This issue’s marketing challenge deals with the problems marketers face as today’s rapid technological evolution creates a paradigm shift in the way humans prefer to connect. Many of us prefer to send short-form text messages to communicate with family, friends or businesses, rather than calling. Amberlea Henriques is founder and CEO of AdSocial, a Perth-based digital marketing agency that embraces trailblazing futuristic marketing technologies across the Meta suite (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp). I talked to Amberlea to gain her insights into how the future of direct consumer marketing is shaping up.
Amberlea described AdSocial as a business that is disrupting the status quo on social media, evolving from a traditional digital marketing agency, founded in 2015, into a specialist team of future-first marketers known for their award-winning experiences across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.
Using modern technologies such as robots, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR), the team has developed a deep understanding of how to prompt brand and consumer connections through innovative, and often interactive, experiences in the Metaverse.
Phone conversations are a thing of the past
One of the biggest changes Amberlea has seen in recent years is consumers’ increasing reluctance to answer a phone call.
“With their busy schedules and scepticism about cold calling, their reaction is invariably, ‘OMG is this going to consume longer than the 30 seconds I have available?’, ‘Please don’t be a telemarketer’, or ‘Ah, what do you want? Unless it’s urgent, I dont want to know’,” she explains.
“Messaging apps are now over 20 per cent bigger than the social networks themselves.”
Citing research that reveals that 74 per cent of us prefer to chat via text messaging – either via SMS or messaging apps – rather than talking on the phone, she says the truth is most of us simply don’t want to talk anymore.
“With the ease and accessibility of mobile phones, many of us are opting to send short-form text messages as our go-to format of communication when speaking with family, friends or businesses,” Amberlea says, citing an obvious and steady rise in the use of social media messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram Direct Message – each owned by Meta. “According to statistics from Kommando Tech, messaging apps are now over 20 per cent bigger than the social networks themselves and there are close to three billion people using messaging apps on mobiles,” Amberlea says.
This is backed up by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who recently shared the fact that Meta’s click-to-message ad placement has been a huge success among business owners, with 40 per cent of brands using the direct messaging feature to interact with customers. The channel uses Al to enable sophisticated auto-response messaging to deliver more targeted and successful campaigns.
Furthermore, a 2022 Hootsuite survey found that 82 per cent of Australians aged 16-64 were using social media, and whilst Facebook took the crown, it was the Messenger app that came in second, outranking Instagram, Snapchat and rising TikTok.
Why? Amberlea believes there are three key reasons:
- It’s flexible: The receiver has control over when to respond.
- It’s private: Conversations shared are between only those with access to the phone. There is no chance of Karen in accounts sharing what she overheard you speaking about on a phone call earlier that day.
- It provides a written record: This can be useful for reference or follow-up. It can be especially useful in business settings, where written records are often required for compliance or documentation.
Automating message conversations
Technology is helping marketers move beyond the rigid, scripted language that was associated with chatbots when they first came onto the scene. Chatbots are now elevated with natural language understanding, allowing individuals to write free-form messages because the automation is smart enough to respond without code. This means more and more savvy marketers are exploring the introduction of chatbots to automate message conversations.
“Unlike basic autoresponders, which are limited to a few simple replies, a chatbot is fully customisable, programmed to create personalised responses and recommendations based on the user’s previous interactions and data,” Amberlea explains. “This improves the user experience and makes it feel like a chatbot is tailored to their individual needs.”
A picture paints a thousand words
This old adage is as relevant today in the digital sphere as it was in more traditional marketing techniques, and Amberlea believes emojis are a vital ingredient in a successful marketing strategy.
“A survey by the marketing technology company Emogi found that 92 per cent of online consumers use emojis to communicate with brands, and that emojis can increase open rates by as much as 45 per cent,” she says. “The survey also found that emojis can increase click-through rates by as much as 89 per cent.”
Amberlea believes these statistics highlight the fact that emojis are vital tools for increasing engagement with consumers and positive sentiment among your customers.
Looking to the future – Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality
“In the next few years, I believe AI and AR will continue to play an increasingly important role in marketing communications,” Amberlea avers. “AI can help provide more personalised and tailored experiences for customers, as well as automate repetitive tasks and improve the efficiency of marketing campaigns. This will allow companies to focus on more creative and strategic elements of marketing, such as crafting compelling messaging and developing innovative campaigns.”
On the other hand, she predicts that AR will enable companies to create more engaging and immersive experiences for their customers. “With AR, companies can create virtual showrooms, try-on experiences and other interactive experiences that allow customers to interact with products in a more realistic way,” she says. “This will help to increase customer engagement and build a more emotional connection with their brand, thereby also allowing companies to create more effective campaigns that resonate with their target audiences and drive conversions.”
This article first appeared in issue 40 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine
