We live in a world where customers crave personalized service from brands around the clock. Whether they’re at home or on-the-go, people expect immediate access to information and seamless communication with businesses. This is where always-on marketing steps in to help brands thrive.
Understanding Always-on Marketing
Always-on marketing, also known as “continuous marketing activities,” is a strategy that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year. By being available to customers worldwide, brands can enhance customer retention and acquisition throughout the individual customer life cycle.
To gain a clear understanding of always-on marketing, it’s helpful to compare it to a campaign. A campaign is a burst of marketing activity, focused on hard sales for a fixed period. On the other hand, always-on marketing takes a drip approach, maintaining a consistent marketing effort that lasts indefinitely.
So how does always-on marketing work? Its goal is to maximize visibility and persuasion for each individual customer, showing up at any possible moment. Paid search, SEO, and social media are just a few examples of channels where your brand can appear without your marketing team needing to be online at the exact moment a customer finds you. The opportunity for new customers to discover your brand is always present.
Once a customer becomes aware of your brand through online ads or SEO efforts, you can guide them through a relationship nurturing phase using content and email marketing. Automation plays a crucial role in this process, allowing you to scale your marketing efforts and providing ample opportunities for testing and improvement.
Always-on marketing focuses on dynamic personalization in marketing materials, catering to the individual customer journey. This approach aligns with Google’s concept of the “zero moment of truth,” where marketing efforts continuously meet and drive customer demands in a never-ending loop.
The Benefits of an Always-On Strategy
Implementing always-on marketing requires commitment, but the rewards are well worth it. Automation enables you to personalize your marketing content in new ways, creating relevant touchpoints for every customer. By communicating with your audience faster and more frequently at the most opportune times, you can guide them through the sales funnel.
Another advantage is that always-on marketing allows you to maintain momentum and awareness in the market year-round. Unlike campaigns that operate in cycles of ramping up and scaling back, an always-on approach ensures consistency. You can strategically allocate your team’s resources to support sales-focused campaigns when needed.
Overcoming Challenges
While always-on marketing offers great potential, it’s not without its challenges. Here are a few common hurdles:
Lack Of Data
Implementing an always-on marketing strategy requires data. To create relevant marketing materials, you need to gather as much information about your audience as possible. Data is essential for testing and optimizing your efforts, ensuring they yield the desired results. Without data, your relevancy and effectiveness decline.
Lack Of Content
With more frequent communication, generating sufficient content can pose a challenge. Internal marketing teams often struggle with this, especially when they wear multiple hats and manage various channels independently. Before adopting an always-on approach, reassess your team’s skills and consider bringing in additional support, such as new hires or contractors, to meet the content demands.
Lack Of Infrastructure
A robust infrastructure is crucial to prevent valuable data from getting lost. Your systems need to seamlessly integrate and share data across your organization. Software should recognize individual customer behaviors and relay that information to relevant departments like customer service, sales, or marketing. This enables the creation of highly-targeted and relevant messaging that flows between departments.
Tips for Always-On Marketing Success
To ensure the success of your always-on marketing strategy, consider the following tips:
1. Start small.
Building a comprehensive marketing strategy takes time. Begin by focusing on small details and experiences that your customers have with your brand each day. These seemingly small efforts can add up to significant growth and success. Develop mini strategies personalized for different customer segments, allowing you to test and optimize on a smaller scale before rolling out broader changes.
2. Make connections across platforms.
Avoid operating your marketing plan in silos. Seek opportunities to connect your platforms using an omnichannel approach. While maintaining consistent and on-brand messaging, explore ways to link existing data with different parts of the customer experience. For instance, connect mobile or in-store experiences to your email marketing campaigns. Embrace a holistic view of your customers to uncover unique ways to engage them.
3. Plan for long-term success.
Each customer is unique and has different expectations. Continually plan and adjust your approach to meet their expectations in ways that make sense for their particular segment. Regularly review customer behavior and feedback to inform changes that align with their wants and needs.
In Conclusion
Focusing on building and nurturing your customer base fosters greater loyalty to your brand. Always-on marketing may seem demanding, but it offers lucrative and long-lasting rewards. It requires an investment of time and resources, but the opportunity to make meaningful connections with customers around the clock is well worth it. Learn more at Zenith City News.
More resources:
- 10 Signs Your Digital Marketing Strategy Needs an Overhaul
- 5 Strategic ‘Must-Haves’ to Diversify Your Digital Marketing
- How to Support Your Go-To-Market Strategy with SEO
