CONTEXT MARKETING
Author: Aneta Pokrivčáková
Date of Publication: 09/05/2022
Content is all around us. From billboards to television and mobile phones. Therefore, it's almost impossible to avoid marketing advertisements trying to make us buy something or use a certain service.
Moreover, many would agree that marketing, nowadays, creates content overload. This fact makes it even harder for companies to engage with customers and to retain them. This is because the online environment is full of interesting marketing products reaching many different customers every day. However, we can say that the hardest challenge facing marketers is to stand out since anyone can create digital content cheaply and at any time.
Why is it important to focus on context marketing in your business?
In the digital area the term “context marketing” is nothing new. Yet plenty of businesses struggle to understand why it is so important and how to actually use it.
You have probably received plenty of emails advertising some company's newsletters when you've bought something from them once. So, it probably reached a point when the information was irrelevant, even spamming.
In general, the problem is that we usually receive so much information that is not enough, so we end up ignoring them. Therefore, for a marketer, applying context is the key in order to be seen and to succeed in the congested market of content.
What context exactly is it and how to use it to engage clients?
The point of Content is to provide a receiver with information that is interesting and useful. Context, according to a dictionary, is “The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood.”
Content and context go hand in hand. When we combine previous statements we can say that Context Marketing is all about showing the right content to customers in the time they need it. It is subject to a question When and Why the information is delivered to a receiver.
That means that it's important to deliver a message that speaks to a person's interests and needs at that specific time in their life.
However, the real value of content matters only when it meets customers’ expectations. Also, it is important to be relevant to what a customer is looking for. So, targeting potential customer needs has positive benefits on your business.
The Benefits on which include:
Develop a more focused digital marketing strategy
Increase in conversion rates (e.g. sales)
Better quality lead generation
Increase customer retention, loyalty and advocacy
Basic principles to help incorporate context to your digital marketing strategy
The truth is that there's no winning formula. In particular, context marketing is about various tools that work together on one goal- to attract customers. Moreover, each person will respond to marketing messages differently, in different communication contexts.
In scale, applying context marketing requires:
thoughtfulness
strategic thinking
data and technology
The first thing you, as a marketer, should do is to COMMUNICATE from the perspective of your clients and to put their needs upon your own. So, this simple change in your behavior and thinking builds a base and fosters a better and longer lasting relationship with your customers.
What is more, the fundamental principles you should use in your business are the following:
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: In order to successfully create meaningful content you need to know, exactly, who it is you talking to. As a good marketer you need to inspect what your customers intentions are and how you can help them.
UNIFY MARKETING ELEMENTS: Blog article, Instagram post, video on YouTube and ad can, each, achieve communication goal on their own. At that time context appears and goes beyond location and timing. When you can make those elements work in concert, each piece of communication facilitates and compliments the others and helps to involve coordination of communication objectives, messages, channels and the context.
COLLECT AND ANALYZE DATA: Context marketing requires a lot of data. We can agree that data is almost as valuable as the insides it generates. In the last decade rapid advancements in data and analytics has allowed digital marketing to track, understand and predict customer behavior.
PERSONALIZE: Good context marketing can not be superficial. Good salesman must be conscientious, empathetic and must genuinely care for the customer's needs in order to form trust.
BE PATIENT: Context marketing requires testing and optimization. Each time a customer doesn't respond to your marketing efforts it gives you an opportunity to collect and analyze data which leads to better understanding of the customer.