Taking a leaf out of the book of that pompous, people pleaser you knew in high school, contextual marketing will delight absolutely everyone that comes into contact with your website - but unlike that wide-eyed, scarily nice chick at school, you'll have the coolest and most popular website around!

To keep it real, context marketing is about using context in your marketing. Revolutionary definition I know - but seriously! It's all about delivering the right content, to the right people, at the right time. 

But hold the bus! - what is context? Essentially, when you have context around something, you have a bigger, more telling picture that provides all the little details to give more clarity to things that would otherwise be unspecific. Let me extend a painfully embarrassing tale from my childhood as an example. 

 

Upon returning to the U.K for the summer, I found myself at a loss for some shoes to wear for a day at the [frankly dreadful] beach with my grandparents. Rummaging through the suitcases, I shouted in annoyance at forgetting my 'thongs', much to the horror of my dear grandmother. In the five minutes it took to explain to her that in they aren't called flip-flops in Australia, not only did she regain the colour in her face, I thought, "Blimey, context is so important!" 

 

Avoiding awkward conversations with your family isn't all context is good for, oh no! Here are two of the main reasons context is vital for your digital marketing strategy: 

 

a) Your customers will love it 

When you have context around your relationship with your contacts, you are able to provide personalised and relevant content that's targeted at what your people want! They may not have a chauffeur or a personal assistant, but boy! Personalised marketing will make them feel like a star - with 73% of consumers preferring a personalised online experience. 

b) Your customers will more likely convert 

When you're creating marketing that's targeted at people's point of need (their stage in the buyer's journey), your marketing will perform much better for you, because you aren't giving them content that's misaligned with their interests. Think about it - what if it was June and we knew that one of our leads was getting a new budget in July, they'd downloaded a couple of pricing guides in the last few weeks and checked out our product pages. 

I know what you're thinking - "we'd need to send them targeted content that addresses their needs, Liv!" Correct.

We could send them an offer for something like a product demo - something they're likely to convert on. 

So while this all sounds well and good, what would contextual marketing actually look like for you as a marketer? Here are some examples of how you can use context in your marketing strategy! 

1. Smart Calls-to-Action 

So you've got a load of offers that you want to use to convert traffic into leads, leads into qualified leads, and qualified leads into happy customers. So how beyond rubbish would it be if, as the user, you went to a case study page, because hey! You're getting serious about this company, only to be directed to a top-of-the-funnel CTA, like an educational tip sheet. Totally awkward and conversion nightmare.

Help is at hand though, dynamic CTA's adjust depending on who is visiting the page - their industry, business type, location and past activity! 

Want to make sure your CTA's are top notch? Check out our CTA Checklist!

 

2. Smart Text 

Next up we are getting our author on, by drafting smart content - be it text, different form fields or different languages on CTA's. It's super important here to create content for each of your segments that's more relevant that the 'default' content your first-time customers will see. 

But hey, don't feel like you have to go full Agatha Christie by creating entirely new and unique content for every segment. Refine and optimise that default content to align with a particular segment's needs. 

 

3. Smart Forms 

If you want a loveable website thats guaranteed to get you results, look no further than smart forms. Much like the definition of contextual marketing, this guy is pretty self-explanatory - they're forms... that are super smart. They'll know whether someone has already filled out the form fields you're asking for, so you can get new information and learn more about the context of your leads, instead of asking them the same questions over and over! 

So there you have it friends. Personalising the user experience based on who they are and what they are looking for will not only make your customers very happy, it will also give you competitive advantage and all-important conversions, so you can go and help more people find what they're looking for - it really is full circle!