At this point, customers are tuned into way more than just transactions. If the opportunity presents itself they’ll engage with their favorite brands literally anytime and anywhere. To deliver two-way communication this requires meeting your customers where they are, in-person and online.

It also requires having a firm understanding of your customers, including their preferences and what drives their behavior, which is the foundation of omnichannel marketing. When you know who your customers are, how they spend their time and where they spend their time, you can establish a brand presence across every key marketing channel so you don’t miss any opportunities to connect and engage with them.

This is why an omnichannel marketing approach continues to play a major role in how many brands embrace the customer journey. It offers companies a way to create marketing touch-points that work together on every channel, in a world that is more digitally connected than ever before. Customers are coming to expect more consistent and personalized brand experiences across every encounter with a company.

To deliver on these expectations let’s look at three important aspects that omnichannel marketing affords companies to help them continue increasing traffic and building customer loyalty.

Use data to inform the customer experience

According to Dimension Data’s Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Report, 81 percent of executives say they recognize that customer experience is a competitive differentiator, yet 44 percent say it’s too difficult to execute well.

Most companies may say they have data, it’s just that it’s in silos and not accessible in real-time. However, with the right customer data management and analytics tools, companies can fit all this data together to win at the engagement game. The kind of data you need for this is:

• Demographic data
• Device data
• Location data
• Transaction data
• Social media data

Now you have a shot an not only understanding the wants and needs of current and prospective customers, but you can begin to tailor and personalize their experiences to help set your company apart.

Create multiple customer journey paths

A recent Walker Study found that customers highly value great customer experiences and that by 2020, customer experiences will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.

Marketers first job is often to get prospective customers to notice their brand. Next, it’s for them to purchase with your company. And after that, you’re working to create loyalty that will sustain a lasting relationship. That’s why your marketing efforts, including customer acquisition and retention tactics need to accommodate multiple customer journeys.

As customers move from unknown to known, more data can be captured and analyzed to create a more comprehensive customer picture that allows for the execution of personalized content and offers. This is where you can see the differentiation of the journeys, as a prospect will need to be influenced in a different manner compared to a repeat customer.  So as you engage customers across multiple channels, it’s paramount that your marketing initiatives need to successfully nurture new and existing customers along their various journeys.

Personalize marketing offers

McKinsey reports find that personalization has a direct correlation to incremental revenue and increased conversion rates – yet about 40% of consumers indicate they only sometimes receive personalized messages that truly feel personal, relevant, and intriguing.

Personalization has moved beyond just adding the customer’s name in your marketing offer. To effectively impact behavior a dynamic and highly personalized approach based on complete customer profiles must be utilized by companies. You need to create a high level of familiarity for your brand to stand out among the competition.

Your accumulated data combined with analytics and artificial intelligence technology will provide the type of insights necessary to predict, design and target customers to deliver high effectively experiences that resonate with their ever-evolving expectations. That’s the power of omnichannel marketing to provide personalized, seamless customer experiences.

The post How Data and Personalization Inform the Customer Journey appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

It remains a staple for marketers across all types of industries. Email marketing still provides companies with solid returns. So it’s worth looking at some metrics compiled by MailChimp that will give you a comparison for how your campaigns are doing against national averages. Plus, you can compare customer engagement for open, clickthrough, delivery, and unsubscribe rates within your sector.

Audiences’ today are bombarded with emails – in both the B2B and B2C sector. Understanding what your email subscribers want from you is highly important. There are general findings that show audiences prefer relevant, useful information, personal invitations, and a reward for taking quick action. Just like any content you produce, emails need to demonstrate value.

And while emails have to first get noticed, the next step in email marketing comes down to figuring out how to get them opened. Because the opposite of this leads to them being categorized as trash, spam, or ineffective. Marketers are using many tactics, including automation, personalization and segmentation to take subscribers through the customer journey, keeping them engaged with a company from prospect to customer to repeat customer.

With these strategies in place, organizations can successfully target and guide recipients through the customer lifecycle. But companies need to remain mindful of the basic principles of email creation. The heart of an email is still its message. Take a few minutes to refresh your memory about these 6 techniques necessary for creating compelling email content.

1. Stay on task with subject lines

Avoid spammy-like phrases, including the word Free. You don’t want it to appear like junk email. Subject lines that are short and sweet are good. Typically subscribers checking email on a mobile device will only see three to five words. So ask a question, use words that contain emotion or a sense of urgency. Bottom line, make sure it’s something you would open, if it’s not, rewrite it.

2. Remember name recognition

Start your email with Dear Jane, not Dear Valued Customer. A personalized greeting has the potential to increase conversion rates significantly, however close to 70% of organizations still fail to personalize their emails. This goes for the closing as well. Send the email from a person in your company, definitely not from a no-reply address. 

3. Keep your message short and conversational

You want to craft your email like you’re simply having a conversation. Communication that provides exclusive information and makes the recipient feel like he or she is only one who received the email will work well. Remember to keep your marketing messages relevant and fresh.

4. Include interactive content

Content such an interactive quiz, will help your recipient stay engaged and provide your company with important information to further personalize future emails. Interactive content has been shown to convert 70% of the time compared to 36% for passive content. Think infographics, videos, and surveys/quizzes/polls.

5. Care about the CTA

Try to create calls to action that are focused on the customer’s specific role or need. For example, an email automation company trying to get new clients should have different CTAs for emails going to a CMO v a CIO. The CMO’s CTA might look like – Get More Conversions, whereas a CIO CTA might be Get Seamless Integration. With the use of segmentation, you can really customize appropriate CTAs that will drive conversions.

6. Send at the best time

Sure, so when is that? In general, most studies analyzing billions of emails have found that 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. are the most effective times to deliver emails. The theory is that at 11 a.m. workers have had their morning coffee and at these times they are receptive and starting to address daily emails. And Thursday has replaced Tuesday as the best day to send emails, with Monday right behind it.

Every company’s audience is different, so while these general guidelines are useful, it’s worthwhile to look at your own analytics to determine specific subscriber behaviors. Remember you’re really trying to find the best time when your audience demonstrates they are reading and acting on your emails – not just opening them.

Need help to make your email marketing strategies revenue generators? Contact Modern Marketing Partners today.

The post 6 Tips for Creating Compelling Email Content appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

As a result, the beginning of 2019 is a good time for associations to consider their approach to marketing this year and for the future. Associations, like workplaces, are dealing with engaging Millennials, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, etc. and need to understand their motivations and decision-making processes. In many respects, membership is a sales process; you’re looking to recruit professionals by initialing connecting with them and then creating a long-lasting relationship.

To do this associations must be able to prove their value to those they’re trying to reach. This requires spending time with whatever data you have collected on members thus far. Taking a quick assessment of general demographics is a start and then try digging a little deeper to see if you can determine the initial method for bringing them in as well as information regarding their renewal methods.

Having a general understanding of your current recruitment and retainment efforts will help in the development of your new approach to create awareness for your organization. Here are five tactics to grow your membership this year:

Understand your niche for better personalization

While your mission statement may take a broad stroke to encourage participation, your marketing methods need to target specifically who your association can best serve. You may even want to look at your competitors so you can determine what’s missing in your industry and create some experiences and services around these areas.

Now you can provide more personalized messaging in your email and display ad tactics with specific information that is relevant to the audience you’re trying to reach. With the data work you did initially and this added level of smart intelligence you’ll be able to achieve a better relational dimension in every phase of the marketing cycle to boost membership.

Research membership needs

Every association’s depth of data varies as does their marketing budgets. Dollars spent blanketing information about your organization wherever you can spread it, isn’t going to be effective today. Spending some resources on research will be worth it. Try developing a quick online survey to current members and see what they like and what is missing from your association. Addressing concerns your current members have will bring you to answer the “What’s in it for me?” question from prospective members.

Create content that markets the value of your association

Now you need to create quality content that is relevant to prospective members in every phase of the purchasing/joining phase of the journey. The content can take many forms. Consider a few quick member interviews that you turn into video clips for your website, an infographic with interesting information to your industry, or a blog that includes guest writers from your association.

Reach out through social media

Association marketers need to be well-versed in how to utilize LinkedIn. You can initially use LinkedIn Premium’s advanced search capabilities and In-mail messaging tool to identify and connect with potential industry professionals who might benefit from your association. The content you have created will come in handy on LinkedIn as you can regularly post association articles in larger industry groups to gain notice and traction for your organization. The larger and more focused your LinkedIn group grows the more payoff you get, as LinkedIn’s automated recommendation engine begins to identify users with matching interest and recommends your group/association to them.

Set up metrics & revise

Track and analyze each tactic you implement so you can retool or stop using a method that isn’t producing results. In this era of real-time information and engagement you’ll see within a couple months how a tactic is performing. Keep collecting data and integrating it into your approach so your association’s value is continually communicated.

You’re on your way to better recruiting in 2019. Don’t want to take a wrong turn? Contact Modern Marketing Partners to help with all your association marketing needs.

Mission Critical Marketing for Associations

Our bundled and custom association marketing solutions help you increase member engagement, acquire new members, drive event participation, recruit sponsors or donors, and more. Nationally recognized Modern Marketing Partners can manage specific marketing initiatives, or be your turn-key marketing department, all on a reasonable subscription fee basis. So you can focus on what really matters: your mission. Contact MMP today to learn more!

The post 5 Tips for Enhancing Association Recruitment appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Mobile Marketing Benefits

Experts agree that companies utilizing mobile strategies are seeing benefits such as improved cost efficiencies, closer connectivity with customers, and more accurate data points. That’s because for marketers, mobile advertising provides a more effective way to target and retarget their audiences, create higher-level personalization, and be freed of barriers like time and location.

Another key to mobile ads is your website. Your mobile advertising may be linking to your website or a landing page that will really benefit if it’s utilizing responsive web design (RWD). A RWD site means that it is accessible from desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, wearables, and all other devices and will adapt to the device regardless of the browser or screen size. This means customers can use and navigate your site well from a mobile phone. Important, especially if that is how they came to it in the first place.

Create a Roadmap

For mobile to be an effective part of your overall marketing strategy, you need to develop a continuum of what you want to accomplish. And it needs to include metrics that go beyond just measuring likes and followers. This will require looking at how you want to use your data or data you want to purchase, who you want to target, and how to personalize the offer.

Once you have a roadmap in place it becomes clearer what tools you’ll need. For highly effective mobile ads that usually means utilizing targeting and personalization through the leveraging of demographics. There are all kinds of demographics today. There are personal demographics such as gender, age, education, finances, family, home, type of customer device, news or music preference even. There is geographic data like physical location – state, city, zip code. There are also psychographics that classify people based on their attitudes, aspirations and other psychological criteria. You get the idea.

Ready to Launch

Now you’re ready to enter the mobile space. If you never have before, try an initial campaign to start with. Based on your current marketing messaging create a simply designed display ad that is linked to a content-rich landing page.

Buying

Buying your mobile ads can be handled in various ways. You may just want to purchase through Google Display Network initially. It allows for your ad to be displayed across the websites and apps within their network. Google also gives you the tools for tracking your efforts so you have the metrics to support your mobile endeavors. It also helps you detect fraudulent clicks from bots that can quickly drain your budget.

Budgeting

Your budget is paramount so that’s where your demographic work comes in. Select the demographics you’ve deemed important and purchase based on this. This is effective for small businesses, allowing them to limit their reach to conserve budget. It’s a good way to segment your audience and target your mobile ad appropriately.

Retargeting

If possible, include a retarget ad in your campaign. Now you can present that mobile ad offer through multiple channels and have it display on Facebook or in email. Cross-device retargeting also will provide a greater benefit to your company.

This is a good effort to see how mobile may work for your company. It takes time and resources to establish a mobile strategy that is relevant and has traction. It’s worth it though because mobile messaging is only going to continue expanding. Modern Marketing Partners is ready to help you with further best practices to fully navigate the mobile space.

The post Maximizing Mobile with Targeting and Personalization appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

There are of course, solid business reasons to embark on this effort too. Companies that experience greater customer satisfaction have better reviews and feedback, giving them a competitive edge in the marketplace. It’s an organic way to increase your company’s value. Showing appreciation is also important for creating loyal customers. Customers who are vocal supporters of your company and would never dream of doing business with anyone else.

These are the kind of customers that increase profits. That’s because it costs five to seven times more to attract new customers than to keep existing ones, according to Bain and Company stats. Remember that golden business rule: retain customers and earn their loyalty….. and subsequently lower your acquisition costs. You’ll also have an easier time selling to them again, as existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more, compared to new customers. Cha-ching.

A thank you campaign goes beyond just engaging your customers, but looks to make them feel special. The idea is to show the human side of your organization through an honest and heartfelt one-to-one approach. So tap into your CRM and start identifying your customers and any useful information about them that will help you reach out to them in a meaningful way.

Here’s three inexpensive tactics that will show your customers the appreciation they deserve:

Personalize An Offer

Customers enjoy the opportunity to make something their own. That’s the real beauty of personalization. People like seeing their name or an offer that is relevant to their current situation. Research by Marketo found that 79% of customers are likely to engage with an offer if it has been personalized to reflect previous interactions with the company. This is why if you can spend some time with your data, your “Thank You” offer will not only be appreciated it may bring you more business. And if there’s a way to allow for customer customization – try it. For example, service related organizations try offering 15% OFF the client’s choice of service for a month. (Okay, this offer may add to your campaign budget.)

Send Thank You Emails

The studies all show that customers really like when companies demonstrate their appreciation. A personalized thank you doesn’t have to cost you anything. However, the more personalized you can make the message the better it will be received. Dig into your data.  And by all means put “Thank You” in the subject line as email marketing stats show an improved open and click through rate when those words are included.

It you’re feeling adventurous try creating a thank you week-long email campaign that offers customers five opportunities to accept your gratitude. This way if a customer misses opening an initial email they still have four more occasions to receive your appreciation.

Turn It Into A VIP Program

Now keep it going all year long. Taking the time to say thank you is important. It’s automatic for most everything we do in our daily lives and it should be automatic in our business lives as well. You can turn this into a year-round program that offers loyal customers exclusive deals or access to a new product or service. Business to business efforts can include sharing customer profiles on your website and enewsletter that demonstrate your shared success while working together. Promoting your customers pays offs by cultivating customer satisfaction and increasing loyalty.

Thank you for reading this post.

The post It’s Time to Say “Thank You” appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

While most marketers will agree that voice-activated smart devices and voice branding are in their infancy, you just can’t deny the explosive growth of this industry over the past couple of years. They have entered the homes of consumers everywhere, with an estimated 64 million U.S. households expected to be equipped with one by end of this year.

Voice commands on Alexa are becoming like search on Google. And by 2020 more than half of all searches are expected to be voice activated. With more people using voice search and smart speakers, consumers’ next steps to take are to ask their devices about a brand. That’s why companies need to be thinking about branded Actions, so they can manage those search results to their benefit.

Naturally voice activated smart devices lend themselves to convenience shopping and that goes for repeat shopping as well. Gone are the days of making lists for what household items you need to purchase every week. And instead consumers are turning to their voice assistants to purchase these products and to remind them when it’s time to reorder as well.

Boost Brand Engagement

But there are other industries and brands that can capitalize on this technology too. Take for example, the Food Network, which got in the voice game early. A really smart move considering that most people keep their voice-activated devices in the kitchen. Many people still cook while following recipes whether on paper or on a screen. This method requires a stop and start approach, with its Alexa skill or Google Action, the Food Network captured the easy flow of providing verbal cues to keep the food prep process moving smoothly, even when gooey hands aren’t available to turn a card over or touch a screen.

So while for many business sectors, especially retail, voice activated smart devices are all about voice shopping. There is value in other industries considering developing brand tips and tricks that help consumers solve their problems and keep their company’s name top-of-mind as well for when it comes time to make a purchase.

Create Skills & Actions

Let’s get back in the kitchen. Think of all the things people do at their kitchen tables. People plan their vacations, make their appointments, ponder their finances, notice all the home repairs they should do, etc.  Voice commands for “How to” type of activities work really well with these types of devices. For example, companies in the healthcare market can launch a Healthy Living Skill on Alexa, which allows users to ask questions about “How many calories you burn walking vs. running?” or “How to prevent the spread of germs in your house?” – and the Skill responds with all the relevant information. Another example would be a remodeling company that’s working with an influencer in the industry. They could leverage the voice of the influencer to provide tips and answer consumers’ questions about the appropriate way to measure the square footage of a room or what type of materials are used for counters and the benefits of each type.

So we just mentioned three types of voice branding that marketers can implement today:

• Provide daily tips and reminders
• Engage in influencer marketing
• Answer frequently asked questions

There are and will be many more opportunities in the upcoming year for marketers to explore personalizing their brand through voice-activated smart devices. Understanding its usefulness in this digital age is important, as is figuring out how to harness its power of engagement to your particular audiences. Marketers have always pushed that brands need a voice in the marketplace, and now quite literally they need a voice too.

The post Alexa: Develop a Branded Voice Experience for My Company appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

And even businesses that think they might not really be in a position to capitalize on any holiday spending need to realize there’s an opportunity. According to Deloitte’s 33^rd Annual Holiday Consumer Spending Survey, over half of shoppers (51 percent) believe in the spirit of self-gifting and say they’ll buy for themselves while shopping for others – that’s an increase of 15 percentage points over the last five years.

Overall, online spending continues to grow and as is poised to capture the most dollars, but with some important help from stores too. Several interesting points from the Survey can help demonstrate how and where businesses need to focus their efforts this holiday season:

• 57% of total spending is expected to be online with 36% happening in stores.
• Consumers will look for inspirations both online and in the stores with 66% going online to do their research and 56% saying they’ll use retail stores and online search engines to get ideas.
• Consumers are still trying to decide what purchases to make this season. Almost half of shoppers (49%) don’t yet have specific items in mind that they plan to buy, regardless if they’re planning to shop online or in a store.
• Shoppers are looking for a good reason/offer from companies with 82% of consumers saying promotions influence their holiday shopping.
• 95% say price discounts are the most appealing promotional offers, followed by free shipping (75%).
• Shoppers are planning on using their phones this season — 67% say they will make purchases on their phones, up from 59% last year.

A good promotion is definitely important. Consumers are clearly passionate about getting great deals this time of the year. However there are other points of inspiration that can help drive sales as well. Companies need to influence and inspire customers to try and stand out from the competition. Companies need to create an engagement strategy that focuses on personalization and mobility for their shoppers.

Creating a promotional campaign utilizing personalization requires establishing goals just like you would with any other type of campaign. Once you have chosen who you’re targeting such as new or existing customers and your goals like generating X amount of revenue, you’re ready to delve into your data to meet consumer expectations. For example, consider a special offer that would be of great interest to reward your loyal customers. Messaging around the promotion can be a simple thank you, showing them your appreciation for their continued support.

If you’ve analyzed customer actions from previous messages, remember to run the campaign on the channel they most interact on and make it as visual as possible.

If you want customers to stay engaged with your holiday campaigns then you need to leverage your mobile capabilities as well. Mobile demand is growing and Millennials and Gen Z consumers in particular are more likely to shop on mobile sites and those that deliver a seamless mobile experience. So as a company you need to ensure you have a smooth mobile checkout process. Here are a few tactics to consider for streamlining:

• Try reducing form fields
• Proactively suggest addresses as a customer begins to type
• Check text size for easy readability
• Add a Buy Now button throughout online content (so you don’t lose customers on the way to checkout)

For the 2018 holiday season companies have the opportunity to embrace digital strategies that enhance the customer experience and generate more sales. People are shopping for a number of reasons and tailored messaging on the right channels will encourage customer engagement during this year’s holiday spending and leading into 2019.

The post Pump Up Holiday Sales with Personalization and Mobile Capabilities appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

What does that look like today? According to Segment’s 2017 State of Personalization Report, consumers demand fast action and personalized communication in nearly every channel almost as soon as they choose to identify themselves to a brand. Respondents provided three important reasons for companies to take quick action: 54% expect to get a personalized offer, 63% say it will drive loyalty, and 45% acknowledge it is the most compelling way to get them to add another item to their cart.

Digital Personalization Opportunities

For companies with ecommerce sites, personalization is key to delivering the type of highly personal experience customers definitely expect. Segment data found that companies that can deliver on current customer personalization expectations are rewarded in the following ways:

• 44% are likely to become repeat buyers
• 49% make an impulse purchase
• 40% make a more expensive purchase

The Report also makes the case for businesses just beginning the personalization process to start with their website. Approximately half of customers rank websites and email as the top two most important channels for personalization. The channel most lacking? In-store personalization – as only 17% of respondents thought companies were handling this well.

Customers clearly expect companies to know and remember who they are whether they are on a digital channel or in-person. This means personalization needs to be handled through digital channels and through personal communication. Companies’ employees need to be able to quickly and efficiently demonstrate their worth to customers. As a Corporate Visions’ study found, 74 percent of buyers choose the sales representative that was first to add value.

In-person Personalization Opportunities

Companies must recognize that buyers are more informed and empowered than ever before. For sales teams in particular it’s harder today to connect with prospects and that’s because they have so many channels to receive information. Data now reveals it takes twice the number of attempts to get an appointment compared to 10 years ago. So businesses must change the way they sell and provide customer service to match how people buy.

Personalization Tactics

According to the Customer Experience Professionals Association, a big component of this new strategy requires personalization. Personalizing in-store interactions by adding insight and value helps differentiate your company in often-crowded marketplaces. Personalization approaches can require data mining and system integration, which can be complex and require specialized expertise to implement. However, taking an agile and interactive approach, companies can implement some rather straightforward personalization tactics to help increase initial customer engagement and retention by:

• Responding immediately to inquiries through their preferred channel
• Delivering information in-store beyond what’s available online
• Sending proactive alerts related to and beyond your products and services
• Sending personalized offers
• Providing product and warranty notifications

Prioritizing personalization leads to creating an enhanced customer experience across all channels throughout the marketing and sales cycle. With effort and resources dedicated to creating a personalized customer experience, companies will see a return on customer engagement, loyalty, and retention. Let Modern Marketing Partners provide you with a data-driven personalization strategy that offers your customers smart content through the digital channels where they live and shop every day.

The post Utilize Personalization to Increase Sales Opportunities appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

That’s a tall order today, because customer touchpoints span across multiple channels including web, social, mobile, and physical locations. So while that makes it tough on the front-end to deliver customized content across all those channels, on the backend it means customers are providing companies with a good deal of information about their preferences and intent. Yet getting at the data from the multiple systems it sits on may be the biggest challenge of all.

The Business Case for Personalization

It’s worth it though. According to new research by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services sponsored by Mastercard, business performance improves with personalization. The Age of Personalization: Crafting a Finer Edge Report found that 25 percent of businesses experienced revenue gains that ranged from 1 to 9 percent while utilizing personalization tactics. Top-line gains of 10 to 25 percent were experienced by 13 percent of respondents, and gains over 25 percent were reported by 6 percent of companies.

Additionally, creating personalized customer experiences in particular helped increase almost half of organizations’ top lines over the past two years, according to respondents.

That’s the power of personalization — its ability to help companies improve both short-term and long-term business goals. The Report further makes this point by sharing feedback from multi-industry executives, which found 80 percent of them believe personalization is important to their organization’s strategy, about 55 percent feel it’s currently an important driver of their revenue, and 81 percent felt moving forward it will significantly influence their financial performance in 2020.

Achieve Personalization through Planning

So your company would be well served to look into personalization. Developing a plan to implement a personalization strategy that reflects your businesses’ specific size, goals and objectives will even better deliver to your bottom line. For every company that may require a different approach. If a company is looking to personalize their customers’ online experience, one approach an ecommerce site might consider is for personalization to increase conversion rates, whereas a non-transactional site may want to increase engagement through time spent on the site.

Takeaway: Use Agile Marketing Principles to provide a manageable initial scope.

You’ll also need to determine what type of personalization your company should implement based on what data you have available. You’re looking for user data that explains who your audiences are, what they’re doing on your site and on social media platforms, what preferences they have, and any other information along those lines.

Also, consider how you want to apply the personalization. Think website page content, promotional offers, product recommendations, email campaigns, enewsletters, etc. These are the easiest starting points or gateways into personalization, which has boundless applications.

Takeaway: Determine the type of tailored communications best suited to engage your customers.

Determine the right tools to help deliver on your personalization efforts. Many companies will be constrained by their budgets and systems during this aspect of the process. If you have a CRM system that’s a great place to start along with what you can pull from your Google analytics. If your budget allows, you may even consider using third-party data to supplement your current data.

Takeaway: It all starts with the right data and the right tools.

Make measurement part of your strategy. Personalization requires a commitment to technology, and that needle is always moving. Tools and systems make end-user personalization a reality; they also have the potential to enable personalization at scale. So put in place KPIs and track your conversion success with every tactic you use.

Takeaway: Measure and benchmark your progress to gain continued resources toward your personalization goals.

With 90% of companies indicating that they expect organizations to know their interests and anticipate their needs, please give personalization a try before the year ends. Modern Marketing Partners has the expertise to get you started on the road to delivering personalized messaging that boosts qualified sales leads.

The post Company Strategy Needed to Deliver Personalization appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

This year Nestle made an announcement that it plans to make 100 percent of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025. Stating that they believe, “plastic waste is one of the biggest sustainability issues the world faces and that there is a urgent need to minimize the impact of packaging on the environment.” They have therefore made this their ambition.

Interesting. Brands today understand that there is value in telling their company’s or product’s story, but now their packaging needs to as well. And sustainability is probably of course the hottest topic in the world of packaging today and in the near future for that matter. In fact it’s one of three main trends shaping packaging for 2019.

Trend 1 – Reduce, Reuse & Recycle

Companies understand that their packaging needs to steer clear of any negative impact on the environment. Marketers and designers now have a shared responsibility to create packaging that reflects a commitment to being ecofriendly.

Consumers are much more aware of the environmental implications of certain types of packaging and are looking for companies to redesign those elements that are detrimental to the earth. It’s also important for companies to set the record straight about many of the recent eco-claims floating around regarding, compostable, degradable, and biodegradable. While helpful in some respects, none of these are recyclable though.

What consumers can get interested in is reducing the amount of packaging used. Consumer preference for minimalism is growing yearly as surveys continue to show results for downsizing packaging as a top five result. Survey participants note not only environmental pressures, but also rising costs associated with materials, manufacturing and storage as to the importance for innovating packaging in terms of economies of scale.

Trend 2 – Enhance ecommerce Customer Experience

Hello Influencer Packaging. Brands are highly aware of the need to deliver shares and likes even with their packaging. Ecommerce has created a different shopping experience that involves rating not only the website the product is purchased from, but the packaging it is delivered in as well.

While online shopping relies on the product to drive the decision to buy, packaging has the opportunity to raise further interest once it is delivered and even become a marketing tool for the company. Experts indicate that personalized packaging in particular may be on the rise to enhance the ecommerce customer experience. It would have the potential to further stimulate other purchases through increased interaction and encourage additional customer sharing on social media. And if designed truly well, could also be used differently once the content is finished. 

Trend 3 – Feeling Flexible

Flexible packaging continues to offer brands a way to customize their packaging that improves the customer experience over rigid pack formats. This segment continues to grow faster than any other packaging format due to its premium branding opportunities, functionality and sustainability. Companies with new products are looking for high-performance materials that improve shipping efficiency and meets customers’ growing packaging needs which now include: greater shelf appeal, easy storage, convenience, portability, product life extendibility, and minimal material usage. Not a short list at all.

These trends offer businesses a look at how to position packaging as a positive for their products and services. First and foremost though, companies need to be prepared to show their commitment to the environment through their packaging decisions. That being said, they also need their packaging to be convenient, interactive in some cases, and enhance overall customer satisfaction. Modern Marketing Partners is ready to work with your brand to deliver the experience-driven packaging that your products need.

The post Packaging Trends Important for Brands Continued Market Success appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.