How an online publication will give more insights in the behaviour of your target audience.
In our previous blog”How to match your online publications with the customer experience of the consumer” we mentioned all the great oppurtunities for companies to make their online publications more interactive and attractive. The online publication is one of the most important webpages on the retailer’s website but there is still no insight in the behaviour within the publication. There is great wisdom to be found in the way people read your online publications. Wisdom to make your publications more relevant.
Capture the reading behaviour wihtin an online publication
Nowadays we all want to be able to measure our online activities; from the behaviour on our website to the ROI of an advertising campaign. It all makes sense, because the numbers tell the tale. Companies would like to gather more insights on the behaviour of their target audience to become more relevant. But what happens when a customer takes the time to go to your website and opens your online publication? Exactly, almost nothing! Wouldn’t you like to know what happens on one of the most important pages on your website? Time for a change!
It all starts with capturing the reading behaviour within your online publication. Think of capturing things like; clicks, sales within the publication, an abandoned shopping cart, reading flow of a user, clientgroups, engagement, geografic numbers and of course the social media behaviour (shares). A great way to get a clear view of your customer’s behaviour. But even more important the behaviour of that customer within your online publication.
Identify the buying patterns of your customers.
Every organisation posesses multiple internal data sources. Sources with a lot of useful data. Think of sources like customer and sales data (Salesforce, Magento and other CRM systems), website behaviour (WordPress, Google Analytics and more), reading behaviour, emailmarketing (Copernica, MailChimp and more), but also specific contact moments of previous campaigns. By combining these datasets it’s possible to get a (historic) view on your customers and their behaviour. A crucial ingredient in optimizing your online publications.
By taking a closer look at the historic data and reading behaviour it’s possible to get even more concrete insights like; product preferences, pricing sensitivity, interests, segmentation and best moment of contact. And valuable information on the products displayed in the online publication and the likeliness of buying these products.
Once you’ve enriched the profiles of your customers it’s important to match your content to these profiles: creating personalized content. For example: online publications with dynamic content based on customer segments, discounts based on their clicking behaviour, the most ideal layout for your online publication or unique covers per segment. But there is more!
Profile data isn’t only useful in creating better and relevant online publications, but can also be used in other marketing activities like emails, banners and making your website more relevant. It’s of great importance to make the online publication part of your marketing mix and strategy. This is the only way of making your company even more relevant to your customers. And relevance will generate more sales.
The next steps: Predictive publishing by combining more datasources
Collecting data from the online publication is an important step in becoming more relevant to your customers. It will become even more important to combine external data with your internal data to further enrich the profiles of your customers. Combining these datasets will give companies the opportunity to have a look at the future with predictive publishing. Curious how predictive publishing works? Stay tuned!
Bastiaan Neurink is Digital Content Marketeer bij Publ.sh.
