Article contributed by Greg Dastrup
Changes in Brand Marketing Strategies
Following the increased business expansion trends of brick and mortar businesses following their customers online, web-based marketing and the consequently higher profit potential have significantly altered the ways in which brands market to customers, forever changing the traditional consumer experience with acquiring information about new and existing products and services.
Web Content & Visuals
Web content has become increasingly more important to business marketing efforts. Customers have become accustomed to finding brand information by web searches and through reading blogs and specialty websites.
It’s become increasingly important to understand the research trends of customers in online markets. Online customers demand quick answers to their queries. Online articles need to support skimming, and quick informational searches for targeted keywords.
In 2014 and even more so in 2015, brands used visual content to increase brand loyalty, conversion and retention rates. Frequently updated ,micro videos with amplifying captions and which tell a story drew higher visitor return rates and longer first time visitor interaction times.
Omni-Channel Marketing
Today’s connected customer has a mobile device, a desktop, a laptop, visits websites, signs up for emails, researches brands online and less frequently in retail outlets. Omni-channel marketing utilizes an approach which targets its marketing efforts at customers through multiple, ideally every conceivable, channel(s). The goal of which is to harmonize the various exposures a customer has to a product to create a series of seamless positive product impressions, with the ultimate goal of higher sales.
Social Media Efforts
Given recently released figures that 5 new social media profiles are created per second and 4.5 Billion user ratings are generated each day on Facebook.com alone, the biggest and potentially highest impact change in the way brands are marketed involves the use of social media platforms to create brand loyalty and inspire a culture of brand followers and enthusiasts.
Brands create Facebook and Twitter pages, albums, invite friends and followers, and specialty brand newsrooms with real-time updates and feedback, all targeted to the end result of promoting their brands to consumers. Social Media allows brands to create storytelling content, which encourages users to return to their pages for updates and increases the emotional investment of their customers, resulting in increased brand loyalty.
Starbucks ran several highly successful campaigns by expanding their social media efforts.
Feedback and Online Reviews
Today’s customers are highly social and want to make choices that fit in with what the rest of the crowd is doing.
Recent studies have shown that upwards of 80 percent of consumers do some form of product research at least once a week, with 70 percent of those who consult consumer reviews stating that they rely on the information that is presented.
The importance of online reviews has reached levels requiring that brands address product quality and consumer experience issues at levels and in ways previously considered impractical. Customer service has become a major brand focus consideration as a result.
Increased Productization
Productization is the marketing process of packaging business offerings, including services, in a packaged form which simplifies consumer purchase decisions. Brands have increasingly productized their offerings to improve consumer satisfaction metrics and sales. To be sure, brands still offer additional features, but as upgrade options.
A familiar example would be the services offered by carpet cleaners that offer a basic service, stain removal, and add on options such as drapes and furniture cleaning.
Today’s customers have largely migrated online and have high interaction rates with their peers before making purchase decisions. Online customers are extremely sociable and utilize social media sites as part of the purchase experience. Millennial customers require visual and concise content relevant, ideally tailored, to their individual demands. They further require that content be entertaining and updated frequently. Brands have responded by changing their marketing efforts from traditional approaches to online methods as well as combining efforts across channels accessed by their customers.