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In Digital Marketing, Context is King

Iván Palomera - Smartup
Co-Founder

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Sofía Hanna By Sofía Hanna | Journalist and Industry Analyst - Mon, 05/17/2021 - 14:33

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Q: Why should companies invest in inbound and data-driven marketing strategies and how is Smartup using these tools?

A: Traditional marketing focuses on attracting and retaining customers. If we add customer behavior data, marketing acquires another dimension and becomes a growth strategy. Marketing and data are no longer isolated tools; they are now key to the growth of the organization. At Smartup, we have a clear understanding of this. We are a digital agency and a transformation consultancy because we recognized that from the data extracted from companies and consumers we can help clients with their marketing, sales, customer service, retention strategies and operations. Our vision is holistic; it focuses on growth and data as growth enablers. 

 

Q: Why is a third party the best option to handle marketing strategies and lead conversion?

A: It is not necessarily the best option, there are pros and cons. The best option is a mix. We have been working in operations and consulting for a long time, providing know-how, knowledge and tools so our clients can develop these capabilities themselves. Today, it is important that clients have internal or subcontracted structures that provide the technological resources to grow. Our obligation is to align ourselves with the client's needs. 

 

Q: As e-commerce spurs more companies to go digital, what common errors do companies make when trying to attract clients and how do you help them? 

A: The most common mistake for a company is to jump into e-commerce hastily, thinking it is an easy channel to handle. Pre-pandemic there were only a few leaders in the e-commerce world, such as Amazon and Mercado Libre. Now that the e-commerce market has grown, more people have joined. Many more companies are trying to sell online, either through a direct-to-consumer strategy or through delivery apps such as Rappi, Ahí voy and Corner Shop. These strategies must adhere to the user's buying patterns, which are capricious because people do as should be. 

 

Today, opening an e-commerce channel is not being innovative. There are already well-established companies in the segment and businesses need to dedicate the same investment and time that they would dedicate to opening a physical point of sale, sometimes more. It is true that the returns of e-commerce in the medium term are much more attractive and can be scaled without the need to increase costs proportionally. The advantages of e-commerce are many, but the challenges are also many.

 

Q: How can businesses take full advantage of the opportunities created by the Hot Sale and other digital promotion strategies? 

A: It is important to join these trends because they are an optimal way to grow the database of new users. These trends are key to attracting new users, but it is also necessary to have loyal customers who buy on a recurring basis. It is necessary to mix aggressive, temporary acquisition for this type of markdown with other processes to achieve long-term value.

 

Q: Other than retailers, which companies can benefit the most from inbound and data-driven marketing?

A: All companies, regardless of their size, use digital channels. Today, a family business, an SME and the corner cafe generate content and most of them do it well.

It used to be said that “content is king,” but that was before the internet generated the same amount of information every week as the entirety of humanity between the time of the Old Kingdom in Egypt until the 1980s. Now, context is king. We need to create targeted content for best buyers and communicate with them through every step of the process. Today, if context is king, content is the queen and SEO is the prince. This applies to all companies.

 

Q: How can physical and digital sales complement each other? Is it preferable for new businesses to be fully digital?

A: In a digital sale, one can track what medium spurred the user to visit the webpage and what products were in the shopping cart but not bought. In addition, one can know which social network convinced the client to come back and purchase. Digital sales have the advantage of allowing us to map a customer’s life cycle and optimize recruitment strategies based on data. Physical stores have difficulties collecting and analyzing which elements favor a higher conversion. In e-commerce, it is possible to change the interface, the product file or the description and check if it generated greater sales. Finally, when someone buys a product in a shopping center, they leave data regarding the credit card, amounts and products. But that purchase cannot be linked to an email. Digital channels, using automation tools such as Hubspot, offer great advantages through automation and hyper-personalization.

 

Q: How ready are sales teams to make the best of the immediacy that digitalization offers?

A: It is not easy to open a digital channel anywhere. Everyone now wants to go digital and to do it at the same time. However, the rate of digital buyers has barely grown enough for all these companies. Mexican companies are quickly catching up. Family companies and medium-sized businesses have entered online sales without the proper investment or digital presence. The main mistake is to underestimate this challenge. 

 

Q: What tools does Smartup provide to help businesses just entering the online market?

A: We are an end-to-end growth solution. We help companies to define the problem and develop the means, objectives, processes and technologies to implement a solution. This means creating the e-commerce platform or online store, optimizing its presence among e-retailers and working with delivery apps. We use technologies such as Hubspot, Salesforce and others to help companies track everything the user clicks, and we implement these tools because we understand that they are what allow you to exploit the advantages of digital sales. 

 

Q: In a digital market, how can companies promote client loyalty and retention and what is the role Smartup plays in this process?

A: In a digital market, retention is key. All companies are hunting for clients but hunting today is much more expensive than farming. Growing our clients' relationships, cultivating, retaining and nurturing them is now the new challenge. Tracking of users allows us to understand the triggers that convince customers to buy again and to generate a circle of loyalty. 

 

 

 

Smartup is an international digital agency founded in 2004 that operates in Spain, Mexico, Colombia and Peru. The company specializes in SEO, SEM, social media, data-driven marketing and e-commerce, among other areas.

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