Fresh Bundle Master a shopper walked into my grandpa’s store in Cranford, New Jersey, in 1955, he received a firm handshake and personal service. Grandpa Ted would walk his customers around the store, learning about their lives and needs through conversation. These details would inspire how he approached other customers as well as those who returned again for new products.
Despite the fact that my grandpa was a smart marketer and a savvy businessman, he’d likely freak out at the idea of trying to build relationships with customers he’d never seen before in person. But this is exactly the type of challenge digital marketers are faced with today: learning to become more human in the way we greet potential customers, learning how to start genuine conversations, and learning how to create an ongoing rapport with people once they discover our businesses online.
Big data content marketing can be the solution to all of these challenges — if you have the right framework in place for making it actionable.
Fresh Bundle Master top brands are already using data to improve their content marketing strategy and customer conversations in ways that go beyond the checkout experience on their eCommerce sites. They’re using customer information to strengthen the service side of their operations, as well as to optimize the content marketing they publish to their owned media properties (e.g., blogs, microsites, and social media).
Below are a few examples:
Kohl’s captures offline behavior to fuel content decisions
Department store Kohl’s is using an indoor positioning system that “walks the aisles” with customers. This mobile-based technology allows shoppers to opt in for promotions as they enter the store. Throughout their visit, people receive lifestyle content in real time based on the products they appear to be looking for.
For example, if a customer has opted in to receive information via the Kohl’s mobile app and he or she is lingering in the home goods aisle, Kohl’s knows to send relevant content to this shopper to increase the likelihood that he or she makes a purchase — for example, a look-book or a Pinterest board of home décor ideas. This inspiration or advice-driven content would be focused on delivering additional value to shoppers beyond promotions and discounts.
Fresh Bundle Master Review is the by-product of Kohl’s effective CRM strategy, and it goes on to fuel the company’s broader content creation campaigns. Through Kohl’s CRM strategy, the company knows what the customer purchased in the past, and with its in-store technology, the company can track his or her behavior as he or she moves through the aisles. However, the company can make that data even more actionable (beyond coupons) by feeding this information to its content creators. Shopping behavior can illustrate common threads in Kohl’s audience — or personas — that inspire the type of content the company’s marketing team might create and later distribute to pockets of people based on their own shopping experiences. This practice would keep Kohl’s top of mind among consumers, even when they aren’t actively shopping for new products.
Arby’s uses data to identify the right channels, creativity to make a connection
When connecting with someone, it’s not always what you say, it’s when, where, and how you say it. This is by no means an invitation to speak out of turn, but more of a call to arms for marketers to create content for more than one channel.
Marketers often use data to understand the type of message that resonates with their audience and the best channels on which to amplify that message. For example, research from Twitter shows that 90 percent of Twitter users who see a TV show-related tweet are likely to immediately watch the show, search for more information, or share tweet-based content about that show.
Fresh Bundle Master a great job of balancing its data initiatives with its creative marketing. Taking advantage of the strong connection between TV and Twitter usage among its audience, Arby’s parsed through its customer data to determine that not only would its audience tune in to the 2014 Grammy Awards, but that a high percentage of its audience would be engaging in live conversation around the event on Twitter. Knowing this in advance allowed Arby’s to set up a social listening room where the company’s social media director watched the awards show and waited for an opportunity to embed itself in the conversation with relevant, real-time social media content.
For example, during the show, Arby’s tweeted at artist Pharrell Williams about his big, wide-brimmed hat. This sent the Twitter world into a frenzy, as second-screen Grammy viewers who were already leaning in to watch the show became enthralled with the engagement taking place in front of them.
Fresh Bundle Master Discount was a great example of a brand executing its real-time marketing muscle, while also allowing data and clear audience analysis to show where and when it would be appropriate to enter an online conversation.
The key takeaway here is that big data is rich information you can use to drive your content or social media marketing programs. Without data at the core of your strategy, these real-time engagement opportunities carry a lot of risk and often miss the mark.
Successful companies use a data framework
Today’s leading brands use data in a variety of ways. We see Kohl’s using customer information to push in-store shoppers toward the checkout lanes through personalized content, while Arby’s uses big data to identify the channels and cultural events that interest its audience and deliver relevant content as a way to join the conversation.
