As a small business owner, whether you’re Dubai based or abroad, I’m sure you’ve experimented with various ways to grow your business online. And in doing that I’m sure a lot of those experiments have failed. That’s completely normal as marketing campaigns more often fail than succeed. After nearly a decade in this industry we’ve seen a lot of campaigns spring up around us and naturally with that exposure we’ve been able to identify what works and what doesn’t, highlighting the more common reasons why some go on to have incredible success while others fall flat on their face.

This article will explain the most common reason why campaigns fail, which will hopefully give you great insight on how to approach your next campaign.

Peripheral Assistance

If you have been following us for some time I’m sure you will have heard us use this term once or twice. “Peripheral Assistance” - But what does it mean? Well, peripheral assistance is the term we’ve coined to describe all of the digital ecosystem that surrounds a main campaign driver.
You might be thinking “Whoa whoa whoa, slow down…

First Peripheral assistance, then digital ecosystem and now campaign drivers???” Okay okay, let’s cut the jargon. Let me explain…

Digital ecosystem 

Campaign driver

A Good Ecosystem will: Leverage Data

An effective ecosystem leverages data and the best way to illustrate this is through a picture of a customer journey. What this shows you is that when someone clicks on an ad they are then sent to a landing page, which can track their data and uses that data in a multitude of ways. The first is to see what intent they have. For example, if we see that they browse for a few minutes rather than a few seconds we can tell that their level of interest is far higher. We can then leverage this information to various other parts of the journey, giving them more and more touch points during their overall experience with the brand. Here are a few ways that we can capture and leverage campaign data.

• Capture their email using a light box and market to them via automated email flows
• Retarget them with further ads through Google or social media.
• Market specific products to them based on what they have shown interest to 
• Market specific offers to them based on where they dropped out of the customer journey or what they found to be a sticking point
• Use website usage data to optimize and improve the website and landing page
• Engage the customer in a conversation via chat bots / communication terminals on the site
• Use keyword data (both paid and organic) to optimize Google advertising and website SEO
• Create content surrounding what customers show to be their biggest pain point / interest
• Followup with customers via emails or SMS campaigns for reviews and rebuys 

A Good Ecosystem will: Maximize Revenue

There are many more features that you can add into your campaign to ensure that no potential revenue is left on the table. By integrating systematic features to customer journeys and continuing this development based on customer data, you begin to build a digital ecosystem that becomes increasingly better at converting new customers and nurturing existing ones. 

“So why have you coined the term Peripheral Assistance?” - you’re probably wondering… Well, having a digital ecosystem doesn’t guarantee that it will be effective. Just because you have a website and a social media presence doesn’t mean that your marketing will be successful. Unfortunately that’s just the nature of the beast when it comes to marketing. The reason that we refer to an effective digital ecosystem as Peripheral Assistance is because each aspect leans on each other with unison, therefore providing assistance at every point. Typically you’d have a main campaign driver as the beginning or central point of your campaign. This is typically in the form of Ads with the campaigns that we build. Surrounded by this is an intricate web of a digital ecosystem that effectively captures interested viewers and keeps them engaged.

A Good Ecosystem will: Provide Touch Points

Did you notice the word “unison” in the last paragraph? Well unison is an integral part of ensuring that Peripheral Assistance is effective within your digital marketing campaign. This means that each and every aspect of your ecosystem works together for the same goal. Regardless of what you’re selling or however many products you have, all of your customers touch points should be clear on these following points:

• Who you are
• How you position yourself
• What you’re selling
• What your key benefits are
• How you’re different from competitors
• And what the customers should do next

If at any stage any of these points are conflicting with each other, it will lead to customers becoming confused and dropping out of your ecosystem. Not just that but when being introduced to a new brand it takes multiple touch points for customers to be able to recall who you are and what you offer, let alone make a purchase. On average customers require between 11-13 touch points with a brand before making a purchasing decision. Having an ecosystem is the best way to achieve this because each point is doing the work for you. That’s why it’s so important to ensure that these touch points are telling a consistent message. 

While there’s no single answer to what makes up the right ecosystem for you, hopefully you can take this article into consideration when building your own and ensure that it’s effective in achieving all these points. If you’d like any help with this please feel free to reach out to us via our website.