By Giovanni Hofmeyer
Marketing technology, commonly known as Martech, refers to the range of tools and software used in digital marketing to help achieve marketing objectives and goals.
With the right MarTech stack and strategy in place, businesses can ensure long-lasting success, which is critical today going into an uncertain year.
In today’s digital age, companies need to respond more quickly, to the changes in consumer behaviour and online engagement patterns that we will see throughout 2021.
Leveraging the power of MarTech not only enables your business to get a better understanding of your customers, but it allows you to get an in-depth look into how you are being perceived by your very customers.
In essence, when you have the accurate data to help you know your customers thoroughly, and you are presented with a clear idea of your own brand reputation, formulating strategies that are agile enough to today’s digital landscape will set you apart from the rest.
This is how, in 2021, we can leverage MarTech in Nigeria to increase brand reputation, customer engagement, and profitability.
Focusing on Customer Engagement, Experience and Retention
Due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, digital transformation and the evolution of technology accelerated much faster than we could have imagined.
With the need to pivot strategies to accommodate these new changes, the rapid digital acceleration saw businesses needing to hone in on their customers – more specifically, how to continue engaging with them, maintaining excellent customer experience and ensuring customer loyalty.
Social media, especially, has played a key role in the power shift to customers. Consumers have access to thousands of different opportunities and conversations at their fingertips. Social media is the goldmine that businesses should be leveraging in order to connect with buyers throughout the customer journey.
Due to the pandemic and the shift to working from home that many companies incorporated, the world has become more interconnected than ever. Social media, and has also provided a platform for customers to share their thoughts on their experience with your business.
From a bad in-store experience to online reviews, many customers today are using social media as a platform to express their feedback. For businesses, this is an opportunity to use to your advantage. Customers can access a world of information in a matter of seconds, and you should be at the forefront of their minds.
So what MarTech tools could help you focus on customer engagement, experience and retention? Consider social listening.
Social media listening tools allow businesses to track, manage and analyse billions of ever-changing data-points, but even more so, provide the necessary insights to make better strategic decisions related to customer engagement.
Brands and businesses use social listening tools to get a better sense of what their customers think about their products and services, their feelings when interacting with a brand through a social media channel and to discover the pain points that customers experience in their journey.
Building Customer Confidence in Your Brand
Building and maintaining one’s brand reputation, both online and offline, is an important aspect of growing your business. When your brand’s reputation is positive among customers, it builds a sense of loyalty and trust, leading to more confidence from your customers towards your brand, and the products or services that you provide.
A strong brand reputation, paired with a killer product or service, is ultimately what will help drive sales and grow your bottom line.
Now that we know that the digital environment that we operate in today has become more competitive than ever before, managing your brand’s reputation is going to become a bigger priority in 2021.
Whether your online presence lies on social media, news websites, forums, or blogs, it will become increasingly important for brands and businesses to maintain their presence more prominently online, and to position themselves as a solution to the ever-changing needs of their customers.
Building strong customer confidence in your brand, and in turn, creating a strong online reputation depends on how well you know your audience. Many of Nigeria’s and the world’s most successful brands have begun utilising an Audience Insights tool that allows you to segment your audience in order to better understand the different groups that speak about your brand online.
You’ll also have a much better ability to create a targeted marketing and content strategy that is specific to the segments of your audience. In 2021, there is nothing more important than understanding your buyers’ needs and what drives and motivates them. This is the key to connection in the digital age.
Creating Streamlined Approaches
Having streamlined marketing approaches has become vital in MarTech, especially if you want to bridge the gap between meeting the expectations of your customers, and what they actually receive from your brand or business. Consumer expectations are becoming more relentless as technology continues to advance. From the growth of social commerce to keeping up with the latest hardware that suits their needs, consumer behaviours have changed over the last few years.
For marketers, a trend to take note of in 2021 is having a more streamlined MarTech stack. In essence, having a centralised tool that can meet marketing objectives. However, there are several different MarTech solutions for marketers to choose from; how then, do you determine which tool is suitable to meet every marketing problem that you may encounter?
Having a number of tools and software to address a specific problem is a thing of the past, as centralised platforms that provide a quick look into campaigns and customer data will be what marketers want in 2021. There is a growing interest in platforms that provide an all-in-one solution, such as Meltwater, to meet specific business needs. Consolidated solutions are the way of the future.
To learn more about audience insights and social analytics, get in touch here.
The thoughts expressed in this external contribution are those of the author.
Giovanni Hofmeyer is the Nigeria Country Manager at Meltwater, the global leader in media intelligence and social analytics. With an extensive and demonstrated history of working in the Technology, SAAS, and Digital industry, Giovanni is well versed in the African markets, having done business in more than 15 African countries. Giovanni spearheaded Meltwater’s expansion project into Nigeria in 2020 which saw the company’s presence grow significantly over the year. As a result, he was recently promoted to manage the country’s operations from South Africa, where he is based. Skilled in strategic negotiations, communication, and innovative strategies, he remains passionate about people development and leveraging the power of the mind.
