Meaningful Interactive Conversations: Four Essentials

Who would have thought, but consumers today seem to be getting very comfortable with interactive communications — social, email, text, mobile apps. And yet marketers find they are still struggling to create meaningful conversations with their customers. Simply turning up the volume on digital marketing can easily result in a preponderonce of deaf ears turned against your brand message.

Meanwhile, the demands for marketing accountability and demonstrated ROI are rising, putting more pressure on marketing teams. Fortunately, with today's resources, many are succeeding in cultivating continuous conversations that are timely, relevant and welcome.

As explained in Unica's latest ebook on the topic, Interactive Marketing means engaging each customer and prospect in a cross-channel dialogue that builds upon his or her past and current behavior. The authors delineate four essential principals. Here's a synopsis:

1. Customer awareness
To "hear" what a customer is saying — both explicitly and implicitly —marketers need to capture his/her behavior across all online and offline channels. Using this information to determine what messaging to use next requires Interactive Marketing technology solutions that can leverage and process both a customer's history and present situation, identify actionable customer insights, alert you when potential customer opportunities arise, and predict marketing outcomes.

2. Centralized decisioning
In a conventional, decentralized marketing approach, a call center may have its own cross-sell rules, the website may use other behavioral targeting to personalize ads, while direct marketers may send out yet another offer. The result is chaotic communication at best. Centralized decisioning enables marketers to  speak to customers based on a complete memory of the conversations to date. It's essential to engaging customers in an effective dialogue.

3. Cross-channel execution
Traditional campaign management systems were often designed to support outbound push marketing. But customers today move seamlessly across channels in the course of making a single buying decision. The most effective Interactive Marketing solution operates through any outbound or inbound channel with ease, and manages conversations that continue throughout as many interactions as necessary to help customers reach their goals.

4. Integrated marketing operations
To increase efficiency and gain better control over budgets and processes, Interactive Marketing needs the foundational support provided by marketing operations capabilities. Marketers should look to align resources to objectives, streamline production processes, track budgets and expenses, and improve team collaboration.

LEARN MORE IN THIS FREE DOWNLOAD: The Interactive Marketing eBook

Use the form below for a free download of Unica's Interactive Marketing resource. We also welcome your inquiries and feedback on the topics discussed in this Tip.