The aim of marketing is to make selling unnecessary. Interesting quote from Peter Drucker, yes? If you were asked to name the top 5 items that could improve marketing campaigns, what would your list include? Our agency often uses these modern marketing concepts for campaign design workshops and this question is a key exercise in the workshop.
Related: Digital Storytelling … 4 Ways to Employ for Message Persuasion
One of our keys for marketing campaigns is persuasion. We feel emotion is the most critical element of persuasion. That is a hands down fact in our minds. Is it a secret? We hope not, or we have had it wrong for all these years. But it seems like a hidden truth for many businesses. Or camouflaged.
According to Nielsen, there are 27,000,000 pieces of content are shared each day. And Statistic Brain says that our average attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds – one second less than a goldfish!
We check our phones 150 times per day. We check our email up to 30 times an hour. And the amount of information in the world continues to double every 18 months.
All this available information and data is creating a battle for customer attention between brands, publishers, and every one of us who creates content. But more importantly, its forcing businesses to think and act like publishers and creative designers.
The simple objective is to turn marketing into content, not content into marketing.
Think about it. It makes good sense, doesn’t it? One of our favorite modern marketing concepts.
So what is the magic of boosting the success of marketing campaigns? Consider the following thirteen elements we use to build winning campaigns:
Marketing starts with understanding the customer
Putting a priority on customer insight analysis? The information derived from customers is vital to continually improve your business. Yet many businesses either don’t put a priority on collecting inputs from their customers.
How much time do you and your business dedicate to gathering customer insights? Not enough is the answer we hear most often. One way you can find useful insights is to examine research in social psychology.
Modern marketing concepts … listen, observe, then engage
Grab attention … on some problem your audience shares, and then address the solution. This is the most important part of the campaign … the part that compels viewers to want to see and hear the entire story/show!
The most important element that people rely on the most? It is trust, hands down in my opinion. Relationships breed trust so they are a good place to start, People prefer to do business with people they know and have established relationships with. Those are the ones they trust the most.
Personalize your brand
Are you working on customer personalization strategies? A great way to build trust. And influence consumer behavior. We all like to be treated as individuals, and that is why personalized service builds loyalty.
Personalization simply means presenting information to a consumer that acknowledges whom he is and what his intentions are … to make his interaction more meaningful.
Many online stores have a history of what you have purchased and even your visits. They may know where you live, if you prefer expensive or low priced items, and so forth. By using that information to deliver targeted content and promotions, they are personalizing your experience and making it a more positive one.
As an example of a retailer that effectively uses personalization to create a better customer experience, Amazon.com knows enough about you from previous contacts, purchase history, and other sources to structure special offers and purchase recommendations well suited to your tastes. Amazon uses collaborative filtering to determine what music or books to recommend.
Positive experience creates great marketing
Design an experience that will be memorable … create the visual of your value, the core message. Take some risks here to stand out and be different … no risks, no rewards.
Establish clear value propositions through differentiation
Provide your key discriminating message woven into the central theme of the campaign. This is the second most important element … convincing customers your story is the best and the reason to select you. Make sure you are addressing your most important target customers. And avoid selling at all costs!
Related post: Marketing Personalization … 10 Examples to Study
Proven marketing truths … employ an element of surprise
People like getting things for free and like them, even more, when they are viewed as ‘favors’. But even more, they love receiving these favors as surprises.
For instance, did you know that Zappos automatically upgrades all purchases to priority shipping … without so much as even a mention on the sales or checkout page?
Why give away this sort of benefit without mentioning it? It’s a simple …a company like Zappos (known for their legendary customer service) recognizes the benefits of surprising people with a next day delivery. That’s not even mentioning the fact that this shipping creates immense goodwill between Zappos and their first-time buyers. (I still remember my first order.)
Surprise creates a mystique of doubt which is more likely to create a conversation.
Connect with customer
Strike a nerve to start a conversation and connect. What makes your marketing campaign such a powerful tool is its ability to communicate through verbal, visual, and metaphoric levels.
If you are not using all 3 levels of communications, you are missing opportunities to resonate and connect.
Be entertaining
Be memorable and bold … be worth the audience’s time and attention. Use subtle marketing techniques. The challenge is to turn marketing into memorable content that informs, enlightens, and entertains at the same time. Memorable content will become the heart of a campaign.
Humor power is a magical potion between the logical and intuitive minds. The best kind of humor is a vehicle for positive emotion that not only leaves ‘em laughing, it leaves ‘em smiling. By understanding, embracing and practicing humor at its best, we can add to the “laugh force” on the planet, and allow enlightening humor to strike more frequently and enhance your marketing.
Does your business use any of these ways to boost the success of your marketing campaigns? Do you have a story to share on their effectiveness? Any comments or questions to add?
Compel action
We all understand the need for a call to action. However, you can only deliver on the action called by a convincing story. A story catching attention and providing relevant messages for your target customers.
The story has played a significant role in all cultures put its adoption into professional cultures. But it has been painfully slow. It’s easier to present a report instead of a well-crafted presentation.
Do you use stories to convey your marketing messages? Building strong stories are great for improving marketing campaigns.
Stories are a very integral part of being persuasive. If you want to persuade your customers and create a memorable experience at the same time, you must master building dynamite stories.
We noted this key fact, in our earlier blog: Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study
Build on emotion
Does your business use emotional appeal to win the hearts of your customers? Have you ever given it a try? Like David Freemantle says, feelings have a critical role in this regard. Yet few of any ads will make an emotional appeal. They will try to amuse and dazzle more than touch the heart. Which factor do you feel is most effective in drawing attention to your advertisements? There are many to choose from, aren’t they?
This is a critical missed opportunity in our view. We have studied and evaluated commercials for more than 5 years. Our focus is somewhat unique; we aren’t interested in entertainment value, we are interested in business impact.
Simplicity
Make it easy for consumers to grasp the message. There isn’t an APP for that, is there?
Related post: 11 Steps to Media Framing Messages for Optimum Engagement
The bottom line
It is a simple concept. People don’t read or listen to marketing messages, they pay attention to what interests them. So if you are going to generate marketing campaign designs, you are going to have to create an interesting copy. And, oh, by the way, it must be more interesting than the millions of other advertisements out there. Now that is a daunting task, isn’t it?
If you are looking for additional resources on digital marketing, one of my favorite experts is Jason Falls. You’ll find lots of good stories and examples to learn from his blog.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
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Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Marketing Branding … 9 Secrets to a Continuous Improvement Strategy
Target Market … How to Target for Best Marketing Campaigns
12 Fundamental Laws of Content Marketing
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