[WATCH] The user is both the customer and the campaign – AGS Europe

In an AGS Europe 2021 panel which was held in Malta, the moderator Laura K. Inamedinova, CEO of LKI Consulting, and the panelists Sivan Baram, Co-Founder & CEO of RADD, and Luis Hernández, Digital Marketing Automation Manager of DIA discuss the role and the impact that technology is having on marketing.

Live broadcasting is the new boom in e-commerce. Live sessions held by influencers increase sales and according to Baram, they boost sales by 100%. She adds that two powerful marketing tools are User Generated Content (UGC) and Product Reviews where brands encourage their customers to upload more product reviews and this boosts sales and increases retention measures.

Hernández says that their most powerful tool is data and they “use data from everywhere”. At DIA, they have physical and e-commerce stores. They merge all the data from physical and online customers to make a unique profile and then they create campaigns accordingly. These campaigns result in various behaviors which further enrich the user profile. He says that “data is the main tool, and big data development is the main tool [they] use to make campaigns”. As a case study, Hernández mentioned that they have recently used the data which they collected in the last 30 years to make different customer models, and based on these behaviors they could use various segmentation groups and target the buyers with specific promotions.

As a case study, Baram made reference to a cosmetic company that does live broadcasting to attract new customers. Their influencers invite their followers to a live session during which they can benefit from special promotions. The brand has access to the analytics of the live show, including comments, emojis, purchases, from which they can understand their customers’ behavior. All of this is new and it boosts sales.

Another case study is about those companies that are using product reviewing tools and whose sales are increasing “by over 200%”. She adds that “product reviews that are video-based are even more powerful” and that nowadays, product reviews are not only simply a product review but an actual marketing tool, a UGC tool that companies and brands are trying to promote further. This results in the user being not only a user but the campaign itself.

Content is king. From Baram’s experience, “a lot of companies are interested in measuring the power of their content”. She says that content marketing, videos, and social media are powerful tools. However, it is up to the marketing manager to choose which tool to use depending on what it brings to the company.

She says that analytics, measurement, and monitoring are among the biggest challenges because a company needs to choose the right strategy to decide “what to push the most and what to invest in the most”. She agreed with Hernández that data is very significant. And as Inamedinova said, “it is all about understanding the strategy, the tools, and the metrics”.

Follow the whole panel discussion here:

Hernández and Baram are in agreement that companies need real-time data. Hernández added that they also need to know what their competitors are doing and they have to do it better with less money and in less time. Inamedinova agreed that there is a lot of potential in being able to see all the patterns and numbers. Hernández also suggests going for hybrid profiles with a “high level of knowledge in technology, but with a business point of view” in order to make the best use of technology to get the best results. It is important to try to reach the audience via all channels and discard the ones that are not useful for your business.

Nowadays, they are many e-commerce options that can be used; however, eventually, each brand needs to choose what is best for their brand, their product, their strategy, and their target market. Baram mentioned another case study which is that of a beer company based in Israel that has an online store; a company that took their beer packaging to another level. They have different cans depending on the occasion and their cans can also be personalised.

She said that they did really well during COVID-19 when people were at home and bought beer. This company is also now going into live sessions in their online store, where influencers will be interviewing beer experts. This is an example of another company that is combining online and offline. Baram continues by saying that technology is important, “but also the right content, the right presentation, and the right design branding” and that “numbers are nothing without the very nice packaging”.

Design is important and Hernández also agreed to the importance of packaging as from his own experience, once you change the packaging, even though the product is the same, the impact on customers improves. He believes that once there is rebranding, there should be a chain reaction and the presence on social media should increase and even though sales don’t increase immediately, once there is more presence the chances of selling increase.

Inamedinova concluded by saying that “no matter what kind of technology you’re using, no matter what kind of data-driven things you have, you need not forget about the design and about the content”. She added that “when you’re working with any kind of brand and you’re tailoring your communication to the end-user, you need not forget that the end-user is a human being and that human beings need to relate to the brand, to understand the brand, to feel that the brand could actually speak to them personally”. She continued saying that ultimately “it’s all about using the technology and packaging it together with the right content and the right presentation for the right target audience”.

Finally, our panel advises marketers to be customer-centric and to be open to trying a lot of new things. Technology helps brands not only to reach but to also surpass their targets.

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AGS returns to the United Arab Emirates:

Drawing the leading figures of affiliation to the Middle Eastern metropoles for cutting edge technology, the 2022 AGS UAE expo plans to unite thousands of content marketers, conversation optimisation and lead generation specialists, media buyers, affiliates, SEO gurus, and influencers. Through three days of educational panels, inspiring keynote speeches, workshops, and networking events, the expo seeks to create the foundation that the Industrial Revolution 4.0 can be built upon. Join us from the 20th to 23rd March 2022, in UAE.