Web 2.0 is all about a mindset change, for consumers, publishers, and of course, marketers. Web 2.0 pioneer, Tim O'Reilly, describes it as a set of principles and practices that puts the individual consumer in control of the Web experience. It’s about faster, better use of all the disparate data sources that the web and related technologies produce each and every time we click online.
Amazon, Google, Wikipedia, Flickr, del.ici.ous, Bebo and MySpace are all prime examples of Web 2.0 in action. Rather than fighting the move to a world where the online consumer is in control, each of these sites has embraced it. What they all have in common is the direct influence of users to create spaces and services that they find useful: it’s all about participation rather than prescription. Millions of consumers decide what’s cool and what’s not rather than a centralised corporate head.
As a result, the old information asymmetries between buyer and seller have fallen by the wayside, or even reversed completely, to the extent that the online trading environment has become a permanent buyer’s market. As online marketers, we need to adapt to this sea-change and learn from the examples set by Amazon and Google.
Marketing on steroids
What that means in practice is that online marketing programmes must be built around the real needs of customers and prospects. Not what we think their needs are, or what we think their needs will be in three months, but what their actual needs are right now. The power has shifted, and we are no longer in control. Our customers are, and we must listen to them all day, every day.
There are three guiding principles that should characterise online campaigns in the Web 2.0 age:
*Intelligence
We need to gather all the relevant data we can about individual customers and use it to our advantage; not just for static 'profiling' but also in a dynamic way that fits the context of the customer's current circumstance.
*Customer control
We need to accept that it is the customer who is in control. We must find better ways to get the customer to drive our campaigns and give them the tools to do so.
*Timeliness
Customers expect us to make relevant offers that respond to their needs in real-time.
It’s the data, stupid
The quality of our customer data and our ability to organise and use it effectively and quickly are central to successful online marketing in the new world of Web 2.0.
Marketers must shake off preconceived ideas about customer needs and make intelligent use of data to discover what customers’ real and immediate needs are. We need to find ways to integrate data from several sources – including client-side systems such as CRM systems, data warehouses, web analytics, e-commerce booking engines and contact centres – to create a richer understanding of what customers are looking for.
It is only by listening to customers and prospects that we can breathe life into online marketing strategy and apply it to each customer in our chosen segments. Our online marketing platforms must be in tune with what the other client-side systems tell us every day. The technology to do this is available: it’s a case of putting it all together and knowing what to listen for.
The vital signs of online marketing life
There are three principle kinds of data to which we can listen to anticipate customer needs better and faster: static profile data; business events and business milestones.
Static profile data covers the basics: name, gender, birth date, address and other key fields that provide a profile of who we are dealing with.
Business events include any event across any of our data platforms that can tell us something about a consumer’s needs and desires. For example, it could be that someone has registered on a web site, downloaded a white paper, abandoned a shopping cart before completing a transaction, made a particular search query, submitted a particular question to a helpdesk – anything that gives context to their current situation.
Business milestones – which could be in linear or non-linear time – could include the end of a contract period, a subscription coming to an end, an investor approaching retirement, or a known lead time prior to purchase. Again, this information builds up context around the consumer’s current situation.
How do we match customers’ context in a relevant way across our online marketing efforts so we can respond their needs better and faster without spending all of our time administering programmes? The answer lies in automation.
Automatic for the people
Once the marketing matrix of customer profiles, business events, business milestones and responses has been established, it is vital to ensure that all processes are automated from the outset.
Automation from the start means that programmes can be implemented without fear of future resource or administration challenges, and the time savings over the longer term can be enormous. For email marketing, automation should occur at two levels: deployment and messaging.
Automation can be used to govern the deployment of the messages as well as the content of the messages through technical integration between the listening devices and the email delivery platform. This involves gathering the data, manipulating it, applying business rules and pushing it into the email platform, for deployment in one seamless process.
The choice of messaging can be automated based on dynamic personalisation capabilities within the email platform. The very same rules that govern the deployments also govern the way in which each particular email is built, based on templates and databases full of appropriate content.
While we have used email as an example here, this approach can be applied to a company’s entire marketing strategy. Tools like ad serving, while not Web 2.0, can help companies better understand their customers. Web analytics is all about collecting data and making things relevant, and search is a classic Web 2.0 approach.
By acknowledging the mindset change the Web 2.0 era demands, and modifying our behaviour to embrace it, we can reach the point where our messages are welcomed by customers and prospects. We can move from pushing our products and services, to responding to real and immediate customers needs. When we reach that point, we will no longer be selling: our customers will be buying.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Mullins, director at Acceleration, opened the Johannesburg office in 2000. He has played an instrumental role in the growth of Acceleration in South Africa, working with clients to identify their online marketing needs and establish effective online marketing strategies that deliver superior results. This is achieved through the implementation of technology services such as Advertiser and Publisher Ad Operations, Email, Paid Search and Site Analytics.
Richard’s career includes tenures at Ogilvy and Mather and Saatchi & Saatchi where he worked with clients such as Unilever, Sun International, Nedbank Guinness, Toyota and M-Net.
Richard completed an honors degree in Communications at RAU.
Visit our PRESS OFFICE: Acceleration provides unrivalled digital marketing consultation, outsourced services and technologies to over 300 distinguished clients around the world. We have more than a decade of experience creating customised solutions that optimise digital marketing, automate complex processes, harmonise technology and maximise our clients' return on digital investments.
Headquartered in London, Acceleration employs expert teams throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and maintains strategic partnerships with industry leaders including Omniture, DoubleClick and Epsilon.
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