Personalised marketing cuts through clutter

Tony Smith, CEO of Oxygen8, global providers of integrated mobile solutions, comments, "Although marketers have an opportunity to reach millions of people, no one wants to receive irrelevant marketing messages - whether through online marketing campaigns, emails or via SMS messages. The key to more effective marketing campaigns and promotions is through better targeting and, more importantly, personalisation.

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"Contextual relevance drives personalisation and getting this right is not only likely to stimulate a more favourable response to the promotions itself, but also generate a positive brand reaction from the consumer. A poorly judged message, on the other hand, is likely not only to fall on deaf ears, but also engender a negative impression of the brand and may actually cause opt outs. Database attrition is the last thing any marketer wants to happen.

Using today's technology means the time and effort required to personalise a campaign is not likely to be much greater than conducting a generic push campaign. "Our own experience has shown it to be much more effective. Mobile marketing campaigns that target individuals based on their interests, demographics, device type, location, behaviour and channels of communication have delivered response rates up higher than similar non-personalised campaign(s)."

Smith sites Coca-Cola's recently launched 'Share-a-Coke campaign' as an example, which took the world by storm by putting popular names on their labels. People who did not have their names on the label were able to personalise their cokes through the Share-a-Coke online shop. The campaign was an enormous success in South Africa and the rest of the world.

"Such campaigns not only build a brand but create a platform where customers believe in it, where they listen to the brand, and want to be part of it."

Measure personalisation ROMI

Getting the right message to the right audience is imperative for achieving high return on marketing investment (ROMI), particularly when marketing budgets are being cut. "It doesn't matter whether a promotion is delivered via traditional direct mail, email, online or via mobile, if the content isn't relevant to the recipient, it will be a bad promotion," he continues.

"Furthermore, it is important to tailor the campaign and the level of personalisation to the nature of the campaign itself. One of the most successful recent campaigns used our technology to target hay fever sufferers near a high street chemist's store. Consumers within a certain geographical catchment area, who had previously bought hay fever products, were targeted with a personalised SMS message offering a discount voucher on days when the pollen count was particularly high. A campaign such as this will drive greater value and ROMI than a generic SMS message that indiscriminately targets anyone with a mobile phone with potentially irrelevant messages," comments Smith.

As with any marketing campaign, it is important to ensure that the incremental value associated with a personalised campaign is tracked accordingly using both response rates, as well as brand upliftment as measures. Sometimes, even just warning your customers of a high pollen count will add significant value to them and increase goodwill and brand values, even if the voucher you send is not redeemed.

Mistakes when trying to measure personalisation ROMI

One common mistake is to assume that you need to run a campaign from start to finish before you can measure the results. Smith advises marketers to test campaigns properly using different channels, timing, content and audiences and compare and contrast the results to select the optimal approach.

Another common mistake is failing to measure all elements of the campaign cycle, not just the opens and click-through rates. All elements of the analytics need to be robust with the ability to track closure, redemption, upliftment in revenue, footfall, abandoned basket, and so on.

The quality of the data is of primary importance. Technology now exists that automatically slices and dices your audience in a variety of ways - not just limited to demographic or geographic information as in the past. "Ultimately, however, the key to a great campaign is combining the power of technology with the power of creativity to ensure you deliver the best possible ROMI."

Creative personalisation

Having acquired all the relevant details of the target audience and structured a marketing campaign with the personalised messages, it is vital that the content is creative. It should attract its target audience and arouse the need to communicate back or take action. "Addressing the target by name, keeping them updated, showing them gratitude, providing continuous advice on specials and sending reminders will delight the customer. With that in place, when campaigns are disseminated they will be well received," concludes Smith.

For more information, go to http://sa.oxygen8.com.