The Future of Marketing, The Future of Bronto

At the Email Insider Summit in December of last year, the hot topic was "Email, Mobile, Social," as noted in a blog post by Bronto's VP of Client Services, Carolyn Sparano. Long before that Summit, Bronto had been thinking about and discussing the changing world of marketing for commerce and what it meant to our clients and the Bronto platform.

Then at last month’s Bronto Summit, Bronto CEO, Joe Colopy, delivered "The New World of Commerce" in which he discussed how customers are engaging across a variety of touchpoints and that marketers need to adapt by integrating email, social, and mobile marketing. Joe, along with Bronto’s VP of Engineering, Preston Brown, previewed the Spring 2011 Release of the Bronto application, which will help marketers move toward more of this cross-channel approach.  Joe drove home the concept of "rings of engagement," where the more engaged someone is, the more likely they are to convert.  The idea is that by integrating different customer-centric touchpoints of email, mobile, social, and offline, marketers will build better relationships with their consumers and ultimately drive revenue.

As an email marketer why is this important to you? 

We often talk about email engagement. Especially with the changing face of email deliverability, your relationship with consumers (through engagement) is key.  But, within this framework, the future points to a multi-channel approach, rather than email-only. So, we want to look at how the big three online marketing channels can complement one another to the goal of greater engagement. Bronto’s upcoming Spring release was designed with this intention.

Engage where consumers are: Mobile marketing

At the Bronto Summit, Forrester Research's Sucharita Mulpuru presented that mCommerce (mobile commerce) and mobile-influenced offline sales are growing rapidly.  With multichannel influence, and tablets and mobile phones at the ready, consumers are embracing alternative ways to buy. With 45% of iPad and iPhone traffic attributed to shopping, it's no surprise that mobile is a growing force in commerce.  Further up the buying lifecycle, opt-in SMS communication lets you reach consumers how and when they want to be contacted. Think SMS-based subscriber signup, transactional SMS messages, or timely SMS coupons or special offers.

Keep the conversation going: Social media marketing

Even when not directly selling, social media marketing helps humanize the face of a brand, noted Mulpuru.  At Bronto, we encourage companies to evaluate how social enhances a brand. Social allows for broader conversations to happen than typically do via email only. In its new platform, Bronto includes a way to streamline both the messaging and the responses, giving marketers a social media conversation tool that’s tied-in with the email application.

When consumers engage with a brand through multiple touchpoints (email, social, mobile), the stickiness of the relationship increases along with the likelihood that they will become customers and, ultimately, loyal customers. This won’t happen magically though, simply by virtue of multi-channel messaging. Effective cross-channel communication requires planning and coordination for timely messages that are relevant, valuable, and most importantly, welcome by the recipient.  This is another advantage of bringing the three channels into one place, as Bronto does through marketing automation in its Spring Release.

In addition to broadening our scope to include social and mobile, in addition to email, Bronto is also introducing the following functionality to help with this more engaged communications model:

• Automation canvas - for visually building multi-touch campaigns
• Pre-built examples - for ideas and to make it easy to get started
• Integrated reporting - to understand what works and apply this to campaigns

The new functionality in Bronto is exciting.  The capabilities will allow our clients to orchestrate multi-channel campaigns incorporating dynamic data within a unified, easy-to use-platform.  We also know that this increased workflow will require more strategy, planning, and best practices.  That's why we're expanding the scope of the Bronto Blog to incorporate social and mobile best practices to keep you ahead of the game.

As a marketer, what are your thoughts on the changing face of engagement marketing in a multi-touchpoint world?  Stayed tuned to the Bronto Blog, next week we'll discuss some of the many new tactics that can be implemented with this functionality.

Caroline Riddle
Community Marketing Manager