ConnectEurope2012 the leading global digital conference for online marketers, was held last week in central London bringing together some of the industry’s most innovative thinkers, the world’s biggest brands and awe-inspiring speakers. Keynote speakers included Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the World’s Greatest Living Explorer, Innocent co-founder Richard Reed and TED crowd favourite, Marco Tempest.
Sir Ranulph Fiennes inspirational account of his record breaking explorations, was a huge crowd pleaser. His presentation focussed on the analogy between natures most dangerous and difficult challenges and everyday business life. He also stressed the importance of teamwork, determination, patience, discipline, enthusiasm and creative thinking. Innocent co-founder Richard Reed who focused on the importance of social media and online customer engagement in building a brand reputation.
During the course of the day there were a variety of thought-provoking sessions from Emma Barnett’s analysis of how to make money from social networking websites, to a case study on The FA’s journey to dynamic content. There were also sessions on topics ranging from the rise of mobile marketing, to a discussion on how to integrate rich content, email and social media into a single marketing strategy. Seminars also covered legal issues surround online marketing, to how to understand consumers and build a community not just a brand.
Philip Storey, Email Marketing Consultant, at eCircle focused on the latest innovations in email marketing. He explained that understanding your customer has never been more important, as there are now more platforms than ever to reach audiences. It’s essential to build a solid understanding of consumer’s needs, behaviors and personal preferences. This knowledge then needs to be used to evaluate the “customer need’? Vs ‘the business need’ and used to ensure information sent to an individual is relevant and engaging. There will be times, at various stages of the customer lifecycle when those needs are very similar, but often you will find there are collisions. If you don’t identify these, then you have no chance of pushing your customers through to the next stage of the process, which may be converting them to a sale or encouraging them to interact with you in some way.
Email remains a key marketing strategy, providing a wealth of information about a customer’s preferences, from explicit preferences where people have said “I am interested in this category” to their online behavioural data. However, just because you have the data available to you, doesn’t mean you should use it. It’s also not about pictures, you have to learn to love text and think about what will trigger a response from your audience in an increasingly crowded inbox.
