Marketing Communications: from Mass Market to Mass Customized

Marketing communications, according to CIM (The Charted Institute of Marketing), are the tools a firm uses to deliver a range of promotional messages to its target markets. Key examples of marketing communications which have been used across traditional medium include product brochures, mailers, advertisements, sales promotion, exhibitions, direct sales, etc. In this part of the chapter, we would lay emphasis on the various types of digital communications areas which have emerged and how communications can be managed across each of them.

Automation of Marketing Communication

During the earliest stages of the evolution of marketing communications, the marketing message was developed for a mass market and was supposed to cater to all the segments in a common fashion. In the 1960s, with the advent of computers, marketers for the first time had the power to segment their audiences on the basis of geography and zip-code, thus, giving a fillip to the concept of direct marketing. In the 1970s, the application of analytics helped further refine the audience segments to develop tailored messages for different segments. The decade of the 80s, saw the development of database marketing wherein specific individual data was available and targeted campaigns could be created through population analytics.

It was only in the 1990s that the era of relationship marketing (one-to-one marketing) emerged primarily through customer loyalty that allowed products and information to be delivered specific to individual needs and communications created accordingly. With the growth of search algorithms and the possibility to know the intent of a customer through his keywords, the decade of the 2000s provided the possibility to customize messages to each individual specifically. This was termed as mass customization, wherein customized messages could be shared with audiences based upon clusters with similar tastes and preferences. With the decade of the 2010s, the advent of real-time technologies has made it possible to even automate messages to users in a customized manner with the use of sophisticated technology.

Marketing automation typically involves using technology to aggregate contact lists, generating customized direct marketing messages using direct media channels, tracking sales leads in automated fashion, and selecting messages based on reception and multiple testing. With software systems shifting from proprietary databases to open systems, automation helps provide a coherent customer-centric view across all touchpoints, helping marketers know the exact channels they should take as a base to develop their marketing communication mix. The most recent advancements in this area include optimization of promotions and contact channels in real time to follow customer journeys across the net.

With an understanding of how technology and automation have helped support the transition from mass-based to mass-customized communications, let us look at the key benefits brought about by such a communication:

1. Knowledge of customer preferences: With access to multiple customer touchpoint data collated through digital technology tools, marketers can gain tremendous insights into customer preferences for a product and the kind of communication to which they are most likely to respond positively.
2. Communication on preferred channels: With knowledge of key communication platforms visited, the frequency and timing of the most profitable/loyal customers can be determined based on consumer path and attribution analysis. Communication effort and budget can then be targeted specifically to those channels for particular audience clusters.
3. Personalization based on prior brand interactions: With the ability to compare multiple data points across customer interaction databases, prior interactions and experiences with the brand can be combined to provide insights which can support personalization and cross-sell/up-sell opportunities for key customer groups.
4. Promotions based on real-time funnel activity: The most interesting concept of marketing communication automation is the ability to interact with each individual customer when they are visiting a brand-owned channel and share targeted promotions in real time as the customer moves across specific landing pages and multiple funnel stages to help conversion at each stage. Typical examples include:
   • Converting from mailing list to a prospect through e-mail-automated campaigns run for the specific set of audience who have visited the site once.
   • Encouraging the prospect to become a lead by sharing social-based recommendations of friends who have had a positive experience buying similar products on the website.
   • Converting from lead to purchase by offering real-time discounts when a person has put a product in a cart.
   • Retargeting to customers who did not buy by following and promoting products which a customer put in a cart but did not purchase.