onidi

We are familiar with the concept of ROI (Return On Investment), the return on investment, which measures the profit obtained in relation to the investment made. In this article we will explain what ROE(Return on Engagement) is, a concept that has been used in digital marketing for just over ten years.

First of all, it is important to translate the concept of “Engagement“, so that we are clear about what we are talking about. Granted, we are fluent in English, but sometimes it is easier to understand things in our own language.

In the context of digital marketing, by engagement we mean the commitment, loyalty, involvement and participation of a person with a brand. It is in some way an indicator that measures the level of adhesion, of attachment of this person to the brand.

Traditionally, brands have tried to calculate how much engagement and involvement can generate a certain action or strategy – and the corresponding economic investment – in social networks, blog, web, app, video…

The difference with ROI is that ROE is more difficult to translate into numbers, since we are talking not only about interaction with the brand, which can be measured in different ways, but above all about the impact on the strength of a brand.

Return On Engagement (ROE) | Marketing and Digital Strategy Glossary | EMD

Engagement KPIs

There is a whole battery of KPIs(Key Performance Indicators) that are often used; for each action, engagement objectives can be determined and evaluated.

For a webinar, for example, this could be the number and percentage of people who register, those who attend the online course, the number of requests for information or quotes received after the webinar, etc.

For a video it can be the time spent watching it, if you watch it to the end, the number (and percentage) of likes obtained, clicks on links, interactions, times shared, comments received, subscriptions to the channel …

Experience in many companies has shown that they tend to put too much focus on these kpis and generate a kind of obsession with the number of fans, shares, registrations, info requests, downloads… the goal being to increase these numbers in any way possible to legitimize our actions.

If we have seen so many times brands with inflated fan numbers on various social networks, coming from dubious origins, it is for a reason…

It is clear that the actions we carry out, and in particular in the field of digital marketing, must have some indicator of results, and that there are not many other ways to evaluate the impact produced. So the method is the right one.

Empathizing with people

However, brands need to evolve their thinking and put themselves in people’s minds. Okay, it’s not a very new concept, we’ve been reading the same thing everywhere for years!

But let’s try to do it for real. We are a person, not a consumera usera user singleuser, a visitora audience or a cohort … (they have given us some nice names, haven’t they?)

How the brand intends to reward me for my loyalty, for my commitment to it, for the value and the information I provide with my personal data, my navigation or behavioral data collected through the cookies that are installed on my computer every time I open a new web page.

In the age of data, my location, my interests, my contacts, my behavior, my intentions and my intentionseven my words (!) are stored and analyzed. What will I get from brands, beyond personalized advertising and remarketing (with banners everywhere for having looked at a product)?

Brands that will know how to focus on solving a person’ s problems, provide content with added value, service, inspiration, information or quality entertainment, social value; those that will know how to humanize the relationship (let’s not talk about B2B or B2C, let’s talk about human to human), forget for a moment about kpis to be perhaps more altruistic, are the ones that in the long term will strengthen their image and get the maximum Return on Engagement.

Finally, this ROE can be measured through datamining on social networks, in forums or blogs, in comments, analyzing and structuring the information of millions of written words. It is a more in-depth work, which requires means to do it, but it is surely very valuable.

Automate to humanize

Automate to humanize 2560 1709 Eric Onidi

The basis of marketing is to understand customers. What are their expectations, their desires, their problems, etc. by putting them at the center of any action or decision. Marketing automation allows to go further in this process.

Traditionally, depending on the type of product or service we offer, we identify our target, i.e. the target customer, and segment the market. This segmentation is usually done by demographic data (age, income, level of education, nationality, occupation, etc.), psychographic data (attitudes, lifestyle, personality) or behavioral data (type of use of a product, for example).

Today there are many more forms of segmentation based on data we obtain from consumers’ online behavior:

The segmentation becomes very precise, including elements such as consumers’ intentions (purchase intention, information search or inspiration…), their interactions with a brand (sharing or evaluating information on social networks for example), their perceptions of a brand (in relation to online comments) or their geo-positioning (location information given by a connected device).

User expectations

In parallel, consumers have never been so demanding of a brand:

The starting point (maybe we forgot at some point), is that they want to be treated as human beings, not as numbers or “IDs”. They are not just a wallet, a prospect to be converted into a customer. They want human-to-human relationships, not business-to-consumer, Business-to-Business (B2B) or Business-to-Consumer (B2C), as we usually think.

They want to receive quality inputs, in the form of high value-added content that uses the same language as their own. Those inputs should be based on their problems, their doubts, their passions or their intentions at any given moment.

They want immediate, personalized and consistent responses to their requests, on all communication channels, online and offline. How many times have we explained the same story to different customer service operators? How many times have we received banner advertising for a product we have already purchased? The organization of a company does not matter: the fact that marketing is not connected to sales or customer service is not the problem of the customer, who wants the experience with the brand to be as seamless as possible.

On the other hand, today’s consumer demands more from the brand than a product or service, he needs to know what are its values, what is its vision, how it takes responsibility for social or ecological aspects … What does the company do with the personal and behavioral data it is giving him, how is its loyalty rewarded?

The brand has to empathize with the consumer, to feel what he feels, and to provide in real time the appropriate response to his request, in an ” ultra-personalized” way. This is when we talk about unitary segmentation, that is to say, formed by a single consumer (a utopia for marketers?).

Automate communication

In order to offer this degree of customization, there are several stages:

  • First we must capture as much information as possible in the form of data from all users.
  • Secondly, we must structure this information. This is done thanks to datamining , which allows us to discover behavioral patterns in the huge amounts of data received. Of course, the finer and more detailed the pattern and the smaller the segment, the greater the possibility of personalization.
  • Thirdly, we must know at what stage of the buying process the user is at. It allows us to determine their intention and needs: they may be at the beginning of the process, asking themselves general questions or looking for inspiration. They could also be already decided to buy a product and are actively looking for a supplier for a specific and immediate need. If you want to know more about the Customer Journey, we recommend this blog article where we give you all the explanations…
  • Finally comes the automation of communication, which makes it possible to send the right information in real time and on the right channel. This requires pre-established content elements adapted to each situation (type, format, length, etc.). The final content is created based on the analysis of behavioral data and user intent.

Of course we are talking about a background work that requires time, methodology and a certain budget. Relying on experts is advisable to ensure a correct implementation of the tools (software, chatbot…).

In B2B, Adobe’s Marketo is a good example of an automation tool. For those who want to go deeper, here is the link.

All of the above leads me to this conclusion: it seems a paradox, but automation is synonymous with the humanization of the relationship between the company and the consumer.

Do you have the same opinion?