How marketers can use data technology creatively

“Follow your own lamp”. This famous quotation from Buddha is as pertinent in today’s marketing world as it was in India in the 5th Century BCE.

We marketers get so much advice about how to go about our marketing from companies like the distinguished McKinsey down to blogs on LinkedIn that we need at times to take a step sideways and consider what our own lamp is telling us.

My personal experience from being at the receiving end of marketing communications is that thousands of them often merge into a uniform blur, with very little to take away at the end.

This has been caused by so many marketers not following their own lamps, but rather slavishly following the paths that have been specified for them by the great marketing consensus.

So how can marketers follow their own lamp and use data technology creatively?

One of our clients called Muck Munchers sells bacteria that you can put down your loo if you want to keep a clean flowing septic tank. They have never failed to ‘follow their own lamp’, and their business is growing at an admirable rate.

creative marketing by muck munchers

Read their whole quirky blog here: Muck Munchers Blog

A large part of a marketer’s individuality must certainly be expressed by the creativity they put into their advertising content. However we should not forget that there is also room for considerable creativity in the way we use our technology.

Let me provide a few examples:

– Customers like to be recognised for what they really are, rather than what they have done in the last five seconds on your website; so a dormant customer who after a long absence suddenly appears would be delighted by a ‘welcome back Mr Smith, and we have been saving something special for you’.

– A small amount of customer analysis can tell us who is and who is not a bargain hunter, so why not restrict your sales catalogues to those who are, and leave the rest to carry on happily paying the full price?

– Customers can be frustrated by going right through your website to find the one item they want, only to be told that it’s out of stock; so browsers who leave your website soon after finding this out will be delighted by an email telling them that if it’s not too late the item is now available.

– And there are triggers when it comes to automating communications. Think garden center; the original purchase of a plant could be followed up by plants that go well with the original purchase with weeding tools, with pest control and even with appropriate winter plant protection.

So please do keep your own lamp lit, and don’t feel the need to follow the herd!

And do come and talk to us if you want to discuss how to use marketing technology creatively.

 


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UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Our data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed, and our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.