Online to Offline – Building a seamless experience with Marketo

A year back, I had taken an online course on copywriting from one of the digital platforms. It did not seem that exciting until, one day, I received a personalized letter from them thanking me for taking the course, along with a cute (branded) pocket diary and a classy fountain pen. 

This offline gesture made me more interested in completing the online course by giving my best shot. It not only helps to build a personal connection with the customer but also increases brand visibility with branded merchandise. 

That’s the power of building an online-to-offline experience. 

Here are some of the techniques by which you can create an offline experience and confine the discrepancy between online and offline experience. 

a. Combine Email with Direct Mail.

Rather than only sending out an email, you can consider sending a direct mail or some gift to your prospects or customers. It would lead to meaningful conversations and help to convince the client to convert. Instead of taking the traditional route and sending spray and pray emails, try going out of your way and sending out direct mail to the subscribers, especially to those who have not opened your email.  

b. Promote relevant offers based on the geographical location of the subscriber. 

What’s the use of sending a shopping voucher if a geographical location does not have that store? Therefore, it is important to segment your subscribers and send out relevant offers that would be useful for them (and possible to avail). For instance: If you are an online booking portal, you must send out emails that promote events located in that particular location. It would hardly make sense to send an invitation to a music concert in Australia to someone based in Canada.  

c. Always TRACK your traffic.

Omnichannel and cohesive customer experience is what you must strive for. With the help of API and other integrations, you can track offline store visits generated from an online advertisement. 

Pro-tip: Shortened URLs prove to be of great help when it comes to analyzing the performance of your campaigns and determining how your customers are perceiving your online and offline experiences. You can add the URL parameters in the ‘hidden’ URL so that you can monitor conversions from offline channels in a better way. (This works just like UTM parameters and codes added in emails. 

If you are wondering how to execute the same in your campaigns, look no further than Marketo.

Marketo gives you the facility to integrate with Sending Platforms and formulate online-to-offline campaigns, which will give you an opportunity to build long-lasting relationships with your clients. You can program direct mail in addition to your social media channels and emails. It can then be triggered according to the behavior of the subscriber and the stage of the buyer’s journey. 

Let’s understand some easy ways in which you can create online-to-offline experiences in Marketo.

1. Bring more attendees to your event and drive meaningful conversations thereafter.

Recently during Covid-19, I attended so many webinars and virtual Digital Marketing Conferences. I don’t remember much about any of these events, but one. What was so special about that “one” event, you ask? Well, a few days later after it ended, I received a Starbucks coffee voucher from the event organizer as a token of gratitude for attending the event. Honestly, I am not a big fan of coffee, but their gesture impressed me.

If you are organizing an event, it is likely to burn a hole in your pocket because of the huge investment it might need. Therefore, you must try to make the most of this platform and drive maximum conversions. Your invitations are a gateway to ROI generated through the event. A great idea would be to send a direct mail in addition to a virtual invite. Many brands send out a physical invitation as it can increase response rates by up to 55%. 

Another thing you must bear in mind is that even after your event ends, your “event ROI” does not. You must not forget about the people who took the time to attend your event and contributed to its success. Conventional nurturing process after an event would be sending out regular educational or follow up emails, hoping for a conversion. With Marketo, you can make things easier for your sales representative by assigning a score to every lead that attended the event. The higher the score, the hotter (BTW, I mean “more interested” here) the lead. 

In addition, you can tie an automated direct mail send to all the attendees. Just make sure that the direct mail consists of something that would reflect your brand personality and take your business forward. For instance: If you own a company helping people with foreign immigration, you can send out informative material with all the eligibility details and a list of documents they would need for the same. Moreover, you can send out a customized one-to-one direct mail, signed by a sales representative. You can label the direct mail sends in your CRM and then measure the ROI generated through it. Doing so will also help you decide whether you must hold events in the future or not.  

This tactic can even be applied in organizations for internal communications. Now that most of the companies have started working remotely, it would be a great idea to send a letter to your employees on their birthdays or special occasions like Christmas or New Year. It would make them stick to your company and rethink if they are planning to leave for greener pastures.

2. Engage “hot leads” that are most interested in hearing from you.

Marketo allows you to integrate your campaigns with Sendoso and deploy an automated email once a prospect downloads a content resource from your website. Along with the downloadable file, this email can include an eGift card from Amazon or any other ecommerce platform. You can even partner with them and generate commissions. While traditional nurture campaigns are simply a series of persuasive emails, Marketo lets you go a step ahead and create an offline experience too.

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Recently, a digital marketer, who turned 45, held a virtual birthday party and gave away free Domino’s pizza to 45 lucky attendees who were a part of the celebration webinar. Isn’t that a cool way to build brand visibility and create a memorable offline experience?

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It is advisable to practice such gifting tactics for prospects who are placed at the bottom of the sales funnel and closer to conversions. 

3. Take a consistent approach with account-based marketing

With the help of account-based marketing offered by Marketo, you can have consistent messaging throughout your social media, targeted ads, and email. Once you recognize prospects that are keen to buy from you with the help of Marketo’s lead scoring tool, you can set a trigger that sends direct mail to them. Send out something that can go well with a compelling message. After the prospect receives the order, the sales representatives will get a notification about it. Based on it, they can get in touch with the customer. 

In case you are an ecommerce marketer, Marketo allows you to capture the information regarding past purchases and then target those customers accordingly. 

Wrapping Up

Wouldn’t you be delighted if you are using the “Enterprise” version of a software tool and you receive a birthday gift or Christmas present right at your doorstep from them? A basket of goodies on your dining table or desk means so much more than all those downloaded files lying in your “My Documents” or “Downloads” folder. It takes the relationship to the next level and helps in client retention as much as word-of-mouth publicity. That’s exactly what you can do by building online-to-offline experiences for your customers.

In case you need help, just get in touch with Email Uplers and our Marketo certified professionals will show you how.