By Christina Yum, Campaign Coordinator, MarketBridge
This post originally appeared on The Digital Bridge, a blog sponsored by MarketBridge.
Online dating — once considered more taboo than normative — is an undeniable force in today’s digitally connected world. It’s a $2.1 billion market that grew 7.1 % last year (IBISWorld).
The online dating ritual of curating your profile, dictating your preferences, and sending out a few clever messages can offer some insightful lessons for your business’ marketing campaign. The parallels are evident — you’ve crafted a story for your brand (you), identified your audience (handsome prospects), and pushed out content through an email campaign (your first Tinder message).
By Christina Yum, Campaign Coordinator, MarketBridge
This post originally appeared on The Digital Bridge, a blog sponsored by MarketBridge.
Online dating — once considered more taboo than normative — is an undeniable force in today’s digitally connected world. It’s a $2.1 billion market that grew 7.1 % last year (IBISWorld).
The online dating ritual of curating your profile, dictating your preferences, and sending out a few clever messages can offer some insightful lessons for your business’ marketing campaign. The parallels are evident — you’ve crafted a story for your brand (you), identified your audience (handsome prospects), and pushed out content through an email campaign (your first Tinder message).
But, just like in online dating, you may be left with a pipeline full of questionable prospects who are not compelled to purchase your products and have stopped engaging in your campaign efforts.
So what marketing lessons in love can we learn from the likes of OkCupid, eHarmony, and yes, even Tinder? Here are three tips to make sure your marketing campaigns get the love they need.
1. Make ‘Em Feel Special
There are essentially three types of messages you receive on a dating website:
- Me, Myself & I — a laundry list of accolades spotlighting why the sender is great.
- Mass (Un)appeal — a generic, spammy message that shows the sender barely tried.
- Personalized Touch — a personable, authentic message where the sender references something you’ve shared on your profile or something you two have in common.
B2B and B2C communications also fall into these categories. Guilty marketers have emailed a generic message to an entire database of contacts who aren’t even in the market for your offering. It is imperative to incorporate a Personalized Touch into your communication strategy by first properly segmenting your contacts by things like sales readiness, prior engagement, or demographics. Then share a tailored message that demonstrates you care about more than just hawking your product.
In particular, behaviorally-driven messaging and offerings are fundamental to creating lasting, customer value (aka a relationship match). Pay attention to a contact’s interactions (i.e. opens, click-throughs, time spent on certain landing pages, web downloads) to drive each successive message and offer and create value at every touch point.
2. Tell A Compelling Story (But Don’t Lie)
It’s highly unfortunate when someone who is actually interesting in real life appears flat and unimpressive online because he or she failed to bring something special to the table, or in our marketing example, convey a compelling story. Their “About Me” and “Interests” are nothing more than rambling “word vomit.” Their messages to you are equally unengaging, thus causing the reader to lose interest and significantly narrow his or her dating prospects.
Similarly, the story you craft for your business matters. If you’ve followed Lesson #1 above and sent a personalized message (Dear John, Congratulations on 10 years in the business!), but lack the content and assets to fuel a highly personalized customer experience, your message will fall on deaf ears. When you offer content and creative that is topic-specific and tailored to a particular audience at a certain point in the customer journey, you provide a convincing incentive to engage with your business. You not only stay top-of-mind for prospective customers but you also remain a trusted advisor for current customers.
Content may be comprised of emails, landing pages, and engagement assets. Emails can be delivered based on the appropriate phase of the buyer’s journey, and each email can showcase high value engagement assets that are relevant to the customer. Engagement assets include infographics, short articles, e-brochures, webinars, events calendars and specific offers.
And as with online dating, be sure you can deliver on your marketing promises for when your customer finally chooses to convert and purchase. It’s disappointing and deceptive when your online suitor who claimed he was 5’10 is actually 5’7.” #letdown
3. Welcome change – Tweak, Test, Repeat
As with online dating, if you fail, get back out there and try again…but with a different strategy. You may simply need to cut the wordiness of your profile in half (be short and sweet) or build more dimension into it (Go ahead — share your obsession of Steinbeck and Star Trek — that’s a winning combo to someone!). Perhaps, you’re targeting the wrong people (it’s easier to spot the profile of a sociopath than you think). Or maybe your messages are bland (or have tones of creepy).
Similarly, when the ROI on your marketing efforts is less than impressive, shifting the outcome requires a flexible marketing strategy. Sometimes it’s as straightforward as changing the cadence and timing of your communications or simplifying your email template. Other times it may be more labor-intensive, like optimizing your website or developing more robust content pieces.
Most successful marketers (and online daters) know that taking risks, while remaining receptive and flexible to change are critical to continuous improvement. So don’t forget to treat your customers like “special someone’s,” learn from your experiences, and get one step closer to finding the lead that is right for you.
Christina Yum is a Campaign Coordinator with MarketBridge’s Marketing Services team located in San Francisco. Since joining MarketBridge, she has been involved in digital nurture, content marketing, and sales enablement programs for clients such as Microsoft and PayPal. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
