In a previous post I outlined a few of the top trends gaining importance for online marketers in the MSO space. There are a few more I didn't have space to address in my original post, so, here they are. (You can read the post in it’s entire length in our "pages" section here). Mobile
I always say there are two truths about Mobile marketing: 1) it’s been around for a while, and 2) nobody is really sure what to do with it. Beyond that, it’s a crapshoot.
Marketers are intrigued, and others are compelled, if only by marketing peer pressure, to squeeze a square peg in a round hole. Trying to figure out how to make mobile work for their company, to engage their customers with mobile, is an ongoing challenge. Having worked with MSOs – and mobile – for years, it’s true that there is little low-hanging fruit for mobile adoption. But, once the MSO starts thinking in terms of delivering true value to their customers through the immediacy of the mobile channel, the floodgates of opportunity open up.
MSOs have a huge opportunity to promote their Movies On Demand, Pay Per View and even new programming through mobile text messaging, allowing the customer to request an alert sent to their phone within hours or minutes of the programming event. This can influence eyeballs…and incremental revenue. Perhaps more compelling is using the mobile text message to confirm the details of an installation appointment (again, just hours before the appointment. If they aren’t home at that point… they better get moving!) or to provide breaking news on service outages. When the timeliness of the message is the most vital component, there is no better channel than mobile. The MSO needs to work harder to define the message and the valuable content that customers need and want in this very timely manner. Any content that does not meet these criteria will not only be patently ignored, it will also compromise the value of the channel for the marketer.
User-Generated Content and Emerging Social Networking Channels
MSO “users” (i.e., the customers) have been generating vast amounts of online content for years – unfortunately this is primarily in the form of vitriolic forum posts, blogs and viral emails and videos (the napping cable technician made famous on YouTube, for instance). Recently many MSOs have learned the valuable lesson: This content is being generated anyway, you may as well stop ignoring it. Leaders like Comcast are using Twitter to interact positively with their customers in a very personal, 1-to-1 manner…with positive results. Other MSOs are actively soliciting feedback from customers through dedicated blog spaces, social communities, and through existing customer-interface points like email newsletters. It’s apparent that if an MSO enters this arena with thoughtful and genuine interest in interacting with customers and addressing their issues, the results are overwhelmingly positive.
Database Enhancement
This should fall in the category of “no-brainer”; but, for many years, the concept of an online marketing database has been an afterthought. The smart marketers see tremendous value in taking relatively easy steps to build an online marketing database that is wider, deeper and richer, allowing them to communicate with customers and prospects at the highest levels of relevancy.
- Email appends are incredibly valuable to fill in the gaps in the email database – acquiring valid addresses for non-HSD households, and primary email addresses for the HSD customers.
- Opt-in campaigns help fill in the email database gaps even further, especially within the universe of serviceable non-customers. If an MSO’s website is only converting a small percent of visitors who are serviceable non-customers, don’t you want those visitors to opt-in to receive special offers and news?
- Offline initiatives – train CSRs to capture that email address. We’ve seen a couple MSOs make this a top-tier priority, investing seriously in training and incentives for call center representatives. What helps more than training? Providing the CSR with legitimate reasons to ask for the email address – such as the promise of a receipt/confirmation email of the customer’s order or service appointment.
- Customer knowledge is critical, and a marketer can never have too much. MSOs who append additional data to their known customer records such as demographic or psychographic models, create buckets based on personas and other data points, or layer predictive models on top of their segmentation tactics to gain a decided advantage in driving more conversions with fewer overall impressions.
Do you believe there are more trends than what I’ve listed? What are they?
