Harnessing the rise of the digital consumer

No media channel is working in isolation. To gain positive brand sentiment, you cannot ignore the power of social influence. And to gain sales, you have to really understand your customers’ behaviour online and offline before tailoring a relevant offer.

As a communications agency, we help brands live, breathe and grow. To keep them nourished in the short term and sustained for the long term we have to help them put the digital consumer at the heart of everything they do.

Effective marketing means combining creative sentiment with technical competence, then collaborating with the very best teams to engineer consumer experiences that are meaningful, directional and measurable.

This can only begin when brands decide to put the digital consumer at the heart of what they do. These are our four steps to achieving this:

1. Be commercially creative

The rapid expansion of technology into our lives has focused marketers away from ideas and towards infinite measurability.

The onset of marketing automation means that we’re better at predicting the things that motivate buyers, and marketing automation tools allow us to test, learn and time our communications to perfection.

But it’s not the sophisticated CRM systems, technologies or mobile applications alone that make marketing efforts a success. It’s standing ahead of the competition and being noticed for the things that brands do best.

And in a media saturated world, creativity is the key to achieving engagement with the digital consumer.

The most successful organisations apply their ideas and creativity to every consumer touch-point, initiating a clear set of principles that help them shape their brands and remain focused on their commercial performance.

Being commercially creative in an increasingly automated world means two things: firstly, you need to be able to have great ideas that sell products; secondly - and perhaps more importantly - you need to apply great ideas that are measurable and that enhance and build the brand.

2. Be integrated

It is well known that the most successful marketing initiatives in today’s world rely on integration. This means adopting a customer view that is wedded to a consistent and relevant brand experience that integrates and permeates throughout every customer touch point.

Achieving this demands impartiality, appropriate utilisation of technology, a thirst for insight and a long-term partnership with brand marketing teams and, ultimately, their end customers.

3. Automate to resonate

Harnessing data directly informs effective action and we can do it in real time. Studying online and offline interactions help us to attribute value to different media channels, and programmatic marketing, real time bidding and social media monitoring helps us be where our audiences reside.

Marketing automation and effective CRM systems are the key to a successful communications infrastructure for connecting with prospects. But off-the-shelf systems can be poorly tailored and bespoke systems are often expensive to build and scale, so a rigorous selection process is essential.

Often, the answer lies in successfully integrating systems and tools that are off-the-shelf. Building something from scratch should be the last possible option.

4. Collaborate

A successful 21st century business has to embrace collaboration at every level. It is no longer possible for organisations to be expert in every aspect of the communications universe; the complexity of the landscape is immense, and the breadth of experience needed is just too vast.

The new world is open source and license free, but we all have to get on board to make the difference.

10 rules for harnessing the Digital Consumer

1. Recognise that all consumers are digital consumers

2. Put the digital consumer at the heart of everything

3. Use marketing automation as a tool not an idea

4. Leverage your brand to woo the digital consumer

5. Seek out and test commercially creative ideas

6. Accept digital consumers migrate across all media touch points

7. Use technology only to enhance experiences

8. Earn consumer trust through relevant engagement

9. Protect your budget. Test, learn and learn again

10. Remain independent thinkers.

Sammy Mansourpour, Managing Director, The Agency

Tel: 0845 468 1460

Email: hello@theagencyonline.co.uk

Web: www.theagencyonline.co.uk

Twitter: @theagencyuk