Membership Tips

09 March 2017 Abdi

Are Targeted Ads the future of marketing (& how can CRM help?)

Targeted advertising, also known as customised advertising, refers to a form of advertising where users are targeted by a specific set of traits and has seen a steady uptake by marketers over the last decade. It is a powerful alternative solution to the mass marketing as it gives much more control over who sees your advertising. With the increase in internet usage the world over and wider availability of hand-held, internet connected devices we expect targeted marketing to become a key component of any serious marketing plan.

With the increase in internet usage... and... hand-held, internet connected devices we expect targeted marketing to become a key component of any serious marketing plan.

Senior Internet

When conducting targeted marketing, to optimise rate of return it is crucial that an equilibrium is reached between a strong, engaging creative and placement of this creative to reach the right target audience. Some of the most used targeting strategies are summarised below:

  • Demographic: Users are segmented into different groups based on a number of different variables (e.g. gender, age, income, household size, place of residence etc.).
  • Behavioural: Segmenting users by set of actions they’ve taken (e.g. browsing history, past purchasing history)
  • Retargeting: Targeting past visitors of the website.

Membership organisations can take advantage of this new platform to drive new member acquisition and retain their current members by intelligently utilising member and website visitor data.  It is important to draft a profile of the ideal member (or key decision maker for membership organisations) to inform targeted advertising. This profile can be complied from data held in a Customer Relationship Management system like RiverCRM and Google Analytics. Once the data on your audience has been compiled you can execute targeted advertising through inventory targeting (where advertising is served on a website frequently visited by users from a specific demographic), user targeting (where adverts are served to individuals exhibiting specific behaviours or interests) and email marketing. It is best to work with a digital agency for have experience in handling targeted advertising, and you can get in touch with one (it’s us by the way!) to find out how it could help you.

Below is a summary of a few actions you can take to optimise your CRM for targeted marketing in the future:

  • Ensure your website hosts a custom application form and make sure to capture as much information about your members as possible. Creative design of application form templates can help to reduce the length of the process and provide you with vital marketing data.
  • Empower current members to keep their records up to date by adding profiles to your members area. Enabling self-service functions on your site will save administration overheads and time.
  • Integrate your website and any forms capturing members’ data with your CRM, this will result in a smooth data transfer process from the website to the appropriate record on the CRM, keeping your data up to date.targeted-ads-02

Once your website is optimised to capture members’ data, you can start to use your CRM’s marketing function to send targeted marketing emails. If your CRM doesn’t permit the sending of emails or doesn’t integrate with emailing packages, why not get in touch about RiverCRM? Based on the Microsoft Dynamics platform this flexible, modern CRM can be integrated with marketing applications such as MailChimp, Campaign Monitor and other systems to allow you to run marketing campaigns directly from your CRM.

When sending marketing campaigns make sure to segment your members into different groups and consider setting up different marketing lists. For example, individual members and organisations will have different needs and therefore the messages sent to each group need to be tailored (the creative, copy and tone of voice might would be key elements to revise). RiverCRM (and most other CRMs) will allow you to send basic HTML emails, however, there is no reason why you can’t produce custom email templates for major campaigns. When sending the emails ensure there is a strong call to action, directing users to a desired action/location.

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