Cookie cutter marketing just doesn't cut it.

"The typical marketing campaign approach is to pick a customer segment, pick a product you think these customers might like, and then cross your fingers that a tiny percentage of these customers might respond. There's a better way."1 Today there are predictive analytics and customer insight tools that now allow marketing to create marketing messages, information and next steps that are ideally suited to each customer or prospect. We can now be predictive marketers. Why aren't we and how can we be? Maybe because it use to be all too hard. Not any more.

New technology and apps allows you to compare critical customer attributes and interests with your business goals and constraints to execute programs that deliver the perfect action, at the right time, for the right customer. Instead of indiscriminately forcing set options on prospectives that land on your website, Facebook page or blog, this approach is like serving up their favorite option, every time. This ensures you not only deliver an action that will engage your customer, but one that will ultimately maximize the impact on your bottom line. The power of big data has now been leveraged by technology and marketing providers to create a more customised online experience.

Understand the data: First, you need predictive analytics to reveal insights within the data. But insights that cannot be applied within actual customer interactions are not all that useful. You must connect your insights to the ultimate action you want to deliver. Activate your data to optimise customer interactions. For small business this might be a simple as setting up Google alerts. Other tools like nimble, mention and OFunnel can give you access to such information for free. It is really using that information with your database information that is the key.

Generate Next-Best-Actions: The second step is to feed insights into a customer decision hub that can then act on them. Capture the best customer strategy and dynamically arbitrate across your understanding of your customer and your business goals to deliver the Next-Best-Action in real-time. Padiact, is a predictive app for email that does it well.

Be a omnichannel: Because customers move between channels it is important to be where they are and that the messages are congruent.Supporting multi-channels can be a bit of a headache for small business and more and more are turning to marketing (digital consultants)to support them. While the execution is a tactical need the planning and strategy is a more urgent one to ensure that each touch point is relevant and having a maximum impact. It is all about having a continuous conversation with your customer. Hootsuite is a good tool for measuring social media interactions.

Keep learning: To be an effective small business you need to keep optimising your marketing and sales approach. With new technology it is now more cost-effective than ever to collect information about your customers and prospects so you can make better marketing decisions. Metrics set up in google analytics with goals is a good start.

Learn more about customer centric marketing