With so many channels to connect with your customers, you have to know how to properly target the right ones at the right time with tools such as marketing automation. Spearmarketing.com suggests, “If you can target your advertising to those who are actively looking for your product or service, your conversion rates will go up, your dollars spent will go down, and your bottom line will increase.”
Whether you’re using social media marketing or email marketing, there are techniques you can use to make your targeting efforts more effective driving more leads and nurturing the customers that have remained loyal to you. Consider these three tactics as you move forward with targeting.
Call Center Improvements
Outsourcing customer service to a call center is a great way to keep all your customers happy for a minimal amount of money. But, what makes all the difference in targeting is the call center software you choose to use. Various features make this more accurate and effective for your business, but you can’t use them to their full potential them without the right data.
– Specific customer information: Don’t just use your software for collecting customer information – pull it, as well. Find out which customers prefer emails, phone calls, or direct mail letters? You can then delegate that information to the correct representatives to ensure you’re reaching the right customers with the right marketing mediums. This can improve conversion rates and overall ROI.
Smart Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is a technology that businesses are finding to be useful in the lead generation and nurturing process. Not only does it allow you to get the right information to the customers who want it in a timely manner, but you can input customer preferences, instead of providing a one size fits all. This is especially effective in the follow-up.
– Automate follow-ups: Instead of sending one offer and never hearing back, schedule in follow-ups that work with your segmented suggestions. Using demographics, purchases and behavior information, you can make the marketing process more effective every time, not just in your initial outreach.
Improving Social Techniques
Social media may not be the right place to sell – but it’s certainly an appropriate place to target customers for interactions down the road. Facebook is making social media marketing possible with its new ad targeting options.
Experts at TechCrunch reported, “Custom audience targeted ads will be much more relevant than ads just targeted to a business fan’s or some biographical demographic. They can reach people who a business is sure purchased its products before, or that haven’t thanks to exclusionary targeting.” To use this, consider the ways you can target customers.
– Specific interests: Many customers list interests as a part of the profile building process. What seems like innocent information can be incredibly valuable. Give potential customers what they want before they know they want it.
– Age: You don’t want to be advertising to someone who can’t buy your product because they’re too young. Be sure your ad audience is even capable of buying the product or service you’re advertising.
To make your marketing efforts more effective you want to precisely target customers – but, to do that, you have to have the right tools in place. So, whether you’re using social media marketing, email campaigns or marketing automation, be sure the people who want it are the people who are getting it.
Bio: Jessica Sanders is an avid small business writer. As the marketing copyeditor of Resource Nation, she touches on a range of topics such as direct mail and online marketing.