November! Wowsers! The silly season is almost upon us. And we bet you’re busy with all the end of year social events. And, if you’re anything like us, we also bet your diary is filling up fast with Christmas gatherings and end of year work functions. It certainly is a busy time of year. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been keeping ourselves updated on all the very latest in marketing land. Here are some of the key take-outs from November.
Why Australians are becoming ‘neigh-sayers’ to the Melbourne Cup and its associated marketing.
If the lead up to the Melbourne Cup felt different to you this year, you’re not alone. After the ABC’s 7:30 Report shed light on the sad reality for many horses once their racing days are up, public reaction appeared to be strong. The Melbourne Cup and horse racing in general, has long had its protests, but this year there seemed to be a definite cultural shift. This also translated to a change in the social media hashtags being used by the public. According to data collected by SEMrush, #nuptothecup was the third most used hashtag in connection to the #melbournecup hashtag. But this was not the only negative association, with #abc730 and #youbettheydie both making appearances in the top 10. The popularity of the negative hashtags seems to display a change in sentiment of the Australian public. It also prompted some businesses to forgo their usual Melbourne Cup celebrations. Us included. For the first time ever at Threesides we decided not to conduct a Melbourne Cup office sweep or celebrate, instead our team was encouraged to donate the money otherwise used on sweeps to Horse Racing Australia and RSPCA Australia. You could say we were a team of neigh-sayers.
Movember becomes more data-driven all year round.
Of course, we can’t have our November update without talking about Movember. An Australian invention, Movember has been a fixture of November since 2004 and has since been rolled out worldwide raising loads of funds for changing the face of men’s mental health. But how can an organisation that is so intrinsically linked to one singular month, market itself year-round? In an interview with CMO Movember’s Chief Fundraising and Development Officer, Charlotte Webb, she discussed how they have had to change their social media strategy to get ahead. Traditionally they would run a social media campaign leading into November, and then go silent in the months afterwards. And Threesides can tell you, going silent is never a good model. To improve things, Webb discussed that they knew they would have to start harvesting data to better target new potential community members as well as encouraging those who have already participated to continue their efforts. Webb outlined that with a CRM, running marketing automation and having internal data warehouse capabilities, they can now identify who is most likely to sign up and focus on that group throughout the year. The interview is a great reminder that it’s important to have a marketing plan that works throughout the year, even if your business is based around specific times of the year.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.0.6″][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.0.6″ type=”4_4″][et_pb_image src=”https://threesides.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/movember3.gif” _builder_version=”4.0.6″ hover_enabled=”0″ align=”center” max_width=”34%”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.0.6″][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.0.6″ type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.0.6″ hover_enabled=”0″]Why old techniques to Customer Relationship Management are no longer enough – entering the post-CRM-centric era.
Are Customer Relationship Management systems losing their relevance? An article in Marketing Mag pondered if we were in a post CRM era. Starting in the 90s, CRM got its start responding to the increased relationship between customers and clients. But its relevance perhaps seems to be slipping. In the modern era with Instagram, Facebook, emails and Messenger, there may now be too many channels to keep up. Can we still accurately be keeping that customer profile? Some statistics prove that we still are getting a bit confused about who our customers are, and what they want. A survey by Gartner found that:
- 64% of respondents want better metrics.
- 50% want to hear the voice of the customer (VoC) more clearly.
- 45% want better personalisation.
- 44% want to automate more parts of the customer journey.
We seemingly have more ways than ever before to collect that information, so if businesses are still confused it could be because they are stuck with an outdated CRM. If this sounds like you, there is a solution. The best way forward may be with customer data infrastructure. It can centralise all your data to more easily display those insights you’re looking for. Want to know more? Chat with us.
Nearly half of businesses aren’t investing in personalisation tech despite citing customer experience as a top priority
Marketing Land looked at why half of businesses are not investing in personalisation technologies. Given that 79% consider digital customer experience as an extremely or very high priority, you’d think that businesses would be jumping at the opportunity. But only 9% are actively using them, a drop from last year’s 14%. Businesses are claiming it’s the cost and effort keeping them from upgrading. But over at Marketing Mag they believe that hyper-personalised customer experience will become increasingly popular in 2020. This is because even though the investment costs are high, it’s still going to be the most effective way to connect with customers. It will require some changes, you’ll need to have the right technology including automation, prediction analytics and AI to make it possible. But these alone won’t get you there. Businesses will need to have an in-depth understanding of their customers purchasing journey to combine with the tech. It may seem like a lot of effort, but it will allow customers to interact with brands how and when they want with a positive outcome.
Instagram like totals now being hidden worldwide
We have talked previously about the hiding of likes on Australian Instagram. Back in May Instagram stopped listing the total number of likes which had a flow-on effect for influences and brands. Instagram has consistently stated that the feature is in a testing period, so we couldn’t be sure the changes were here to stay. But finally, testing has rolled out to the US market. This may be an indication that hiding likes will become a permanent feature of Instagram. So, what can we expect? Marketing Mag gave us some insight into the effect in Australia. The most affected group are the Instagram influences who saw the most significant drop in likes and engagement no matter the size of their followers. On average they received 13% fewer likes in the three months following the changes and a 0.3% drop in engagement. These changes don’t mean the end of influences, just a greater focus on the engagement that the influences have with their communities over simple likes on a post. You can expect to see similar results in the worldwide rollout with an initial drop which will stabilise within a few months. The changes are meant to continue to promote safe social media usage worldwide.
If you’re looking at setting up a Marketing Plan next year, have a chat with us about how we can make 2020 the best it can be.
And that’s our second last wrap for the year. Enjoy those silly season festivities!
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