Remember those choose-your-own-adventure books? You’d be reading the story, and suddenly you had options — multiple paths were laid out for you, and all you had to do was choose what page you’d like to continue on. Your choice may lead you to hidden treasure, or to solve an ancient puzzle, or you could end up in a pool full of crocodiles.
Essentially, the goal of those books was simple: give the reader choice. Let them be involved in the process of storytelling. And enhance the experience.
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In our daily lives, we resemble characters in a choose-your-own-adventure book. As Arthur O’Shaughnessy, the renowned poet, famously said, “we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams.” Every day, we confront challenges and hurdles, and we are given options, leaving us responsible for deciding which path to take.
The fundamental principle of behavior-based marketing automation is rooted in this “choose-your-own-adventure” concept. The marketing automation element simplifies the process.
Behavior-Based Marketing Automation
What is behavioral marketing?
Each of us has a distinct way of engaging with the world. These engagements are expressed through behaviors – in simple terms, they are the manners in which we interact with someone or something.
We can accept or refuse something, search for it, join with it, avoid it, try to possess it, manipulate it, or utilize it as a tool. These actions occur in every aspect of our lives, whether physical or virtual.
Our behavior towards the internet mirrors our actions in the physical world. Online, we are presented with various options, and the choices we make lead us down a particular path. Through behavior-based marketing, you and your business can respond to user choices.
When a user interacts with an application, a website, an email, or a social media account, data is generated. Data collected from individual users forms a trail or a profile, providing insight into what the user desires and what they would be willing to invest in.
Mapping out experience
Practicing behavior based marketing allows you to use data to map out a personalized experience for users.
Small shop example: cake or confetti
Imagine running a party store that offers a variety of party supplies, costumes, and even has its own bakery for cakes. During a recent email marketing campaign, you noticed that a customer clicked on a linked image promoting a sale on confetti poppers. It could be beneficial to include this customer in your email list for future promotions on party supplies. However, since the customer did not click on the linked button to order a cake, it may be best to exclude them from email notifications about special deals on party cakes.
If the advertisement fits, it was designed that way
A good way to understand the experience of behavior-based marketing is to think about your own daily interactions with the web. When you search for a product, scroll through social media, or check your email, you have your own unique experience. What you see advertised to you and what I see advertised to me are completely different.
This is because we have different interests, demographics, and our behaviors with the internet are not exactly the same. The variations produce and attract different types of marketing to surface in our own, individual digital spheres.
How do behavior-based marketing and marketing automation work together?
Behavior marketing and marketing automation are each powerful practices in their own right, but combining them proves an unstoppable force. Behavioral marketing automation occurs when you create automated triggers that fire after particular behaviors are completed (or not completed) by users. These behaviors can occur through a whole host of digital mediums: users registering for an app, clicking on a hyperlink in an email, exploring a website, or viewing a product.
Types of behavioral marketing automation
Everything from viewing a video to taking a Wikipedia deep-dive to pressing ‘add to cart’ leaves a digital trail of what you liked, what you hunted for, what you dismissed, and what you wanted to show off.
With so many interactions and so much data at your fingertips, there are multiple ways you can harness the power of customers’ behaviors. By using behavior-based marketing automation practices, you’ll be able to build a better, more engaging marketing strategy, and ultimately find new and inventive ways to craft and automate value for your customers and your business.
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Behavior-Based Marketing Automation
Recommendations
Here’s where you get the ever-present “Customers also bought” category sneaking its way to the space right above the “Add to cart” button.
An algorithm collects data from other customers who have purchased your intended product. It searches their order histories to see what other items they bought at the time and has knowledge of products that might be useful when paired with the item you have currently selected.
Click segmentation
Click segmentation allows you to track customer clicks and determine what path to send a user down based on their behavior. Take email marketing automations as an example. Email builders can track the links of any hyperlinks, buttons, or linked images within their email and automate clicks of those links to populate segmented lists. Say you track the button ‘RSVP’ in your email and create a segmented list to add attendees to your event. When subscribers click the link they’ll be automatically added to your list of event attendees. This way, you can better communicate with the people who plan on attending your event.
Advertising Retargeting
Ever notice how you’ll look at a product and advertisements for the product follow you around the internet? It’s not a coincidence. When you show interest in a product or service, that data is collected. Retargeting efforts allow marketers to use the data collected from your past searches and digital behaviors and use the information to show you what you’ve seen before — hoping that you’ll decide to purchase.
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Abandoned cart
They did it, the customer made their way all the way through the buyer’s journey to reach the shopping cart…but then something stopped them from making the purchase. Maybe they are still debating whether they should purchase the product, maybe they lost their internet connection, or maybe they were running late for an appointment they couldn’t miss. Whatever the case, you know what they left behind, and you have the power to remind them to return to their cart and complete their purchase.
Benefits of behavior-based marketing automation
Behavioral marketing automation serves to provide your business with numerous benefits.
- A tailored experience: behavioral marketing automation allows you to provide a marketing experience that feels personal to your customers. Tracked data allows you to only target customers with content that feels relevant to them.
- Decreased marketing costs: it costs money to advertise your products and services, and the more people you try to reach, the higher the price tag. Behavioral marketing automation makes sure you are only targeting the people who are going to be most receptive to your content. This way, you are only putting your money down where profit is a possibility.
- Take your time back: using automated efforts means that you’re able to spend your time progressing your business instead of just maintaining it.
Harness the power of behavior marketing
Understanding your customers is key to building a marketing strategy that works for you and your business. Behavioral marketing lets you tap into the psychology behind what customers want and why they do what they do.
Through automated behavioral marketing tactics like click segmentation, AI recommendations, abandoned cart triggers, and ad retargeting, you make sure your customers are exposed to marketing that aligns with their interests.
I am the Nerd of Fortune. I have been hustling from home (part-time) for about 10 years & working exclusively from home for almost 4 years – and loving it! I am a firm believer in making ‘working from home’ a success for everyone…
