Change the way you think to succeed at digital marketing

Over the last 3 years at Xeno, while working with over 200 brands like Dunkin Donuts, Taco Bell & Tarun Tahiliani, we realized one big mindset change that needs to be made to succeed at digital marketing.We first experimented with the change in the mindset, but then we noticed the improvement in results & they were amazing. Today, I’m going to tell you about that mindset, why it’s important, why now & the impact it can have on your business.

Our default marketing mindset

Early on our customers would say to us, just send everyone the SMS. Then we built a way to reach out to customers on Facebook and they’d say just send this post to everybody.Brands just wanted to push things onto their customers, and I was curious, why? So I spoke to 100’s of restaurant & retail chain CMOs, marketing heads & owners across India & Europe and realized 1 simple thing.“Offline marketing has been push driven for 100’s of years. Brands that are growing digital spend now, just replicate the same offline behaviour in digital marketing.”In the offline marketing space, whether it's putting a newspaper ad out, a TV ad, a hoarding etc., we always need to push towards the customer, since we don't know who'll see our marketing campaign in the first place.The problem is since we've been doing offline marketing for so many years, without even realizing it we subconsciously carry forward the same behaviour to digital marketing.

Why does changing that mindset matter? And why now?

Customers are becoming digital-only. They’re moving from watching TV to Netflix or YouTube. They’re moving from reading newspapers to reading news online. Now 51% of the world spend more time online than on TV.Since you need to be where your customers are, CMO’s say their social media spend will grow by 89% in 5 years (Source: CMO Survey).That means, over the next 5 years digital marketing will probably be over 50% of your marketing budget. Simply put, unlike the past, that means the results you get on digital marketing will impact your revenue massively. So, succeeding in digital marketing is more important NOW than ever before.What’s the change in mentality to succeed in digital marketing?If you think about it, in the digital marketing space we know so much about our customers & prospective customers. Are they vegetarian or non-vegetarian, do they buy dresses or t-shirts, do they like to surf during the day or the middle of the night & so on.Yet, ultimately we communicate the same information to everyone. We’ve launched dresses, come get 15% off this weekend, whether they’re interested or not.Let me show you 2 campaigns that Marc Preusche, an expert at marketing personalization in Europe showed me. Marc would buy gizmos & technology products from both Kickstarter & Indie Gogo, yet 1 of them emailed him about generic products that he had no interest in and the other emailed him about gizmos he can fund. Just, guess which email is he more likely to enjoy & shop from?

The change in mindset is:

Think from a customer perspective first, not a brand. What I mean is, we first need to understand what a customer wants & align the communications to what the customer wants, plus our brand’s goals.It might feel like a small change, but it can change everything. In fact, 35% of all purchases on Amazon are driven by recommendations. (Source: Mckinsey)

1 out of every 3 purchases on Amazon is driven by algorithm recommendations.

Here are some examples of Amazon’s campaigns:Does that mean Amazon’s campaigns are always relevant? No. Of course not. But they’re magnitudes better than what most brands typically push to their customers. That means Amazon makes more money from the same marketing budget, compared to other brands & that has played a huge role in their success.Now, when I look at examples like Amazon & Apple (trillion-dollar companies) in a blog, I wonder if I can replicate the same results since they probably have a budget worth billions of dollars. That’s why I’m also showing you examples from brands like Dunkin Donuts to show that you can go customer first too.

How does a customer-first approach affect the bottom line?

Increasing campaign relevancy that delights customers & can increase your marketing conversions by 100%. Yes, you heard that right. A customer-first approach can double the revenue you generated from the same marketing budget.That’s why our mantra at Xeno is customer-first marketing not brand first. If you’re looking to do customer-first marketing & improve conversions, ping us here and I’m happy to show you.To up your marketing game, join 2000+ marketers from brands like Dominos, KFC & Reliance Retail who’ve subscribed to our blog.