Improving the Image of Marketing
- Respect the context
Context is personal to every visitor and shows the status of the relationship you have with them. When you visit Amazon, you get personalized recommendations of what you might like to buy based on your history. Websites need to recognize existing relationships and provide content in context.
All it takes is the slightest bit of personalization to show you know visitors (e.g., age, industry, position in funnel, etc.). Ironically, there are major companies spending millions on TV ads rather than the comparably small price to recognize returning visitors to their website!
- Market at every touch point
Have you mapped out every interaction with your customers and prospects online and offline (e.g., email signatures, printed invoices, recorded phone messages, etc.)? There are probably several places you can enhance the branding, engage and even entertain. Groupon used their unsubscribe page to enable visitors to “Punish Derrick.” He is “the guy who thought you would enjoy receiving the daily Groupon email.” This amusing feature is unlikely to make many people change their minds about unsubscribing but it neutralizes any annoyance, reinforces the brand’s personality and might even produce a few smiles.
Affinity Express does the same thing with our 404 error page.
Today, content is an instrumental part of any marketer’s inbound strategy. It builds brand awareness and establishes you as a thought leader. It also plays a prominent role in SEO rankings to enable you to be found for a variety of key terms related to your industry. Best of all, it is a genuine, transparent way to provide value that drives revenue and customer loyalty. Who knows, before long marketers might improve the perception of our honesty and ethics so we can join nurses, pharmacists and doctors at the top of the scale! Do you have any favorite campaigns or examples of marketing that make you proud to be in the profession?
