Placing customers at the centre of all communications is integral. Brands need to ensure they’re on top of the changing trends and tools to ensure their communications are relevant, targeted and valuable to the consumer. Disruptive brands such as Uber are changing consumer expectations, where we now expect a taxi in no more than three minutes. This level of convenience from Uber has meant that consumers have come to expect this across the taxi category – it becomes the ‘new-normal’. The challenge for legacy brands such as London Black Cabs or Addison Lee, is to adapt and innovate to offer the same experience.

In today’s market, a multi-channel approach to marketing is necessary to target consumers from all angles. Email marketing should be a key component in any marketer’s arsenal. It drives significant ROI when compared to other channels, and for every dollar spent, email marketing

generates

$38 in ROI. Email has to be a focal point for marketing and customer centricity is integral for succeeding in this channel.

So, how can you ensure the customer is always front and centre?

Driving customer engagement is key. Brands must move away from the unsophisticated ‘batch and blast’ approach to email marketing. There’s no one-size-fits-all – it has to be tailored to the appropriate audience to excite customers. This provides long-term value for brands and fosters the development of relationships with consumers. By delivering a deeply personalised online and offline shopping experience,

Jacques Vert

experienced an incredible 5,000 per cent ROI from email marketing alone. Birthday campaigns were important here and represent a particularly personal approach, with conversion rates for the fashion brand five to seven per cent higher than any other campaign. Targeted, relevant and personalised communications are creating the stand-out results that brands desire.

The risk of continually sending non-targeted email communications is now much higher, with Internet Service Providers such as Gmail introducing ‘block’ functionality to the inbox to reduce spam. If your email marketing is blocked, you can say goodbye to that recipient forever. Could the risk be any higher to email marketers?

A key aspect to any digital marketing strategy is understanding a customer’s journey with your brand. By mapping the customer journey, marketers can understand their experience with every channel, both online and offline. In doing so, brands can deliver relevant and tailored experiences, improving marketing performance and ultimately, ROI. Consumers are increasingly channel-agnostic and want a seamless journey. Mobile optimisation is integral –

71 per cent

of marketing emails were opened on a mobile device in Q1 of 2015 so if your emails aren’t mobile-ready, you will miss out. By developing relationships with customers at every stage of the journey, brands will be able to engage in meaningful interactions with consumers.

Empowering marketers with data and insights around customers will allow brands to target the right person with the right message. Consumers interact across multiple devices on a daily basis. In order to place the customer at the centre of all campaigns, brands must be aware of and need to engage with customers at all touch points. Companies that fail to tailor services and communications run the risk of their consumers moving to a competitor.

The customer is now more important than ever. With so many channels and brands targeting consumers 24/7, if your email marketing strategy isn’t placing the customer at the centre and tailoring content to their needs, you will lose out to smarter marketers