Your customers want you to turn up the heat.
What is "cold marketing"? That's the new fixation on analytics and targeted marketing. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's great to be able to pull analytics, review what your customers are looking at, what they've bought, what they're interested in. And then use that to offer up dynamic and targeted messages. I personally love analytics and have a slight addiction to tracking pages, content, time on the site, etc. So I'm all about that. BUT....
We can't forget the beauty and joy behind basic human interactions and finding something unexpected and new. And as marketers we have to remember to offer these things to our customers as well. We have to remember to do warm marketing....
What is "cold marketing"? That's the new fixation on analytics and targeted marketing. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's great to be able to pull analytics, review what your customers are looking at, what they've bought, what they're interested in. And then use that to offer up dynamic and targeted messages. I personally love analytics and have a slight addiction to tracking pages, content, time on the site, etc. So I'm all about that. BUT....
We can't forget the beauty and joy behind basic human interactions and finding something unexpected and new. And as marketers we have to remember to offer these things to our customers as well. We have to remember to do warm marketing....
Warm marketing means that we don't keep our customers at arms length and only view them as metrics and analytics (as numbers on a spreadsheet, as a target demographic). This sort of cold marketing supports arms-length approaches that often end up being simply the dissemination of collateral.
It also means that you offer a more personal, warmer picture of your company. The cold faceless corporate speak isn't winning customers. When you can open a brochure and change the name and "look" and it adequately describes five other companies...you have a problem. It's not you.
We used to know our customers, because we knew them. We can use excuses like my customers are all "online" and / or we've simply got "too many" to service in a personalized manner (really? you have too many customers? cause I can help you with that....). But with social media and collaboration tools there are multiple opportunities to get to know your customers. (Check out the CEO of ING Direct @CEO_INGDIRECT on how to handle this one. He blogs, tweets, and regularly talks to customers. He's got warm marketing nailed.).
Truth is, there is always going to be a gap between you and your customers with straight cold marketing. Numbers alone don't deliver the whole picture or offer the perfect solution. Don't get me wrong. Instituting an analytics package or dynamic/targeted content will help deliver results. But the marketing differentiator of the time that is now is a question of what you do or don't do to bridge that gap.
Warm Marketing can simply mean mixing the analytics up with something social. Amazon and others do this with offering up something like a "other people who liked this also liked these" links. Brilliant. If just for the weird fascination of seeing yet again how I am actually on nobody's wavelength (this has been scientifically confirmed....trust me....there's a game....anyone I play with loses it repeatedly).
I check these lists out often and sometimes I find a little gem, something new or weird that I've never considered before. And that's because that list was only partially targeted on my past behavior. Instead, if done right it's taking in the very real, very odd dynamics of all the other people out there. It's personal on a human-level that beats out just pulling from my data and using "keywords" to match me up with other keywords and spitting out "same as".
The personal touch still matters (will always matter) and it will stay a key differentiator between those companies that take things to the next level in the next few years.
It also means that you offer a more personal, warmer picture of your company. The cold faceless corporate speak isn't winning customers. When you can open a brochure and change the name and "look" and it adequately describes five other companies...you have a problem. It's not you.
We used to know our customers, because we knew them. We can use excuses like my customers are all "online" and / or we've simply got "too many" to service in a personalized manner (really? you have too many customers? cause I can help you with that....). But with social media and collaboration tools there are multiple opportunities to get to know your customers. (Check out the CEO of ING Direct @CEO_INGDIRECT on how to handle this one. He blogs, tweets, and regularly talks to customers. He's got warm marketing nailed.).
Truth is, there is always going to be a gap between you and your customers with straight cold marketing. Numbers alone don't deliver the whole picture or offer the perfect solution. Don't get me wrong. Instituting an analytics package or dynamic/targeted content will help deliver results. But the marketing differentiator of the time that is now is a question of what you do or don't do to bridge that gap.
Warm Marketing can simply mean mixing the analytics up with something social. Amazon and others do this with offering up something like a "other people who liked this also liked these" links. Brilliant. If just for the weird fascination of seeing yet again how I am actually on nobody's wavelength (this has been scientifically confirmed....trust me....there's a game....anyone I play with loses it repeatedly).
I check these lists out often and sometimes I find a little gem, something new or weird that I've never considered before. And that's because that list was only partially targeted on my past behavior. Instead, if done right it's taking in the very real, very odd dynamics of all the other people out there. It's personal on a human-level that beats out just pulling from my data and using "keywords" to match me up with other keywords and spitting out "same as".
The personal touch still matters (will always matter) and it will stay a key differentiator between those companies that take things to the next level in the next few years.
Leave a comment