Context Marketing

It’s nearly impossible to avoid advertising and marketing content all around us. From televisions to mobile phones, from advertising billboards to even signs on city buses, context marketing is all around us.

The content is overload, which makes more important for advertisers and marketers to maximize that moment you see their product or message.

The acts of delivering messaging that speaks to individual consumer needs and wants at specific times in their lives is context marketing. Advertisers must now learn the best times to place content in front of consumers.

Why Context Marketing?

It’s often been said that content is king. But content is all around us, hence, marketers and advertisers need to reach consumers at just the right moment. The value of ads is beginning to diminish, as there are simply so many messages all around communicated to consumers.

Contextual Marketing in Reality

One modern-day leader of contextual marketing is Elon Musk’s Tesla, Inc. Although automakers like Mercedes-Benz spent significantly more on advertising than Tesla, the electric car maker still outsold  Mercedes-Benz, mainly because Tesla has a conversation with consumers about living a fossil-fuel-free lifestyle, making an important connection that has led to a wealth of brand loyalty.

Similarly, the outdoor apparel company Cotopaxi has found a way to connect with consumers through conversation. Cotopaxi has used purpose-driven communication which shows consumers it cares about the same social issues they do.

Content is King

The importance of content in your marketing campaigns is a subject that’s been extensively written about, analyzed and proven to be the major differentiator when it comes to digital. The expression “Content is king” never gets old because content on its own has no value. The only real measure of value when it comes to content is from the person that is consuming it – its relevance and its impact.

When we think of content, we shouldn’t ask ourselves not only how to do it better, but how to do it differently.

Let’s look at 5 easy steps on how to start.

This isn’t a magic formula and you probably know all this in theory, but it’s very important to keep it in mind and apply it:

1. Know your audience

Writing and distributing content just for the sake of it won’t cut it. Even a broken watch is right twice a day, meaning that eventually, your “one size fits all” content will strike a chord with someone. 

However, in order to successfully create meaningful content, you need to know exactly who it is you’re talking to, what their intentions are and how you can help them move forward.

2. Content isn’t just words

Content is much more than copy text on a website, email messages or brochures information. Customers simply don’t like to read text-only – think of infographics, videos, short stories, pictures, animations and much more. A good content and context strategy manages to serve the right media as well as the right content to the audience.

3. No Data, No Information, No Focus

Big data is a term that’s been thrown around a lot in the past few years and while AI and Machine Learning are opening up even more avenues for data gathering, you need to understand that the value of data can only be measured around its usefulness. That’s why “intelligent data” is a better way of looking at it.

Collect and gather only information that you need, when you need it and if you can use it to actually provide content that adds value to your audience.

4. Personalize

Implicit data looks at customer behaviour online (such as pages visited, mobile device used, location etc) while explicit data is customer data that was provided by the audience itself (such as name, email, a form filled in etc).

By gathering and combining these two different types of data, you can personalize each customer experience in part by understanding the intent from the first-page visit to the last interaction on any channel.

5. Test and optimize

No matter how well you gather data, personalize the customer experience and deliver different types of content to your audience, customer behaviour will be unpredictable at times, but that’s ok, you can’t be 100% accurate at all times.

It’s important to learn what works and what doesn’t and the only way to do this is by testing and optimizing. The beauty of digital marketing is the speed with which you can launch campaigns, content and offers, all the while adapting on the fly by constantly testing everything to increase conversions and keep customers happy.

Don’t be afraid to fail – be afraid to not learn and don’t be clueless.

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