Optism™

This week, we’ve got several articles that are paying close attention to people’s reactions to marketing efforts – and that’s a focus we’re keen to promote!

Clickz recently took a look at where mobile and social fit in B2B email. The article focuses on how to make a connection with your audience across multiple channels including mobile. Mobile can be a great way to interact with your customers, but to do it successfully you should build trust and loyalty by getting the users’ permission first. “The most successful and compelling cross-channel content usually focuses on one of three topics. It offers an “insider” VIP experience; it is time-sensitive information; or it is geographic-centric.” The term “insider” experience speaks to value exchange and relevancy. “The goal of your cross-channel marketing efforts should be to drive the conversation with your customers and prospects” and “to drive the conversation, you need to build the relationship with your subscribers.” At Optism, we whole heartedly agree with this approach. We believe that if marketers spend the time to build trust, respect users’ privacy, and create a relevant and valuable experience, positive results will come.

New Media Age recently convened a forum on conversational marketing. You’ll want to get comfortable to read this long article – but it’s well worth the effort! Author Michael Nutley begins the exploration into conversational marketing by observing, “Most organisations are now starting to see the benefits of having better conversations with their customers. But with structures, processes and approaches still rooted in the broadcast era, there are significant problems to be overcome before those benefits can be achieved.” Forum participant Toby Goldblatt, director of digital consultancy CACI, argues that “a problem companies often face in trying to establish the business case for a more conversational approach is that they frame the discussion too narrowly, thinking just in terms of marketing rather than the business as a whole… having better conversations with customers is something that improves organisational performance, not just marketing performance.”

At Optism, we believe permission based conversational marketing should be viewed as a way to get closer to customers. After all, if you really understand people, you can provide them with the best possible experience. Furthermore, “The procedural stuff around whether you’re being open and explicit with the customers is key,” according to Goldblatt. “It’s plaguing the industry, even the biggest players like Facebook and Google. And if, as an organisation, you’re not able to tackle that in an open, upfront way, then you won’t have consumers’ trust.” Forum participant Rob Reason, head of data planning at Virgin Media, agrees: “Trust is absolutely key because you can’t have a conversation with your customers or your prospects if you don’t have that trust initially. And if you’re going to get that trust with your customers then you have to be honest, you have to be transparent about what it is you’re doing and why you’re doing it.”

Memeburn editor Jeremy Daniel interviewed Tom Holmes, the founder and chairman of London-based creativebrief for a recent Q&A on the future of advertising. Holmes is quick to point out that “[Social media] changes traditional marketing by taking control away from the advertisers and gives it to the consumer – it makes engagement king and permission-based marketing essential.” We couldn’t agree more. Marketers and brands need to embrace the concept that users are now in a position to contribute and help define a brand, and “if there is a conversation about your brand, you should be involved.”

When asked what works best for mobile web, Holmes replied “Short, to the point messages. Consumers do not have the time or the attention to be wooed slowly and to be engaged in too much story. This is a medium for value-based, easily understood concepts and propositions and thus the sort of campaigns would be around promotional redemption, offers and action based marketing.” These guidelines apply not just to the mobile web, but to mobile marketing in general and are especially useful when it comes to using SMS and MMS. “Consumers will no longer engage with a brand if the campaign is what the brand wants to say only and doesn’t give them something that entertains, amuses, engages or adds value.” Well said!

GoMo News introduces a recent study undertaken by Patrick Lord, the founder of Adremixer, a mobile advertising company. Lord interviewed sixteen key members of the mobile and agency ecosystem (including Optism’s Thomas Labarthe) to determine what place traditional agencies have in today’s new DIY marketing world. The report begins by summarizing the current state of different digital advertising technologies and the players in the market. It then considers how both traditional and mobile specialist agencies can take advantage of the mobile opportunity. Ultimately, the author concludes, “the majority of companies need to take a multichannel approach to advertising.” Brands also “need to be more proactive in capitalizing on the mobile opportunity.” The report closes with an apt quote from Paul Berney, Chief Marketing Officer and Managing Director EMEA for the Mobile Marketing Association: “The MMA will be successful when every agency and brand has a mobile voice at the table, somebody who can talk about mobile’s role in a campaign. Our number one task over the next 2-3 years is education: helping people understand what they can do with mobile marketing and guiding them in the right way to do it.”

That’s it for this week. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, you might also want to read our recently published Mobinil Success Story. As always, you can send us your comments or follow us on Twitter @Optism. You can also join the conversation on our Facebook page or check out our videos on our YouTube channel.