{Member Insights} What digital actions should marketers be taking now?

The FACC-NY network is composed of a diverse mosaic of talented, experienced, and open-hearted professionals united by a desire to share their knowledge, nurture meaningful connections, and succeed professionally. In this new Member Insights series, we invite a guest member to contribute timely and relevant tips for adapting your activities to overcome immediate challenges and plan for the long-term. 

Jon Stamell is the Founder of Oomiji, a company that provides an intelligent platform for brands to make personal connections with their customers. Jon has 25+ years of experience in strategic planning and marketing, including international consulting, expansion and acquisitions, market research, brand management, image enhancement, e-commerce and multi-media.

Keep reading to learn from Jon why now is the time for brands to install best practices into their digital marketing programs.

It seems every day, as the economy sinks further, the clamoring for getting back to business grows louder. Everyone is looking for a return to “normal”.

But what is “normal”?

We know this for sure: it is nothing like any normal we have ever experienced before. It is not opening our doors and the crowds line up to get in. We’ve seen the future at our local supermarkets where we wear masks, stand six feet apart and wait our turn among other shoppers, all of us wearing masks.

No one is going to return to anything we’ve seen before until there is a vaccine. At the very best, that’s 12 months away and more likely as much as 24 months. By then, we will have cemented new habits and ways of shopping, whether we’re looking for toilet paper or expensive jewelry.

Those who think we’ll return to our old ways will go out of business. Those who adapt and seek new ways of developing relationships with their customers will thrive. Here are 6 digital actions that you should be taking now:

1. Clean up your customer database – what does it look like now? If yours is one of the thousands of companies that has invested more in customer acquisition over retention, it’s time to turn that formula around.  But first, make sure your database is clean and emails are current.
2. Learn more about your customers – Consumers are won over by brands that are in touch with who they are and their values. That can’t be done by blasting emails at them. Social media is not the answer. While you may have a large group of followers, engagement rates often run 2% or less and social media doesn’t get you anybody’s email address.
3. Make learning about your customers easy for them, not you – If they’re not comfortable with you, they’ll go elsewhere. You already knew that when you were meeting them in person. Digital is no different. You need a process that uses landing pages, short queries about their interests and responses that answer, and empathize with their needs.
4. Make emotional connections. As noted by Rabobank, “Empathy is what allows e-commerce teams to understand consumer behavior, identify the most urgent problems impeding a great consumer experience, and fight for the resources to fix them.” Those companies that make emotional connections with their customers will succeed.
5. Don’t blast emails at them. It will scare them away and tell them that you don’t know who they are. Learn about them and send specific content. If they’re trendsetters, talk to them about trends. If they like to evaluate options, offer some. If they want everything easy, make it that way. And, by all means, don’t try to sell them with every email. Educate and engage. Our system asks, acknowledges, sends specific messaging, and asks again. The result is engagement, retention, and increased sales.
6. Focus on customer retention over acquisition. According to Forrester, brands spend almost 80% of their interactive marketing budgets on mass acquisition tactics. Yet, 40% of revenue comes from returning purchasers, who represent only 8% of visitors. A Bain Consulting study shows how increasing customer retention by as little as 5% can achieve a revenue increase of up to 95%. Find your best customers and focus on them.

You may have noticed how much more email there is during this pandemic. Anyone can build an email list and send sales messaging but that’s not how to achieve success. If all you are is a digital vendor of products, you’ll be treated like one, and the low price wins. If, like most brands, you want to become a trusted advisor while using digital tools you need to think more about strategy and process to develop long-term relationships with your customers.

Interested in connecting with Jon? Log into the FACC Member Directory to send him a message.