Someone has agreed to go on a date with you, to suss you out and give you a chance at making a difference in their life – you have a choice to responsibly entertain the advance or simply ignore it. All brands wish to establish relationships with new and potential consumers, the value of the Opt-In (the consumer-side advance), is an authentic call to date your brand. Treat it with care or you’ll be dumped, spoken about and left to wonder if your “game” needs work, which it probably does.
The proliferation of lifestyle channels available to consumers has yielded an organic consequence of brands clambering for their piece of marketing real-estate. From the days of television being the primary channel of engagement to the hyper segmented, multi-channel and relevant targeting of today – the journey to effective re-engagement has been one that has seen proficient adopters and unfortunately, many careless practitioners.
Harvesting consumer data through a primary channel is paramount in building a base. Once the data asset begins to filter in, the process of re-engagement has begun – whether you’re assessing an individual’s online activity, in-store purchasing behaviour or detailed demographics. Hyper segmentation of the consumer into a myriad of loyalist classes fuels the conversation strategy.
Getting to know consumers gives us the opportunity to unpack our re-engagement approach. Harvesting consumer data through a promotional endeavour is fairly simple for those in the know, but when the dust has settled and the sunsets on the last day of the promotion, what do we do with the asset we’ve created? Well, what we don’t do is ignore it until the next iteration of the campaign, we re-engage, we stay top of mind and we continue to “date” our consumers.
We consolidate data collected on each and every consumer and start to draw informed conclusions. We derive insights into purchasing behaviour and we segment behaviours per consumer into what is termed a “Loyalist Type”. Once this analysis has been carried out, what will start to become clear is the diversity that exists within datasets previously deemed uniform.
These Loyalist Types are segmented because of multiple variables, variables provided to us through a willingness to engage. We have a responsibility to react in accordance with the information that our consumers have shared with us. Brands which take the time to communicate with their consumers in a meaningful way, based on legitimate feedback are set on the path of creating relationships which ultimately result in loyalty, and what brand doesn’t want a pool of loyal consumers at their fingertips as well as an ocean of easily converted prospective engagers. Rhetorical, definitely rhetorical.
So here it is, define relevant channels, harvest data seamlessly and without friction, engage in conversations with your consumers, both potential and established. Push Cautious Adopters over the behavioural edge through relevance. The spray and pray mentality is the rolling of a bowling ball at 10 pins when the bowling alley is the width of a football field. Build the lanes and bowl again or you’ll miss every time.