One of these days I gave up on taking a plane to New York. In fact, early January, years ago, I'm giving up on taking a plane to New York. As certain as every beginning of December I plan to get him in January. NRF. Confederação Nacional do Varejo. The world’s largest retail trade show.
It's school vacation time and I always prioritize family, sun and heat. But even so I don't stop reading, to see and hear the trends that arrive fresh from the Big Apple. This year the podcast #boravarejo by Alfredo Soares with Mariano Gomide really caught my attention, co-CEO of VTEX. The guy gave a lesson about entrepreneurship, retail, management and e-commerce in 40 minutes. And about NY.
But I ended up focusing on a point. That aligns with the new moment of my company, especially post-pandemic. Mariano spoke about the importance of brands having some type of direct interaction with their audience, with your foundation. In recent years, we're tracking the increase in the cost of advertising on big tech companies, especially Google and Meta. A growing challenge for digital marketers is generating leads on these large communication platforms. It is difficult to convert to organic, even more in the paid.
In parallel, the algorithms of social media have evolved a lot during this same period and it is a fact that social networks deliver less and less content to the brand's followers. Also is, therefore, increasingly difficult to generate engagement. Mariano spoke of the imperative need for brands to speak directly with their consumer, without intermediaries. The others present in the studio chimed in. They also emphasized the importance of communication frequency.
There are basically three ways for a company to communicate directly with its audience. Telephone, direct message, e-mail. I won't waste time with the phone that, it is still widely used and moderately effective for telemarketing, certainly doesn't lend itself to such frequent and non-invasive communication. Yes, the company needs to communicate several times a week, mas sem invadir/incomodar seu lead/cliente/prospect.
We then proceed to direct messages. SMS, WhatsApp and direct messages on social media. If WhatsApp became established from the pandemic as a direct sales channel, it's indeed surprising the effectiveness of this channel for the moment of purchase that was heavily emphasized by Alfredo Soares after NRF in São Paulo, it certainly isn't suited for day-to-day communication between the brand and its consumer. It becomes invasive that way.
We've arrived at the ugly duckling of digital communication, uncle of the internet, the old man, chatty and slow email. Mistake. Email never died; and email marketing didn't just die with it but grew a lot in parallel with the growth of e-commerce and this post-pandemic world. He is the perfect bridge your company may not be seizing. Of all the above means it is the cheapest. But more than that is the most effective.
With the evolution of digital marketing automation, today it is possible to create relationship rules with a foundation that will communicate according to consumer behavior. And the big deal (with all due allowance for the pun) is that email is the central communication, but it's also automated with SMS and WhatsApp. Everything integrated.
If your website visitor abandons their shopping cart they receive an email, if he visits your store, receives a welcome email. On your birthday? An email. He bought? How about a WhatsApp with cashback? If he clicked on the website's blog, perhaps an email with more content? Soon, direct communication between brand and public is established. She doesn't depend on algorithms, beyond the brand's own work. She represents the brand's vehicle itself. Through it as well the company can exponentially increase its database, enriching it and thus generating even more accurate automations.
Email marketing remains the highest "ROI" (return on investment) in digital in the US and UK, and here in Brazil one of the highest performing media for e-commerce, according to specialists like Rafael Kiso.
And your company? Does it already use this bridge or is it at the mercy of the turbulent waters of powerful big techs?
