The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow
–Bill Gate
Introduction
The corporate world has seen phases of development and metamorphoses since the industrial revolution began many years ago. The information superhighway with technological advancement is influencing the way institutions produce and deliver services to their customers while driving new Fintechs and big tech companies into the production and delivery of services. These innovations are greatly influencing the bottom line of businesses in an unprecedented way.
Digitalisation presents enormous opportunities for businesses to leverage and become successful as they market their services and products to potential customers or cross sell to existing clients. Various digital marketing strategies can be explored and maximised to bring about sustainable growth which will positively impact the bottom line. The underlisted can be considered:
- Build, develop and maximise website to improve customer service
A business’ website is essentially a digital branch. It’s critical that businesses maximise this channel to deliver customer service 24 hours a day for the entire year. Whether a business likes the current website or not, there are always opportunities to improve it. Focus on the things customers need the most. These can be done through:
- Investment in online chat – Today’s digital consumer expects online chat. They’ve learned it can help them get their questions answered quickly and efficiently. Businesses should think about how service reps always talk to one person at a time on the phone and compare with how they can be fielding inquiries simultaneously from multiple people through an online chat platform.
- Create or update FAQs – Many common questions members or customers ask can be addressed through a robust FAQ page. If businesses don’t have this on their site, this should be added to it soon. Customer service department is a great place to start to see how better information provided on the website can reduce unnecessary enquiries and streamline support operations.
- Provision of a simple contact form – It provides an easy way for visitors to contact the institution, ensuring the service team receives enquiries in a timely and structured manner. Saving submitted forms in a database will afford you the opportunity to periodically analyse queries and look for common themes, giving you an objective, data-driven method to improve your website – such as your FAQ section – or other channels.
- Present integrated service options – Businesses may have added self-service options over time. However, from the visitor’s point of view, it is important to present all the service options together to give the visitor a choice – a true ‘multichannel buffet’. The help button, contact link and/or section on your page should have a call centre number, contact form, FAQ, chat, knowledge base, social media and any other customer service options. Keeping this organised will help visitors feel like your site is clear and useful, and create a positive brand impression.
- Leverage content marketing to connect with customers
Content is king in digital marketing, and vital to keeping people engaged while positioning the institution as a knowledgeable resource and provider of ongoing business education. It also keeps your website fresh and interesting, a specialty search engine like Google would be proud of. Some content marketing strategies include:
- Blogging – With a little research, you can find out what people are searching for, what people are asking about in your business branch, and what trends are hot. If you don’t have a blog, you should seriously consider investing in one. Don’t create a new, separate stand-alone site. Be sure that your blog is hosted on your domain to maximise its SEO value. And be sure to mix up the type of content you provide – from articles and videos to infographics. Once your blog has great content, use channels like email and social media to drive traffic.
- Third-party content – This can be a useful way to supplement your own proprietary content and a way to easily extend your library with purposeful content, particularly if the vendor allows your institution to ‘white label’ the material. Always look for ways to customise the content for your institution.
- Integrate your business’ marketing
With multiple chefs in the kitchen, it’s easy to have a discrete message or single-channel campaign. The problem is that audiences live in surround-sound environments where the offline and online worlds are constantly colliding and brand awareness is often fragile. It is better to do less, but integrate your marketing tactics; then spread and confuse consumers.
This can be carried out via:
- Multichannel campaigns – Review all your channels when you have If auto loans are a priority during this time, plan backwards for success. Strategise your landing pages, then map out campaign tactics and define your success metrics. Relying on organic SEO and paid search, as well as social media and email marketing, your campaign must be integrated, consistent and memorable.
- Utilise the strengths of each platform – Integrating your marketing efforts does not mean doing the same thing across all platforms. Instead, play to the strengths of each platform while you unify your message for more effectiveness and brand continuity.
4. Focus on conversion rate optimisation
This simply means focusing on increasing the percentage of visitors that take the desired action on any given webpage. You’re putting a lot of time, effort and money into marketing tactics and you need to understand what’s working well and what’s not. This can be done in any of these ways:
- Landing pages – A landing page is a dedicated page that specifically supports a specific desired action. This strips out all unnecessary elements, so that the visitor is entirely focused on your desired conversion. Every institution should have, at least, one landing page template as part of its website.
- Usability testing – Website redesigns are the perfect time to implement usability testing, but you can also implement usability testing on your current site, or a key campaign landing page. Usability testing allows you to confirm assumptions and fix items before it could cost you conversions.
5. Amplify data analytics
The business probably has Google analytics. You can also be a little bewildered as you look at the data, struggling to make sense of it. How should you use the data? What are the most suitable ways to leverage it? You’re not alone because with the right data, you can help answer CEO and CFO questions about the ROI of your marketing efforts. Here are some ways to optimise your analytical intelligence:
- Google Tag Manager – Adding custom analytics code to the site can be a cumbersome effort involving web developers, and adding too much tracking code can slow down the site’s performance. Instead, creating a Google Tag Manager account and linking it to your existing site analytics account is a must. Once it’s up and running, all of your tracking code can be placed within that account, and you can then set up goals and dashboards to see the data’s performance.
- Third-party tracking – Adding tracking code to your third-party vendors’ sites will allow you to connect the dots between your marketing efforts, and provide you the knowledge you need to answer that persistent ROI question. You will want to contact each of your vendors to find out if they allow for tracking code on their sites. Then you will want to work with a vendor who understands custom analytics, so that you can be positive that everything is running properly and that you have the dashboards you need in Google Analytics to understand the data.
Credit
https://www.bankbound.com/blog/digital-marketing-strategy/
https://www.zaginteractive.com/about/in-the-news
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279426209_Financial_Innovation
About the writer
Ebenezer specialises in Development Communication, International Development, Innovative Finance for SMEs, and Sustainability.
You can reach him via [email protected] & [email protected]
