What Is People-Based Marketing?

Marketing is all about reaching people and all marketers want to find out how to reach the greatest amount of people with the smallest amount of effort. This often means sending the same generic message to hundreds, if not thousands, or people. However, everyone is unique and therefore has unique needs. What is relevant to one person might not be relevant to the next. It’s hard to be that brand that appeals to everyone since each person is so different. This is where people-based marketing comes in.

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What It Is

People-based marketing represents the original promise of digital and internet marketing; it allows you to replace your broadcast with personalized messages and experiences that the consumer wants to see.

It allows brands to establish a marketing system centred around the individual consumer and utilize plenty of data to track that person’s behaviour and spending habits. People-based marketing strategies revolve around the consumer and all marketing efforts are aligned to fit their needs.

One company that utilizes people-based marketing very well is Spotify. Users stream music for several hours a day, often depending on their mood. Listening habits change when the user is relaxing, driving, or exercising and Spotify tracks all this data.

Spotify’s algorithms help create customized and personalized experiences for its users. It will recommend new releases that the listener might enjoy, create personalized playlists based on listening habits, and even remind users of music that they haven’t listened to in a while. These features make users feel like Spotify is tuned into their specific wants and needs.

The best way to utilize a people-based marketing strategy is by paying attention to the three main elements:

Identification

This is the first and most important part of people-based marketing. Without any identification, everyone you’re trying to target might as well be a nameless and faceless person.

Cookies used to be the main method of tracking internet users, but this method is slowly becoming outdated. More people are using multiple devices, especially smartphones, to connect to the internet and much of this information cannot be tracked using cookies.

One of the main ways to identify people is with deterministic targeting which targets users based on accounts and email addresses. For example, Amazon can track what someone doing whether they’re using a desktop browser, mobile app, Kindle, or Alexa since it requires them to use the same account for all platforms.

Another strategy is called probabilistic targeting which uses data analysis to link devices based on things like location and IP addresses. For example, if a computer and a smartphone are both connected to the same home Wi-Fi address, it’s a possibility that both devices are owned by the same person.

Data

You want to find out the most you can about your consumer by collecting data. You can use identifiers such as email addresses to dig up all sorts of information about their habits. This includes, but isn’t limited to, what devices they use, what they like and share on social media, who they follow on social media, what they’ve purchased, what product reviews they’re read or written, which products they’ve looked at, and how often they spend.

Automation

Lastly, automation is what will make your life easier. You probably have received several automated marketing emails in your life, many of which were tailored to your personal needs. Common automated emails you might’ve received are:

• Telling you events or products you might be interested in based on your history
• Telling you that your shopping cart isn’t empty
• Telling you when an item is restocked
• Asking you if the product arrived on time
• Asking you if the product was in satisfactory condition
• Asking you how much you liked the product
• Asking you to leave a review

Conclusion

People-based marketing is the future of marketing. You should strive to aim for individuals rather than masses for a more effective marketing strategy.

One easy way to do this is to use an identity resolution service like LiveRamp IdentityLink which helps identify consumers and track their habits. You should also utilize digital marketing platforms to keep a database of consumers and track their unique habits.

It’s not a stretch to say that people-based marketing can completely transform how your company reaches out to consumers and makes sales. If you’d like more access to invaluable marketing strategies, check out this done-for-you-system.

By Martin Goldthorpe 2018