Small businesses striving to stay competitive in an oversaturated industry need to market themselves effectively, and that means making the most out of every tool in the toolbox – even one as simple and common as the calendar. Often overlooked by many business owners, the calendar can be a resource of untapped marketing information.
Beyond their more straightforward use, digital calendars can make for an effective marketing tool or tactic for small businesses to cut through the noise of competitors clamoring across all the same channels. By investing time and resources into calendar marketing, businesses can embed their brand into the day-to-day workflow of customers and prospects. With events, promotions, news and more appearing side by side with a user’s regularly scheduled calendar events, businesses can dramatically increase their brand’s touchpoints.
How Can Small Businesses Leverage Calendars to Build Customer Loyalty?
Small businesses today may enjoy successful advertising and marketing locally – and might even find it necessary in order to reach a certain portion of their customer base – but nearly all consumers also embrace the convenience and dynamic capabilities of digital communication. Even if a customer discovered a business via a local flyer or word of mouth, almost without fail, they will search for business hours and location, dig up reviews and possibly even make purchases online, often using their smartphone.
That shift in consumer habits has led to marketers duplicating tactics and essentially oversaturating the digital market, making the capture and retention of customers’ attention and business a challenge. But digital calendars provide the sort of one-time-plug-in value that perhaps no other tactic or channel – whether legacy or cutting edge – can match.
Consider that the average user checks their calendar 5-10 times a day, and for online shoppers, office workers and other high-value consumers, that figure may be much higher. If a business can connect with those prospects just once and land on their calendars through a user subscription or follow, that amounts to 5-10 (or more) touchpoints for its brand every day.
A calendar is also more dynamic tool than most other marketing tactics. The live connection between a user’s and a brand’s calendar enables marketers to add new and updated events, providing brands greater flexibility, real-time marketing options and more organic interactions with consumers. Meeting customers where they’re at, on a frequency that can be fine-tuned but connect consistently, are the foundational ingredients of brand loyalty.
The Value of Customer Information Shared via Calendar Connection
Because so many consumers today are engaging with businesses and brands digitally, most are wary about giving away certain types of personal data. At the same time, those customers have quickly become savvy enough to know what they can safely make available as part of a simple digital relationship. Generally speaking, name, address, phone number and email are the extent of the information asked of a user connecting with a business via calendar sync or add.
Small businesses should understand that even this relatively benign information should be considered sensitive, confidential and worthy of any and all measures that maintain its security. With that said, its value to a business is hard to understate. Combine that data with info gleaned by additional questions that may be asked as part of a deeper engagement – gender, sizing and style preferences, for example – and a brand can begin building a useful customer profile. Those details can be aggregated to create basic demographic characteristics, driving marketing and production and helping businesses determine the tendencies, likes and dislikes of a customer base.
Small businesses, in particular, should find the value in the negligible expense, simple launch and maintenance, and longevity of a calendar connection. Once a customer connects, a business can utilize their information to market through other channels (email and text blasts, for instance) while also positioning its brand firmly in that customer’s personal calendar alongside birthdays, life events and other resonant, everyday touchstones.
Calendars are a marketing tool hiding in plain sight. Whether a small business is promoting in-person events, new product drops, exclusive sales or promotions – or all of the above – a calendar add creates a unique connection: direct, dynamic and lasting. Small businesses struggle every day just to be recognized. Why not make easy use of an inexpensive, highly targeted, recurring touchpoint with consumers who have already indicated their interest in the brand?
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