4 strategic marketing moves for ATM operators

With so many new advertising and marketing options available, it can often be hard for businesses to decide what strategies and technologies will be the best fit for their companies — and reach their target markets.

For the ATM and payments industries, the latest innovations are not necessarily the best investment. Often the most effective way to reach your customers is to utilize proven technology and strategies while keeping up-to-date and informed on up-and-coming methods to assess their future viability.

Here are four of the top marketing options for ATM and payments professionals:

Email marketing

Email marketing has been around for quite a while — and for good reason. Studies consistently show email marketing to be one of the most effective strategies available.

A study by Gigaom, an emerging technology research company, asked marketers to rank their most effective digital marketing strategies.

The participants unanimously pointed to email as their most reliable tool for achieving target-customer awareness, acquisition, conversion and retention.

However, you can't just set up an autoresponder and expect to achieve real results with email marketing.

Your strategy should also include a regular review of open and click-through rates to determine what is triggering interest and action.

This will allow you to hone in on what is effective and plan for future success.

Robust content

Content is the key to improving search engine optimization at an organic level. Updates trigger website crawls by search engines and they improve keyword optimization.

In fact, content not only feeds your SEO, it also serves as the primary resource in the development of effective emails, advertising and customer outreach — as well as a treasure chest for your sales team.

Strong content doesn't just improve rankings, it provides information and content to fuel connections with customers.

Solid content will inform your customers and position you as their go-to resource in matters related to their business and the industry. As you develop this type of relevant content you can target the audience you are looking to pull in and stand from generic and fluff offerings.

Social media

With social media taking over as a primary outlet for news, ads and information, your presence on social networks is becoming more important than ever.

However, it's important to keep in mind that a set-it-and-forget-it attitude in regard to any social media account will do more harm than good.

Before you venture into social media, you should evaluate your audience against the different networks to determine their compatibility.

You should also come up with a general idea of how you will manage regular posting and notifications of communications on your selected social networks.

The key to doing social media well is not only establishing a presence but also maintaining a positive presence.

Customer testimonials

In an age of internet connectivity, reviews and testimonials are gaining greater importance. Audiences are increasingly looking for validation as well as for information about how your business will perform for them, the real benefits they'll receive and the customer service they can expect.

They don't just want assurances from their sales representative; they want real stories from real customers to help them make their decision.

For this reason, it's important to feature real quotes and testimonials throughout your marketing — on your website, in brochures, flyers and emails.

It's also a good idea to highlight customers' success stories, relating their experience and providing hard data in white papers, infographics and case studies. It all feeds into your content, public relations and marketing machine.

The latest innovations in marketing might be bright and shiny, but the proven strategies described above have produced verified results.

These building blocks form the solid foundation and quality infrastructure that allow for experimentation in other avenues of digital and traditional campaigns.

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