Want to Build a Great Marketing Strategy? Start by Making Human Connections. Here's How

Hearst bought Rodale. Meredith bought Time. But these major magazine unions will look relatively small if AT&T acquires Time Warner and Sinclair Broadcast Group manages to take over Tribune Media. And now, CBS is in talks with Viacom to combine. While the valuations in this wave of M&A vary, one thing remains constant: a quest for scale.

Facebook and Google eat the lion's share of digital advertising and practically all the growth. So this wave of mega media mergers illustrates one route to combat the dominance of these internet giants: scale. Each of these mergers amasses an enormous audience in an effort to extend companies' reach in order to compete. And while it will be exciting to see what these mergers yield in terms of advertiser appeal, there's another approach that many marketers should be thinking about.

In today's mass-reach world, it is easy to be blinded by scale. Even in the case of each of these massive mergers, there's something that media brands mastered long ago that still matters: individual relationships. It might sound counterintuitive that corporations like these would know their customers, but the reality is that consumers interact with individual titles, programs, and media personalities. The way that media companies maintain their popularity among consumers is by understanding their interests and serving them. In fact, while consumer trust in the media continues to be low, trust in journalism and journalists is on the rise.

In a world of seemingly infinite reach, that one-to-one connection is more valuable than ever. Here are three things you need to keep in mind so you can get personal with your customers.

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1. Make honest human connections.

Humans are literally wired to connect with one another. When we treat our customers like data or personas or demographics, it can be easy to forget that they are individuals. The really confounding thing about our ability to collect nearly infinite information about our customers is that we don't treat them as well as we did before we interacted digitally.

Trust is essential to form human connections. While it might be tempting to use tracking tools to gather data about our customers, trust is more important. Opting in is the bare minimum for data collection--transparency and consent must be given. Be sure that you treat your customers (and their data) with respect to deepen your customer connection.

2. Exchange ideas.

As a marketer, it can be very easy to focus on one-way messaging. Let's face it--a lot of work goes into creating those marketing messages. However, genuine relationships are based on interaction and dialogue. Find opportunities to listen. Ask questions and for opinions. Give your customers input and not only will you deepen your relationship with them, but you will also probably receive feedback, criticism, and ideas that you can use. Who would know better what your customers need than they do?

3. Socialize.

Yes, you can incorporate social media. But this requires actively listening, exchanging ideas, responding to positive and negative feedback, and all of the qualities required in genuine human connection. However, while it can be easy to fall back into the internet-scale trap and view social media as the most efficient way to reach your customers, genuine relationships are rarely based on efficiency.

One of the most effective ways to connect with customers is face to face. Many marketers (and media companies) are adding live experiences to their mix. Work with your customers to understand what sorts of real-world events would be useful, fun, or interesting to them. And if creating your own event seems too daunting, you can find out what events they already attend and what sorts of causes matter to them, or interests they have, and create a custom experience within an event just for your audience. What creates a deeper bond than shared experience?

So, yes, there are many ways to reach your customers, and the internet spawns new and increasingly targeted ones all the time. But as you consider the most effective methods for your marketing objectives, consider whether your topmost objective is scale or if you are looking for the kind of lasting customer relationship that will sustain you in the long run.

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Source: https://www.inc.com
Image Credit: Getty Images




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3 Reasons Customers Aren't Opening Your Marketing Emails

I've been writing about email marketing frequently lately because email marketing is the last form of outbound marketing that still generates sales leads.

An email marketing campaign is useless, of course, if nobody opens your email. Thus it's important to know the five elements that determine if a marketing email is opened:

1)  When it's sent. Emails sent during heavy working hours are less likely to be opened than those send off-hours.

2)  Who's it from. Emails from strangers are less likely to be opened than those from colleagues.
The SUBJECT line. Emails with long, confusing SUBJECT lines are less likely to be opened than those with short, relevant ones

3) The SUBJECT line. Emails with long, confusing SUBJECT lines are less likely to be opened than those with short, relevant ones.

4)  The salutation. Emails that being with formalities ("Dear Mr. Jones") are less likely to be opened than those that begin informally ("Jane,").

5)  The teaser. Emails where the first 10 to 20 words are meaningless are less likely to be opened those that begin meaningfully.

Those five elements are important because they're what appears in the INBOX in most email programs. The example below are screen-captured from Outlook, but the same problems were obvious when they appeared on my iPhone.

1. Meaningless warnings.

In this example, the sender has wasted valuable "real-estate" on the INBOX display by displaying a message that's only meaningful after I've opened the email.

What's worse, the message implies that if I do open the email, I'll have trouble viewing it, which is not the best idea to plant in my mind when I'm considering whether to do so.

I'm pretty sure that this "If you're having trouble viewing" message is the default for one of the popular email marketing software vendors, proving that they are clueless.

I might also note that while the SUBJECT line is intended to be intriguing, it comes off rather hostile. The entire effect screams "Delete this and save yourself grief!"

 2. Repeating the subject line.

In this example, the SUBJECT line is strong and compelling. Who wouldn't want to know how to create sales champions?

However, the example wastes the INBOX "real estate" by simply repeating the SUBJECT line. I already know that part. Do I really need to see it again.

In addition, the "Hello" is unnecessary and the "This is just a quick reminder about" message is uninspired and clipped off.

Yes, I might open this based upon the strong SUBJECT line (and the fact that I know the sender), but overall, the teaser is just being wasted.

3. Obviously fakery.

This one is truly lame. Notice the space between the "Hi" and the comma? That was where the email program was supposed to plug my first name.

Apparently the list this marketer is using didn't have my first name in a break-out-able field, so they just went forward without it.

That gaffe is immediately followed by a fake (and therefore insulting) statement of concern about my health and similarly fake enthusiasm about... whatever.

Combine all that an opaque and self-interest SUBJECT line and you've got an email marketing campaign that gives new meaning to the word "meh."

Image Credit: Getty Images
Source: http://www.inc.com

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