Insufficient Customer Segmentation
As media consumption becomes more and more personalized and sophisticated thanks to constantly improving technologies that allow individuals to customize how and when they receive information, marketers must increasingly cater to the demand for branded content and context.
Customers now expect to be able to define the delivery medium of their choice and engage with brands through highly personalized interactions. This requires sophisticated customer segmentation strategies based on a thorough understanding of customer preferences and consumption habits.
Failure to develop accurate customer segmentation can quickly kill a crosschannel strategy. Not all target customer segments use each communications channel in the same way.
A successful crosschannel marketing strategy takes this into account and develops distinct messaging campaigns for distinct customer segments to fit their distinct usage preferences.
How can this “kill” a campaign?
A failure to segment audiences based on communication and channel preferences can negatively affect engagement and brand loyalty among customers accustomed to engaging with other brands in highly personalized, customizable ways.
How can you avoid this campaign killer?
Understand your customer segments. Engage in regular and data-driven segmentation, and implement message development processes that allow you to effectively capture and act on your audiences’ identified behaviors and preferences.
Real World Example: The popular marketing video The Break Up cleverly demonstrates how one-size-fits-all marketing efforts fail from the consumer’s perspective. As stated in the video, customer expectations have changed. They expect individualized, interactive dialogues with brands now – not just blast emails or coupon mailings.
Jai Santiago Williams is a senior marketing strategist with StrongView, which was formerly known as StrongMail.
