Netflix & Uber Run Marketing Campaigns That People Actually Want to See – Here’s How.
When you’re watching a TV show on Netflix and Netflix automatically recommends another show that looks good, you don’t really think before you click it. The content is so relevant to you, so targeted to your interests, you know you’re going to like it.
Netflix is built on this model. By crunching data from 44 million subscribers, the company has created a contextual marketing engine that delivers 76,000 different genre types, offering genres as obscure as “alien films from the 1970s.”
By sending these recommendations in real-time, Netflix isn’t just delivering the best show, recommended for your individual preferences – the company is actually creating contextual marketing campaigns and targeting them on an individual basis.
Netflix has created marketing that’s so seamless that it’s built right into the experience. Every time you click a recommended show, you’re clicking an ad.
That’s a pretty big deal, considering customers really don’t like traditional marketing. Forrester found that less than a quarter (22%) of consumers trust emails from companies or brands, only 13% trust ads on web sites, and only 32% trust ads in any channel.
What customers do trust is utility and experience… and that’s why contextual marketing is so important today. Just ask Uber.
Uber: A Brand, A Company, A Product
When people use the Uber mobile app to get a ride, they’ll say they’re getting an Uber. Sometimes they’ll say they’ll just “Uber there.” To a lot of users, the car itself is an “Uber.” Along with the driver, the company, and the product experience.
Uber is a flagship model of contextual marketing. When you launch the app, Uber finds a car for your exact location. The app creates an individual, contextual marketing experience and the product comes to you. If the experience with Uber wasn’t this useful and this personalized, no one would ever use it.
That’s how “Uber” has come to mean a business, a product, and an experience all at once. “To Uber” suggests utility and experience, not a marketing campaign.
Just take a look at the geo-targeted email Uber sent to Boston residents as a blizzard started to blanket the city:
You know you’re doing something right if your brand becomes a verb – just ask Google. Because every time you’re Googling or using Google Maps, you’re also engaging in a contextual marketing campaign from Google.
Contextual Email: The New Old Solution
The digital cup overfloweth with content and competition.
Companies have tried to compensate by pouring marketing into dozens of different channels, but, as Forrester found, a lot of people aren’t interested in this kind of advertising.
That’s why businesses have to build personalized experiences that are useful to the customer’s current context. Netflix and Uber have succeeded by marketing with utility and experience, just like Google, Amazon, and others. Social media networks have capitalized on contextual marketing, too, by encouraging people to build their own personal experiences by choosing friends, channels, groups, and accounts that interest them the most.
But how can a retail company offer an amazing customer experience with a marketing campaign? How can a travel business send out offers that are individualized for each customer’s context?
The answer is simple: email. To stay relevant to customers, email has to go contextual in a big way: pulling live content from websites, ensuring no offers are expired, and changing content in real-time according to factors like location, weather, and device.
Email has always been the most direct and personal way to get in touch with customers. By building campaigns with contextually relevant content, brands can ensure that email campaigns don’t just offer compelling deals, but offer compelling experiences.
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