Personalized content is paramount to any successful marketing campaign – content that is designed specifically for the person viewing it is more likely to pique their interest and encourage them to take the next step in the interaction, regardless of whether that's filling out a form, clicking an advertisement or visiting a company's website.

It's all about the interaction. Personalized content is more relevant to the individual's desires and needs as it gives them the media they want and warrant. It also reaches them in real-time, providing them with the right message at the correct moment in the buying process. For example, a recent study from Crowd Science found that respondents were 27 percent more likely to engage ads that were relevant to them. This number skyrocketed to 76 percent among Americans older than the age of 55.

Moreover, personalizing content isn't a difficult task with proper solutions in place. Key data pieces, such as demographic and psychographic information, purchase history and dollar amounts per transaction, call center interactions, clicks, form submissions, web site visits and mobile responses, can all be leveraged to better customize media and make it more relevant to the person interacting with it.

By utilizing this information, businesses can create messages that are delivered in real-time to consumers via the most applicable device to their current situation. A person on a mobile device can be targeted with mobile-optimized content, or a person browsing their email can be reached though media personalized for that channel.

Personalized content stems from having in-depth information about both prospects and existing customers. By leveraging a variety of marketing channels, companies increase the breadth of their information gathering tools. Marrying a number of different sources enables businesses to maintain a profile of each and every person they are interacting with, regardless of whether it's a long-term buyer or someone who simply "Liked" a Facebook status.

For example, if a customer is in a store and texts a mobile short code to redeem a coupon, these past interactions will form the base of a company's response. The business with a full profile of the customer will be able to look at a variety of sources to better determine how much the coupon should be worth. Previous transactions and interactions will help companies decide how to create a promotion relevant to that individual.

Activities such as filling out web submission forms, clicking links, "Liking" content on Facebook, sharing media on Twitter and text messaging a phone number are all real-time actions that could be used to trigger a subsequent targeted message.

While they are all channel-specific activities, marketers have the ability to connect these actions to messaging in other channels. The key is responding to the interaction at the right time and through the appropriate channel with relevant content.

For this reason, a flexible cross-channel marketing platform that enables marketers to connect the dots is crucial to success. If the same consumer is triggering responses across multiple channels, marketers need to be able to recognize that all these interactions are coming from one individual and reply in an appropriate fashion.
Consumer interactions can be difficult to track without the right platform in place, especially when the same prospect is active through multiple channels. For example, a potential customer could receive an email and click through to a web form, which he or she fills out using his or her Facebook credentials. Once the form is submitted, they could be driven to a customized website where they could Like or share the featured content, which triggers an email coupon specific to the information they've provided up to that point.

What makes event-triggered messages so effective is that they help marketers engage consumers in a relevant way. They're also a perfect complement to traditional marketing campaigns with messaging designed around specific dates.

Event-triggered messages give marketers the ability to interact with people in real-time when they are specifically looking to be engaged. This generally improves the results of marketing efforts, as businesses are aiming for receptive consumers with laser-targeted messaging based on their interactions. In fact, a survey conducted by EPiServer found that 48 percent of marketers believe personalized campaigns have a better response rate than mass market campaigns.

The greatest marketing campaigns aren't the ones that are created and then analyzed – they are the initiatives that are designed with previous customer interactions in mind first. Consumer actions and reactions need to form the basis of marketing campaigns, as they provide the greatest insight into the minds of the target audience.

While there is no simple solution to anticipating customer actions, it's crucial to note that many Americans follow a schedule – they'll check their emails, log on to Facebook and read their text messages generally around the same time each day.

For example, a Harris Interactive survey found that a number of Americans check their email in bed when the first wake up or before they go to sleep (19 percent) and while they are at work. Conversely, social media browsing habits tend to peak outside of work hours – on the weekends and after 5 p.m. – while email usage may dip.

Using real-time data to find an individual consumer's particular media engagement habits is crucial to the success of campaigns. If companies observe an email sent during the workday isn't getting opened, they need to shift it to an earlier schedule. On the flip side, if social media engagement is dipping during the traditional workday, companies should consider shifting content publication to the weekend.

This real-time data could further be extrapolated into a marketing calendar that helps maximize consumer engagement. Having a certain schedule to time engagements is crucial to success. First, it ensures businesses are engaging at the best possible time and through the most effective marketing channel. Second, a calendar also helps to avoid spam issues, as proper planning would make accidental spam less likely.

It's all about engagement. By using real-time data to discover when consumers are the most open to being reached, businesses will be able to maximize their chances of hitting them at the right time with the most optimal effort. The more channels companies are able to monitor, the better their customer insight and the more relevant their communications can be.

If the recent Super Bowl proved anything, it is that more companies are beginning to realize the importance of integrating hashtags, @ mentions and direct messages into their multichannel marketing campaigns.

Several of the big brands advertising during the football game were complementing their television commercials with memorable hashtags. For example, Audi's 30-second spot featured a man driving up to a vampire party before the powerful headlights of his car disintegrated them. As the commercial came to a close, it urged viewers to check out the #SoLongVampires hashtag on Twitter.

For businesses, hashtags, @ mentions and direct messages provide an effective way of bolstering further engagement and interaction with customers. The @ mention is the most obvious and occurs almost naturally when using Twitter – if customers respond to content published on Twitter, their updates will feature the @ mention of the user they are replying to.

Of course, consumers don't need to be replying to a particular piece of content to @ mention a company. Companies could set up contests or incorporate them in multichannel marketing campaigns as well, which would enable businesses to better monitor interactions – an @ reply would automatically show up in the company's Twitter feed, whereas a reply without the mark would not be visible.

Similarly, hashtags can be tapped to categorize responses and make them easier to track. For example, if companies were using email messages to engage customers, they could make a social feature that encourages consumers to tweet a message with a hashtag. This helps brands expand the reach of their campaigns and can also enable them to build and improve their customer database.

Perhaps the most overlooked means of Twitter marketing is direct messages. These aren't simply for private communications between friends – brands can leverage them to leave specific messages to new followers. If the company has their Twitter profile connected to their marketing database, they could use direct messages to greet new followers, send them specific offers or communicate other calls to action to them.

The integration of Twitter into the customer database is crucial to launching impactful marketing campaigns. The more businesses know about Twitter followers, the more relevant – and thereby effective – their efforts will become.

Does social media actually influence how customers perceive brands and their products? The answer is a resounding yes, and this has been proven time and time again through numerous studies. By identifying these social influencers, companies can enhance the way they promote their products and services.

Take, for example, research conducted last year by Chadwick Martin Bailey. The study, which observed the buying habits of nearly 1,500 American consumers, found that people who are following a company on Twitter are more likely to purchase goods and services than non-subscribers.

The same study suggests Facebook connections have a similar impact – 60 percent of Facebook users would advocate a brand they Liked to a friend, while 51 percent said they are more likely to purchase products from these organizations. People put a lot of stock in their social friendships.

Clearly, social media can impact the purchase decisions of consumers and their friends, but that's only if businesses are proactive with their social media marketing campaigns. It isn't enough to simply own a profile on Facebook or Twitter – businesses need to harness the power of these social sites to maximize their success.

Companies can start by identifying who their influential social followers are and then interacting with them. There are a variety of ways to ascertain whether specific individuals are social influencers – for example, an individual who "Likes" Facebook content a certain number of times is likely an enthusiast who could sway others. Or, someone who constantly responds to tweets could be a social influencer that a brand could leverage.

Identification isn't the challenging part, it's being able to take these relationships and use them to promote products and services that's key. It's a two-way street. Businesses need to form connections with influencers to carry out their marketing objectives. However, these enthusiasts aren't going to give free publicity – they need to be enticed and incentivized to do so.

Simply put, this is best accomplished through user engagement. The key is providing relevant and personalized content using the data that businesses have on consumers. These pieces of data can be utilized to form custom communications and offer different promotions that are more relevant to the individual.

While these interactions may start on social media, they can involve broader marketing campaigns as well. For example, businesses could check to see if customers have engaged them through other means, such as email or mobile phones. This data could help further personalize marketing campaigns and will ultimately lead to the most relevant engagement strategy.

Social log-ins are creating a new way for companies to gain more insight about their customers. For example, consumers may not want to take the time to sign up at a brand's website, but they may be willing to log in and engage if they could do so by using a social account they already have. By encouraging them to sign in through their Facebook or Twitter accounts, marketers can learn crucial information about customers, such as their likes and interests, their geographic locations and their friendship networks.

With this in mind, social log-ins can be utilized to further customize marketing campaigns to be more relevant to the explicit needs and preferences of consumers. For example, an electronics retailer could leverage social information to specifically determine which products to recommend to buyers.

The number of consumers creating accounts on these social sites continues to grow, giving companies more reasons to integrate these tools. A recent report from Janrain suggests that Facebook's social log-in is currently the most common sign-in feature, with approximately 42 percent of websites using it. Larry Drebes, founder and CEO of Janrain, suggests these social credential components will become even more important in the future.

"[Social log-in] is going to be definitely an increasing part of the marketing mix. It just makes sense because more online activity is centered around knowing the user, knowing their social network and profile attributes," Drebes explained to MarketingSherpa.

"Social media is a large component of that, and I think it is becoming accepted both with the end users and the marketing audience, and it will be a healthy growing segment," he added.

Moreover, as social networks diversify to fill specific niches, marketers will be better able to offer social sign-in features that correlate with their target audiences.

"I think you will see a little division there where you might use Facebook or Twitter for more entertainment-type sites and a LinkedIn account for something more professional," Drebes explains. "People will identify themselves in various personas depending on the context of how they are interacting with an online property."

Knowing the target audience has always been crucial to success. Now, it's just a matter of using the tools that enable businesses to learn more about their customers. By leveraging the correct tools, businesses will be in a better position to create custom communications that are personalized and relevant to the people being reached.