Marketing is evolving, so is the way of communication. The rise of ecommerce has increased the global CAGR rate to 8.1% for the period 2020-2024.
Starting a business nowadays is easy. There are several online business ideas that you can use to launch your business. However, real real pain starts with marketing. With so much competition around, it is becoming harder to acquire customers.
As innovation in the marketing communications industry continues to accelerate, businesses must improve their communication to reach customers.
52% of consumers expect businesses to know the right moments to communicate.
The three main parts of marketing communication are your message, the medium, and the target.
Marketing communication is targeted interaction with customers and prospects using one or more media, such as direct mail, newspaper, billboards, telemarketing, and the Internet.
However, the top three customer issues related to marketing communications received from brands are:
- They are non-stop.
- They contain the same information.
- The content is not personalized.
Thus, here are the top five ways to improve your marketing communications.
1- Know your audience
The better a company knows their audience, the better they will give them what they desire.
Successful marketing communication begins with understanding the audience. To successfully communicate with your audience, you need to understand them and their needs.
First, identify your target market. Consumers in your target market are more likely to buy from you.
Define your target market based on the following criteria:
- Industry
- Income
- Business size
- Location
- Education level
- Age
- Gender
It will help you understand the market that you are not selling to.
Once you know your target market, then define your customers. Follow these steps:
- Analyze your current customers, such as their locations, purchase patterns, and what platforms they use.
- Search for the reasons why your current customers choose your services or products.
It helps businesses to identify their target audience and allows them to focus on them, saving a lot of time, money, and effort.
2- Send Better Emails To Your Customers
The total number of emails that are daily is 290 billion, which is likely to reach 347 billion daily by the end of 2023.
72% of consumers state that email is their number one communication method when it comes to business transactions.
Therefore, you must optimize your emails. You can also use free email marketing tools, such as MailChimp, Hubspot, or Sender.
Here are the best practices to send better emails:
- Send welcome emails immediately. Immediate welcome emails have a 50% higher open rate, making them 86% more effective than standard newsletters.
- Send thank you emails when your customers purchase a product, refer a friend, etc.
- Send educational emails to engage customers. These emails should not be boring. Include header image, headline, body copy, and call to action sections in your email.
- Include social proof in your emails, such as customer reviews, ratings, and user-generated content.
3- Provide Better Customer Service
A business must remember, negative feedback travels fast in the modern-day world. This can be highly damaging to a business, both in terms of reputation and revenue.
Consumers are likely to be attracted to companies that have a good reputation for providing excellent customer service.
90% of the audience who recalled reading online reviews and feedback claimed that positive online reviews or feedback influence their buying decisions.
Hence, it is important to focus on methods to improve the customer experience and deal with any complaints or feedback effectively.
Below are some ideas to enhance customer relationship and improve your marketing communication:
- Have a separate staff or team that is assigned to monitor customer feedback. This will ensure that no customer complaints or queries are missed or left out.
- Ask your customers to post feedback and reviews. This will showcase your level of service to other customers.
- Use a live chat tool to provide customers with 24/7 chat support for any queries related to your products or services.
- Conduct proper training for your team on different elements of customer service.
- Always ask your customers for feedback or review.
Try to minimize your time trying to satisfy everybody, instead, spend more time focusing on building relationships with your target audience. However, this does not mean ignoring the rest. Focus on keeping your regular customers happy and engaged.
4- Use Social Media to Your Advantage
Businesses with a consistent online presence are four times more likely to experience brand visibility.
Social media is a great tool for listening and communicating to consumers. It helps you improve products and services using feedback and suggestions from consumers.
Here are the ways to use social media to improve marketing communication:
- Keep the content on your social media page fresh by posting regular updates. For example, Lines.com posts regular updates on its Facebook page to inform the users about the latest sports news.
- Respond to consumer questions or comments posted on your page.
- Change product and service offerings based on consumer response.
- Run regular competitions to engage and communicate with your audience.
Through social media, consumers can voice their concerns in real-time. It also allows you to provide solutions to their concerns within hours or even minutes. Thus, social media communication is a crucial part of the marketing plan for companies. Most importantly, it is largely free, which makes it even better.
5- Personalize Marketing Communication
Marketers consider personalization as the number one tactic to improve marketing communication.
The more you give consumers something they want, the more they are likely to do what you ask of them.
Therefore, customize your communication with journalists, bloggers, influencers, investors, or prospective customers to be more personalized.
The first step to personalizing your marketing communication is the segmentation of your prospects. Divide these prospects into three categories:
- High-priority: For your high-priority targets, use a personalized conversation starter. Use the unique, handwritten email that initiates a conversation by giving something of value without any ask. The goal of this ‘conversation starter’ is to establish yourself on the prospect’s radar.
- Mid-priority: For mid-priority targets, throwing in a single personalized line at the start of the pitch is often enough. This helps you stand out from the PR agents sending out emails from templates.
- Low-priority: Personalize their name, and the rest can be from a template and should include an ask.
Segmentation helps you align your efforts with the quality of the target. Thus, create a marketing communication plan with a focus to maximize the time and effort on high-priority targets.
Final Thoughts
In today’s ever-evolving marketing scenario, having a marketing plan that works for your business or brand is an important factor. Understanding the communicating style of your audience is very important. By doing this, you can communicate your message to the audience easily.
All businesses are related to the public in some way, and successful companies understand the need for positive public relations. A good public relations strategy can improve brand reputation, enhance your company image, build good relationships, and increase sales and profits.