Tips For Using Technology To Market Your Company
Sales teams and marketing professionals are always looking for a new edge in driving conversions. These days, that edge comes in the form of technology. Tools built specifically to address the needs of marketing (often called “MarTech”) have become very popular since they allow for more immersive and comprehensive marketing campaigns. Here are five ways that entrepreneurs can leverage technology to market to customers more effectively.
Boost Your Marketing Research
Back in 2019, an article in Forbes magazine revealed that consumer packaged goods companies (CPGs) lost an estimated $2.3 billion due to failed innovation that year. Predictions didn’t match up to reality. Here’s where digital analytics can make all the difference since marketing research is a fundamentally data-driven process. AI-driven algorithms can use big data to make more accurate predictions of phenomena like consumer behavior. Traditional research methods like surveys can also benefit from going digital to reach more people faster. Whether you’re selling to individual consumers or engaged in b2b marketing, these advances in machine learning can give you the effective analytics you need.
Build an Optimized Website
One of the biggest oversights made by companies these days is building and maintaining a lackluster web presence. The brand awareness that people get from your website is a vital first impression. Having a webpage that attracts eyes is as much a science as it is an art, and you can apply technical know-how to design a page that holds attention. Certain text layouts such as an F or Z-shaped pattern are more easily read. Different color schemes also have varying psychological effects on viewers, such as black conveying a sense of authority and blue engendering calm. Use these fact-based design aesthetics to craft the optimal landing page and create brand iconography that people won’t forget.
Try SMS Marketing
The modern consumer lives on their smartphone. Statistics show that over 78% of the global population are smartphone users. It’s no wonder that multiple surveys put SMS open rates at over 90%. It’s reflexive. A recent Gartner study revealed that texts have a 45% response rate compared to only 6% for email. People are inundated with easily-ignored spam emails, but SMS is concise and immediate. Done right, a text-based marketing strategy has one of the highest ROI of any method of outreach due to its convenience for both customers and sales teams. For legal and professional reasons, don’t forget to make opting out of receiving marketing texts easy. This empowers your customers and builds your brand’s reputation.
Don’t Give up on Email
Even though text-based marketing has a higher success rate in general, that doesn’t mean that email outreach is useless. Multichannel and omnichannel marketing is based on the idea that reaching out across several channels of communication maximizes the reach of campaigns. For example, SMS messages have a character limit; emails can contain more detailed and meaningful content. Email can be better used to build community among your brand’s customers. They can and should be used together. Smart Insights found that sending a follow-up SMS regarding a sent email can increase email open rates by 20% to 30%. Technologies like customer relationship management (CRM) software can help facilitate a complex outreach strategy like this.
Enable Better Customer Service
When it comes to customer service, technology offers both peril and promise. Thanks to advancements in machine learning, chatbots offer an inexpensive solution for customer service. Unfortunately, that often comes at the cost of quality. One study showed that around 86% of U.S. customers prefer a live human agent to chatbots. The programs just aren’t sophisticated enough to answer advanced queries. Beyond that, people want to feel valued. Technology can enable this as well, though, since webpages can have a live chat option built-in. Social media sites already do have direct messaging systems. The bottom line: use technology in a way that brings you closer to your customers.
Ending Notes
Sales will always require a human element. That doesn’t mean that technology can’t be transformative. Do your research and find the right tools to fit your marketing strategy.
