Christopher Lowe
Aug 23, 2021
Christopher Lowe
Aug 23, 2021
“Give the lady what she wants!” is a quote attributed to famed entrepreneur and department store retailer Marshall Field (1854-1906). His pioneering ideas and insistence on catering to the needs of the customer revolutionized the retail market in his time.
Recent years have witnessed a sea of change in how customers wish to engage with businesses online. No longer inclined to enter an email address to be contacted with content that may or may not be of interest to them, they are also less willing to interact with businesses unless those interactions are on their terms.
Users have become impatient with ill-timed, irrelevant messaging and will quickly bounce if the marketing campaigns fail to connect with them on an emotional level. A well-designed marketing platform reaches customers with the right message at the right time, through the channels they prefer.
This blog post will discuss effective cross-channel campaign management (CCCM) and highlight tools that Insider offers to help businesses optimize their marketing communications with customers and continue to improve key metrics while maintaining their brand strategies.
What does common cross-channel campaign management look like?
Optimizing your existing cross-channel campaign management and getting it to the next level
Starting your journey with Insider
According to Forrester, a world-leader in marketing research and consulting, discovering and harnessing customer obsession is key to increased market share in the digital age. They have defined CCCM as: enterprise marketing technology that supports customer data management, analytics, segmentation, and workflow tools for designing, executing, and measuring campaigns for digital and offline channels.
As much a mouthful as that may be, it is imperative to understand that simply using multiple channels to connect with users is no longer enough. Next-generation marketing campaigns must apply data collected to create an insight-led customer engagement platform.
To reach customers effectively, marketers have turned to use cross-channel marketing campaign management to improve the customer journey. Savvy B2C marketing teams employ customer data bundled from diversified sources to create richer, more personalized experiences using the channels that will most likely attract the users, get them to enter the sales funnel, and put them on the path to conversions.
While established digital marketing channels like email, web push, mobile apps, and in-app engagement are still relevant, today’s customers are more apt to respond to a heightened personalized experience using platforms they feel more connected to. Marketing campaigns using digital channels including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, and other messaging channels give your business greater access to a global customer base that’s more likely to engage with these independent platforms.
Insider has developed visionary tools that can be incorporated easily into your marketing tech stack. These tools provide enhanced flexibility and control over how your business engages across multiple channels, while AI-based algorithms provide greater accuracy to upgrade the personalized experience.
Forrester recently named Insider one of the top five marketing platforms in their Forrester Wave™: Cross-Channel Campaign Management for Q2 2021. Insider outshines nascent CCCM solutions on the strength of its scalable platform, hyper-localized strategic approach, and wide-ranging array of digital channels.
The report noted that Insider is exceptionally proficient at web and eCommerce personalization, as well as its comprehensive mobile personalization for text and push messaging, in-app content, and mobile messaging platforms.
Insider’s customer data management tools will allow your business to create real-time connections to your users with predictive technology to envision their needs. B2C marketers can easily magnify their brand with optimized customer experiences that connect on an emotional level, leading to greater customer loyalty.
What this means for your business is an easy-to-implement, intuitive omnichannel marketing platform that places your customers in the driver’s seat as they enjoy empowerment while interacting with your brand.
Competing in the current online sales arena requires constant monitoring of the rapid changes in digital marketing, and updating your procedures and tools is key to keeping your business at the top. Here we discuss five ways that you can consistently illuminate your brand by augmenting your current CCCM.
The ability to anticipate your customers’ next moves is a potent asset when creating personalized journeys for your users. Predictive segments powered by Insider’s AI-driven platform allow your marketing team to direct targeted messaging with one click. Instead of creating segments from scratch, a time-consuming prospect at best, perfectly trained segments will already be available at your fingertips.
Marketing to countless unique and individual users, each with different online behaviors, is a massive challenge. It can be difficult to know which channel is most effective to use for interacting with separate and distinct customers.
Creating meaningful interactions using the right channel makes it possible for your business to communicate more efficiently with your target audience. Automating your decisions to expertly reach users can be accomplished by leveraging strong data analytics using Insider’s Next Best Channel feature.
Next Best Channel removes the guesswork by deciding on the best channel option for each user and guiding them to that particular channel. It determines the “best” channel from among specified choices based on the highest possibility of user engagement.
By branching your customer journey flow using the A/B Split element to compare two or more different alternatives, you have the power to evaluate which one is the most useful for your business cases. This information allows you to choose the option that performs the best in getting results in conversions and revenue.
You retain the flexibility to continuously experiment with ideas, perpetually optimize your strategies and make improvements to the customer journey. For example, you can quickly and easily change your messaging channel or personalization strategy by editing the journey, and then select the highest performing option.
A/B Split element initially allows you to branch your journey flow into two separate paths, A and B. After you set the allocation for each, the tool will randomly direct users to one path or the other according to the numbers you select. While you have the ability to set the percentages however you wish, we recommend using a 50/50 distribution to achieve the most significant results.
For example:
Your allocation is set at 50%-50% for paths A and B
1000 users arrive at the A/B Split element, and are evenly divided into the paths
500 users are now poised at different elements on the journey for further options
Different use cases of A/B testing:
Increasing globalization along with advances in technology in emerging markets demands that most companies have at least an online presence across multiple countries and regions. This necessitates the ability for these businesses to communicate with users who speak and read a variety of different languages. Until recently, this required marketing campaigns to be created for each individual country or language.
Insider offers a solution to this issue with the creation of a Multi-Language Journey for its B2C partners. Instead of designing different journeys for each language, marketing campaigns can select multiple language choices on the launch step and create separate paths for each language. This allows you to target users across a broad spectrum of languages while employing one single journey.
Architect, Insider’s AI-powered customer journey builder, is capable of reaching users from diverse language groups automatically, especially if your business has various platforms with multi-language support. This allows you to trigger users into the journey by targeting them in their language while maintaining uniformity in your brand messaging.
Individual users maintain different daily time schedules and rhythms, especially when you consider the global market with 24 separate time zones. It’s important to know the best time to reach your users according to their messaging preferences. Send Time Optimization is a smart feature that enables you to engage with users more intuitively by gaining their attention when they are most likely to be receptive.
The Send Time Optimization feature is currently available for the basic messaging channels like email, web push, SMS, etc., and tracks when users most often engage with any of these types of messaging and allows the notifications to be timed for the most desirable results.
For example:
Jake receives App Push notifications which he usually opens between 13:00 and 14:00.
Your journey includes SMS with the Send Time Optimization option.
Jake will receive your future SMS between 13:00 and 14:00, as this is the optimal time when he checks his mobile phone.
Send Time Optimization calculates the best time for each individual user and schedules your messaging to meet that criteria, resulting in a better experience for the user and a higher potential for engagement. New users whose optimal time has not yet been defined will receive the messages immediately. The smart feature will subsequently learn the patterns of behavior and schedule future messaging accordingly.
With Send Time Optimization enabled, the user’s journey will wait at the channel step until the peak time for conversion potential. The result of this is a higher probability of interaction and conversions.
Giving customers what they want, when they want it has been the key to successful marketing for ages. While it wasn’t always feasible to do in the past, the advent of online marketing technology has made this a more viable prospect. And for better or worse, this trend has trained consumers to expect this type of experience. Online customers feel entitled to being marketed to in a way that suits them.
Online sellers have to adapt to continuously changing developments in technology and consumer behavior. Businesses that are slow to transform can quickly become yesterday’s news. Insider’s global partners are already experiencing increases in user interaction, conversions, and other key metrics as they nimbly reshape their customer communications to fit an evolving market.
Insider was named a Leader in 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Personalization Engines in July 2021. The growth management platform has proven itself in both completeness of vision and ability to execute for its partners.
With the development of innovative and powerful tools such as Architect, InStory, and other AI-driven marketing software, Insider has the imagination and drive to make your business a solid competitor in multichannel marketing.
The recent Forrester Report ranks Insider solidly in the following categories:
Insider also tied for top spot in customer data management; performance; innovation roadmap; and supporting products and services. Overall, Forrester rated Insider as a strong player in terms of strategies, current offerings, and market presence.
Add value to your customers by accurately predicting their needs and behavior. Seamlessly engage with your users instead of alienating them by using their preferred messaging routes, whether they be established platforms or trendier social media channels. Create meaningful and personalized stories and journeys for your users, connecting with them on an internal level.
Insider is perfectly positioned to help your business discern your customers’ behaviors, needs, and desires so you can increase your brand’s value in your user interactions. Our location on the Forrester Wave™: [Cross-Channel Campaign Management] characterizes the flexibility and innovative approach our platform offers over other platforms hindered by segregated data storage and a rigid, unilateral marketing strategy.
Summing up their report, Forrester noted: “Insider is a solid choice for organizations seeking a customizable CCCM platform, and its mobile-first personalization capabilities can also complement an existing martech ecosystem.”
To discover more about how Insider’s Cross-Channel Campaign Management can increase your brand’s growth, click here or schedule a personalized demo.
Written by
Christopher Lowe
Christopher has a long history of driving value and creating personalized, omnichannel journeys that enhance customer experience. He's passionate about learning and development and has a keen interest in developing economies, especially ones with a lot of room for digital growth.
