17 Tips to Make Every Marketing Campaign a Success

Understatement time: Marketing has changed a ton in the last five years. Social media’s power to drive campaign success into uncharted territory has resulted in a massive shift in content marketing. The best campaigns have capitalized on the elements that make almost every marketing campaign a success.

Stop interrupting what people are interested in, and be what people are interested in.

Below, we’ve taken five of the best marketing campaigns, and have broken down key elements that contributed to their explosive success. Although some of these marketing campaigns were created by the biggest companies and agencies in the world, they succeeded not because of how much they cost, but because they understood fundamental truths about social media users.

Play to people’s emotions.

When I saw my boss cry when watching the ad, I knew it was going to perform well. Emotional stimuli, happiness, sadness, inspiration, anger and beyond, have been proven to activate the human nervous system and boost social transmission. In other words, if you can cause an emotional reaction in people, they’re far more likely to share your content.

This notion is clear when you look at what gets shared online. Go to a website like Upworthy or any other content aggregator and see what gets the most attention. It’s stories about unlikely heros, or videos of soldiers coming back from war and surprising their families, or stories of people and their pets. These videos, to use an internet expression, catch us ‘right in the feels’ and that’s why they succeed. Brands should be striving to make that same impression, and WestJet is proof as to why.

The airline also made their service a secondary element of the ad, which might seem counterintuitive to many brands but can actually pay off big time on social media. Many people are inherently hesitant to share brand-heavy content on social networks.

Use many channels … with new ways to communicate

Ignore conventional marketing. Instead be unique and memorable.

Old Spice didn’t just bend conventional marketing practices, they avoided them entirely, creating something far more impressive in the process. You wanted to play the video again and again to try and see how it was accomplished. You wanted to show it to friends and talk about it. It was so interesting and shareable that brands have been chasing this model ever since it aired.

Then, they did something even smarter. They created the response campaign to bring their viewers into the experience. Everyone who loved the ad had the opportunity to be a part of it. Users flocked to submit questions in the hopes for a direct interaction with the Old Spice Man.

Know your audience and cater ads to their interests.

Consider competitiveness … talking about REAL differences with competing offers … the value proposition

Differentiate and include audience

People love to be a part of something popular or viral. It’s like being part of a studio audience or being mentioned by a celebrity on Twitter. Not only is the experience enjoyable for them, it’s also something they want to share with their friends and followers. By creating these personalized videos, Old Spice turned a successful brand video into a shareable social media campaign.

Utilize creativity … inventing new ways to talk about products and services

Use humor.

Provide useful content … with meaning and relevance, not just entertainment value

Take risks.

With social media, users are empowered to skip over any ad they don’t find interesting. This puts the onus on brands to somehow catch people off guardor otherwise keep their attention. Humor is one of the most effective ways to do that.

Much like with Old Spice, K-Mart used humor in a way that you might not have expected from their brand. While it’s easy to call it juvenile, the results speak for themselves. The humor made the video so shareable that more people shared it on Facebook than commented on it. That type of engagement is invaluable of the brand.

This marketing campaign was also special because it was a risk. It wasn’t just a risk for K-Mart, it was a risk for any brand. Swear words and childish jokes isn’t something most retail brands would strive to be associated with. But social media is about creating discussion. Safe bets don’t create discussion, risks do. K-Mart put themselves out there and social media users appreciated the humor and the risk. They took a chance and it paid off.

Support a meaningful cause and share it with your audience.

So what are the main lessons to draw from the Always marketing campaign? Put your company behind a cause. Try to start a movement.

Always is working to become synonymous with women’s empowerment. This is their cause, and the basis of their ad. Again their product was put to the side, but where WestJet did it to focus on their customers, Always focused on the ‘greater good.’

Find a cause or a message that your business believes in. This is important: don’t just support it for an easy marketing win. Actually throw your company behind the cause. Raise awareness, fundraise, co-market with existing organizations that have taken on the cause. Looking like you support a cause isn’t enough, and can actually be damaging to your brand. You need to follow through. Always, for example, partners with UNESCO to support education for women across the world.

And the #LikeAGirl ad wasn’t just an ad, it was a call to action. In the same way that Old Spice succeeded by involving fans in their YouTube campaign, Always succeeded by making people want to join their #LikeAGirl movement. Athletes and businesses jumped onto the hashtag and threw their weight behind the movement, spreading the campaign even further.

This works for the same reason people latched on to the Ice Bucket Challenge. These movements are inclusive; they make you feel like a part of something good. All humans have a desire to be included and make a difference. If your brand can start a movement like Always was able to do, the positive impact on your brand will be substantial.

Clarity beyond the marketing … focusing on the business behind the marketing

Of course there are marketing formulas that have been proven to work time and time again:

Call to action … the most important factor … leaving behind value when the marketing is done

Awesome consumer targeting

Dollar Shave Club isn’t just marketing to men of shaving age; they’re marketing to tech-savvy younger men, the audience most likely open to buying razors online. “Young men” is written all over the video. There are toys in the background. They swear and use humor. There’s a machete. They make fun of tennis. It ends with a party. This isn’t an energy drink ad. There aren’t explosions and extreme sports. But it nails the target demographic in a simple, straightforward way. People often talk about targeting on social media. You can target your content once it’s created, or you can target it from the outset. Doing the latter made this video into a hit.

What about distinguishing their brand? Did you notice, there isn’t a single image of anyone actually using the razor in the video. Why wouldn’t they show the razor in use? Maybe because they know (correctly) assumed that men wouldn’t be sold on how the razor looks while in use, especially since it will essentially look the same as every other razor. They narrowed in on the elements that distinguished their product from every other similar product: the price and delivery method.

Brands Best Tips for Using Chatbots in Advertising

Brands know that to advertise effectively on mobile, they need to gain access to consumers through the few apps that dominate daily smartphone use. This is one reason why brands have embraced Facebook’s recent announcement that it plans to support chatbots in advertising.

To Stand Out, Marketers Need to Be Authentic and Relevant.

WeChat, a messenger app in China, already has more than 10 million official accounts, including banks, hotels and even celebrities that are registered to interact with users through chatbots. While Chinese consumers are currently a more enthusiastic audience for messenger apps and bots, it’s likely that U.S. consumers will warm up to them as the technology and the accessibility improves.

Brands certainly hope so. They want to be able to reach a wider audience more directly through chatbots than currently possible with Facebook’s newsfeed, where recent tweaks to the algorithm could limit their access to consumers even further.

If business bots on Facebook end up looking anything like the applications on WeChat, we can expect to see mostly service and subscription bots. Service bots allow consumers to transact with businesses, book a flight, order a meal or review a movie. Subscription bots are focused on delivering pre-selected categories of content to users.

Kik bots Credit: Kik

In the U.S., many of the early bots created by brands on platforms like Kik, Facebook and Slack fall into the “service” category. Bots launched this year include KLM Airlines, Uber and Domino’s Pizza, each providing just a small and relatively cumbersome subset of the services that they offer in their apps.

Mondelez just announced its intention to invest heavily in new bots for Facebook messenger with intentions to focus on service, specifically e-commerce.

While it remains to be seen how many Oreos consumers will buy through bots, the company’s e-commerce strategy illustrates that even brands that usually focus on top-of-the-funnel advertising are starting their chatbot experimentation with service bots. It is less clear how to actually advertise with bots. Simply creating content for a “subscription” bot is unlikely to work for most brands.

Bots will most likely matter for top-of-funnel advertising because bots, like blogs and social media, have the potential to be important tools for consumer discovery.

Sephora and H&M have early examples of discovery-driven bots on Kik, allowing users to engage with the brand by asking for product tips and pictures. These bots are a lot like the first brand pages on Facebook, which means that they aren’t yet taking advantage of the platform in a sophisticated way, but do hint at future possibilities for engagement and exploration at a highly personalized level.

Like with apps, many brands will find that they simply can’t create an interesting enough bot to drive significant brand engagement on their own. While fashion and makeup mega-retailers have a lot of engagement potential for chatbots — and enough products to offer different messages to different people — brands that sell fewer products or products that rarely change will have more trouble generating interest in a specialized brand discovery bot.

And even bots like those from Sephora and H&M will mostly attract loyal fans. Like on social media and with apps, brands will need to augment their strategy by partnering with a carefully chosen selection of third-party bots to get in front of wider audiences in a relevant, authentic way.

As third parties to an interaction, brands need to fit into a chat environment as authentically as possible if they want to be successful. As bots evolve, advertisers need to weigh the risks of being awkward or annoying with the rewards of adding value and relevance.

Forkable is a lunch bot that learns people’s tastes. Credit: Forkable

For example, Mondelez might gain more scale if it partnered with a service bot rather than trying to become a service provider itself. One example is Forkable, a lunch bot that learns people’s tastes and then curates and delivers a different lunch each day. In order to be relevant, the right advertising campaign on such a bot could engage differently with each user based on the rich data history it has.

Mondelez could introduce different products to different people based on their past behaviors, rather than simply offering a coupon for a product such as Wheat Thins to the whole user base, which would be ignored by many and seem awfully rude to the gluten-free crowd.

Consumers are curious, and will always look for what’s new and noteworthy, and bots will play a critical role in shaping what they encounter, much like search or social media today. And similar to these other platforms, advertisers will find that a strategy of direct consumer interaction and partnerships with third parties gives them the scale and control they need. But only if brands focus on relevance and personalization will they achieve success in a promising new channel that will shape many future consumer decisions.

How to Create Curiosity to Improve Marketing

Here’s a rather interesting promotion from California Pizza Kitchen to improve marketing. At the end of my dinner, I was given the bill and a CPK “Don’t Open It” Thank You Card. That certainly did create curiosity, yes?

It’s a coupon with an interesting twist: you bring this card with you the next time you come to CPK. You’ve already won something, from a free appetizer up to $50 dollars (or more). But you won’t know what you’ve won until your next visit.

The instructions are pretty clear: whatever you do, do not open the card or your prize is null and void! A manager has to open the card for you when you return.

You are guaranteed to get something worthwhile—and this is a critical part of arousing curiosity. Coupons are too explicit: “Here is your 20% off.” Scratch-offs and lottery tickets are most likely to reveal that you’ve won nothing. With the CPK coupon, the fine print teases you with a list of the possible prizes.

Now I’m curious: which prize have I won? This is a mystery that needs solving with another visit.

Want Some Examples of Great Marketing?

Here are some great marketing examples that I can immediately recall. They are a lot more, but these are, in my opinion, the most interesting. They argue that it is necessary to go beyond, to use something that others do not. If you live some idea – it will come to life!

Red Bull. Progress of the reverse.

When Red Bull entered the market, energy and soft drinks niche was already occupied by Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Labatt, and Molson. Although these drinks were not clean energy, but the advertising used to send their tonic effect, improving the state of health, etc. Marketer Mateshnits Dietrich realized that stand on a par with the veterans using standard tactics of promotion and advertising similar, will not work. Then he offered the following: reduce the amount of cans, to bring them to mind “battery” (an allusion to a charge), and – most non-trivial solution – to increase the price by half. Thus, the advertising campaign for the Red Bull was not expensive. To place the “battery” in stores, it was decided in non-standard locations.

The only expensive proposal Mateshnitsa began free distribution boxes of Red Bull in the student body. By the way, too, is still practiced by a company that likes to sponsor various youth activities. The fact that the students preferred to mix Energy alcohol, getting a cocktail Vodka Red Bull, marketers modestly silent.

The result of this marketing idea was a completely independent positioning of the energy drink, creating its own niche different from other beverages. How successful it was, you can judge by the number of racks with power in our stores.

IKEA. Size matters.

IKEA Swedish company began promoting in the US huge market and built shopping centers, delivered products … and everything. People go, look, but do not buy. Marketers were in a panic as the sweat, until one of them noticed that the furniture from other manufacturers in the US are much larger in size. It turns out that Americans are much bigger houses Swedish houses and apartments. Since then, the US IKEA furniture is made in other measures.

Camel. Camels in the city.

The first truly provocative advertising, which is now referred to as the teaser, owned by Camel. What could still surprise the smoking America tobacco company? It would seem that the new cigarettes can not be powerful enough to advance, but … Once there were unusual ad in cities in the US, which read “Camels.” After some time, they were replaced by no less intriguing ad “Camels are.” And the day before the appearance of the cigarette market ads changed again completely inflated human curiosity.

They now read: “Tomorrow in the city of camels will be greater than in Africa and Asia together!”. And on the day of Camel cigarette sales began last announcement lifted the tension and confusion, “” Camel “cigarettes in the city!”. The Americans laughed at this final intrigue and did not hesitate to try a new cigarette.

Get A Mac—Perceptive Marketing Based on Ignorance

Apple nailed it with their successful four-year television campaign, Get A Mac, which showcased a Mac vs. PC theme. The indirect brilliance of this campaign is that it took advantage of people’s perceptions and ignorance at the same time while shielding Apple from litigation liabilities. Because of public perception the average person viewing Apple’s Mac vs. PC advertisements subconsciously interpreted the marketing campaign into Mac vs. Windows.

Apple never attacked Microsoft or Windows by name directly, they only allowed consumers to perceive that thought because most people don’t realize Apple computers are PC’s too—at the risk of being politically correct, PC stands for “personal computer,” not Windows operating software. In fact, even Wikipedia today has it wrong on their website as indicated in the screen capture below.

According to Adweek in 2010, “Get a Mac” was the “best advertising campaign of the first decade of the new century.” Apparently Microsoft thought so too, so they launched a $300 million advertising campaign with the tagline “I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea,” which received criticism alleging “that the four still images of the campaign posted at the site contained digital fingerprints from Adobe Photoshop being run on Apple computers.”

Originally discovered by a photographer on Flickr after downloading the images and viewing the metadata, Computerworld verified the findings “that the file properties of the images found at the Microsoft press site…[contained an] embedded string Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh.” It didn’t help Microsoft when InformationWeek reported in their blog, “that Microsoft responded overnight by digitally scrubbing the metadata from the images.”

Got Milk?—Marketing Turned Commodity Brand

The most famous and longest running marketing campaign started in 1993 for the California Milk Processor Board is now a commodity brand, licensed to all milk processors and dairy farmers nationwide—Got Milk?

What made Got Milk? so successful was that it was so simple, just two words including the product, milk, plus it asked the consumer a question while breaking the rules of grammar. Basically it’s an effect CTA, or call to action like Nike’s “Just Do It” tag line and in marketing 101, a CTA is a “final instruction” to the targeted audience.

Use of the Got Milk? in actual marketing also illustrated to the consumer the benefits of drinking milk, sometimes in sexy and funny ways too, but most importantly, in a personal way. The targeting continued even further as the marketing team insured the billboard part of the campaign was placed on billboards near grocery stores.

Like A Rock—A Counter Marketing Strategy

Great marketing includes counter-marketing strategy, which is what Chevrolet did to Ford trucks with their “Like A Rock” 12-year marketing campaign. Chevrolet’s marketing campaign gave the consumer the impression that Chevy trucks are built tough, solid like a rock, a play on Ford’s advertising campaign, “Built Ford Tough.”

The success of this marketing campaign made it physical, not just for the truck, but through perception it gave the Chevy truck owners their own personal feeling of tough, strong, durable, and self-reliant.

6 of My Favorite Tools for Content Marketing

Check out these favorite tools for content marketing …

IFTTT

Automation for everything. Everything.

If This Then That, or IFTTT, is a free tool for automating tasks across apps, websites, and gadgets.

With a wide range of recipes (a fancy word for automations), IFTTT is incredibly versatile and has the potential to make every piece of your marketing strategy more efficient. IFTTT boasts 312 app integrations, including social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more.

IFTTT is especially useful for making even the most tedious social media marketing tasks more manageable like keeping your profile pictures synced up and automatically sharing your Instagram photos on other platforms.

In IFTTT’s ever-expanding recipe library, you’ll find ready-made automations for just about everything you need.

Buffer

Social media scheduling made easy.

As an entrepreneur, you’re busy enough as it is. The odds are that you don’t have time to spend every minute of your day posting to social media and keeping an eye on your profiles.

However, since regularly sharing content to your social media profiles is crucial for staying connected with your audience and keeping your brand top of mind, you need to be able to keep up somehow. Thankfully, with Buffer, you can schedule out your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn posts in advance and focus on managing your time more effectively.

Not only does Buffer help save time by letting you take care of posts ahead of time, but it also comes with a handy browser extension that lets you easily share content in a single click.

Zapier

All of your apps working together.

Life is easier when you take a shortcut. With Zapier, you don’t just take shortcuts—you make them, too.

Zapier is a powerful automation platform that links all of your favorite apps together. With Zapier, you can create complex workflows that take care of the everyday tasks that secretly eat up your time. Since it’s integrated with over 500 different apps, including most major social media networks, you’ll also be able to automate your post scheduling and engagement.

Tired of having to manually share every new blog post that you publish? With Zapier, you can link your RSS feed to Buffer, so that all of your new content is instantly shared with your audience.

Canva

Great graphics in no time.

No design skills? No problem! Canva is a simple and straightforward app for creating gorgeous social media-ready graphics along with infographics, reports, and much more.

While Photoshop can seem intimidating for beginners, Canva is easy to learn and even easier to use, making it a great choice regardless of your skill level. Canva offers up a set of templates that come pre-sized for every social media platform and include a wide range of premade layouts and backgrounds.

Canva also features a simple drag-and-drop interface that lets you quickly build, edit, and tweak your images until they’re exactly as you envisioned.

If you just need to resize an image for social media, then Landscape by Sprout Social is your best bet. It’s a no-nonsense resizer tool: Just drop your images in and you’re good to go.

Schedugram

Take photos now, share them on Instagram later.

Instagram is a key tool in your social media marketing arsenal, but it’s hard to master if you’re constantly playing catch up.

With Schedugram, you can schedule your Instagram photos in advance and stop worrying about whether or not you have your daily post ready. Schedugram also lets you upload and edit your photos through your web browser, giving you the chance to find the perfect caption, hashtag, and filter to get your photo the attention it deserves.

As an added bonus, Schedugram lets you schedule content for multiple Instagram accounts and allows for multiple users to collaborate using the same Schedugram account.

Buzzsumo

A behind-the-scenes look at your content.

Buzzsumo is a powerful platform for uncovering the data behind your content’s performance on social media.

From where your content is being shared to which influencers are sharing it, you’ll have access to in-depth analyses and comparisons.

Not only does Buzzsumo give you a real-time, behind-the-scenes look at your content’s performance, but it also lets you spy on your competitors’ content marketing strategies and see what’s working for them. Get some inspiration and look for new ways to edge out the competition by deconstructing how they format their content and where it’s getting seen.

Buzzsumo also has an intuitive browser extension that lets you check social media analytics for any page you’re visiting.

Connect with Customers

Now that you have a solid stack of social media tools at your disposal, it’s time to start finding new opportunities for growth and automating your current campaigns like a pro.

What are your favorite social media tools? Let us know.

An Approach to Fostering Better Insights For Marketing

Over the course of my career, I have always been interested in examining the “light bulb” moment, or the moment insights for marketing occur. I analyzed 120 incidents in which insights occurred in an attempt to learn more about how insights arise, and to develop new strategies for people and organizations to boost their insights. Recently I formulated a strategy to help people gain more insights. But before I explain how that works, let’s see how insights arise.

My informal study led me to develop the Insight Stance (In/Stance for short), a mental stance we can adopt for encountering new ideas and events. This active mindset requires that we take a more curious approach, preparing ourselves to be delighted by discoveries. But before I explain the In/Stance in more depth, let’s talk about insights.

Why are insights important?

Every organization strives to stay on the cutting edge, whether by developing the newest technologies, creating the most innovative strategies, or solving long-standing problems. This requires generating and cultivating new ideas, both at the leadership and the worker level.

While most organizations sincerely want to boost their insights, organizational culture and common practices often counteract insightful behavior. Most organizations value predictability and strive toward perfection by reducing the number of errors they make. Project managers like to map out steps, allocate resources, and create timelines in order to meet deadlines. When their plan gets disturbed, they are quick to revise the plan and reallocate resources to make sure their progress isn’t slowed– in other words, they define success as making as few errors as possible.

In their zeal for predictability and error reduction, organizations can inadvertently stifle insights. Insights are unpredictable, disruptive, and dis-organizing. They counteract our natural tendency to want to accurately predict progress and manage risk. However, in order to improve performance, it is important to strike a balance between managing uncertainty and increasing our insights.

I developed the graphic above to illustrate this balance. Organizations often fall into the trap of fixating on the down arrow – attempting to decrease errors and uncertainty. Why? Because mistakes are visible, costly, and embarrassing. It’s easy for managers to spot mistakes and throw resources at trying to prevent them. However, too much emphasis on the down arrow stifles the production of insights, or the up arrow.

How can we do better?

Of course, no one can argue with the importance of cutting down on mistakes. However, fixating on the down arrow naturally reduces the production of insights by emphasizing rules and procedures. Focusing on the down arrow is a defensive strategy, or playing not to lose. The up arrow is geared more towards offense. It’s all about making new connections, having breakthroughs, and solving previously unsolvable problems. Focusing on the up arrow is playing to win.

So how can we balance both arrows? Our goal should be to reach a happy medium between reducing errors and encouraging our employees to develop and come forward with new ideas.

The core of a strategy to improve insights should be to keep our minds curious, sometimes skeptical, delighting in speculation. We want to make sure that we are actively noticing and investigating discrepancies when they appear, even though we can’t spend all of our time investigating every detail.

The solution: an Insight Stance (In/Stance)

So we know that being curious, inquisitive, and speculative can lead to more insights. But how can we retain our employees’ productivity while still encouraging them to keep an eye out for insights? My solution: adopt an Insight Stance, or In/Stance for short. This is a mindset we can use while going about our daily work, and it will increase our chances of making innovative discoveries.

I developed the idea for In/Stance by analyzing 30 incidents in which there were “twins” – one person who had an insight, and another person who had all of the same information but didn’t have the insight. Analyzing the differences in the way that the twins thought about the same situation, I noticed several mistakes that the “failure twin” made. First, he or she got too caught up in his or her flawed beliefs. The failure twin was not inquisitive or skeptical enough to question oddities or inconsistencies. Instead, they took all information at face value. And often, the failure twin didn’t have an active mindset. That is, they approached the situation in a passive manner, without giving it much thought. They weren’t mentally checked-in enough to notice small anomalies or inconsistent details. Or if they did, they explained them away as being a fluke or coincidence.

One might ask, when should we use the In/Stance? The In/Stance should mainly be active when we encounter new ideas and events. We need to take a curious stance, one that will welcome discoveries and exploration. This is the opposite of our knee-jerk reaction, which is to be skeptical of new ideas.

Now that we’ve talked about what In/Stance is, here are some specific things we can do to adopt this mindset:

Wonder about inconsistencies and anomalies instead of dismissing or explaining them away.
Wonder about coincidences that seem promising.
Give freer rein to curiosity, spending more time speculating about implications of events or ideas that aren’t on the main path we are pursuing.
Be alert to unexpected connections between ideas.
Notice leverage points that might help when we get stuck – alternative ways to move forward when our usual problem-solving methods aren’t working.
Instead of simply making sure projects are progressing at a satisfactory pace, supervisors can ask employees more in-depth questions: How has your understanding of the project changed? What has surprised you? Are you tempted to change the project goals? If the employee responds that nothing has to be rethought, this may indicate that the person isn’t adopting the In/Stance.
Confusions and conflicts may offer opportunities for gaining insights. Employees may have misconceptions of different ideas about how things work– Investigate these inconsistencies, as they may lead to insights.

Of course, the In/Stance isn’t a permanent shift in mindset – it could get overwhelming to explore every little anomaly, and we could lose sight of our day-to-day work. We can, however, learn to enter into this mindset more often and for longer periods than we normally would. We can and should devote more mental energy to noticing insights that could set our organizations apart from the competition.

5 Key Ways to Increase the Value of Marketing Efforts

There are many ways to increase the value of marketing efforts, but the ones you would consider first include what? I would include these:

Refining your customer targeting

Increasing your digital demand generation
Building your online relationships
Employing new marketing channels
Prototyping and testing all efforts

Becoming obsolete is a reality in today’s fast-moving environment. Yes, today’s marketer needs to leave their comfort zone and venture into an environment that does not seems to want to sit still. Luckily, it doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning the principles they’ve learned along the way. It just means evolving their thinking and applying these same principles to the new mediums.

Data is the new norm: The promise of big data brings with it enormous benefits that can now inform customer preferences, propensities; identify relevant prospects in real-time; distill meaning from reams of information where it impacts competitive or brand reputation. The opportunities to target more granularly beyond just “company”-collected transactions provides profound instances to find the right customer, at the right time, in the right channels, with the right message. The need for strong data analysts to compile this information across multiple platforms and mediums will be an essential component to effectively target for acquisition; improve retention rates and optimize for real-time performance.
Agility is imperative: Gone are the days of relying on historical data. These days, any data point longer than 30 days is too old and therefore, irrelevant. Gone are the days when media plans or strategies are “baked”. No longer are we required (or should we be required) to sit and wait for results. With data becoming more embedded in our daily work, marketers must work towards a more agile environment: This means becoming more data responsive to an increasingly fragmented and splintered market, having the structures and processes to change tactics on the fly.
Value is the new currency: One of the hardest lessons for marketers to have learned was to refrain from leading with overt company or product messages. “Leading with value” has become a difficult principle to adopt, after years of “me-me-me” communications. Declining performance of digital ad units means marketers must rethink content from the position of the customer. The rise of editorial as an essential function within marketing will be necessary to instil this new discipline.
Customer convergence has arrived: All mediums are converging. Appointment TV is dead. The customer dictates the content they want to consume, across multiple mediums, the times they want it. On-demand mediums will challenge the marketer as consumers move swiftly between tablets to smartphone to television. The new ways of targeting customers across multiple-platforms now allows the marketer more long-tail opportunities that will augment and support traditional mass targeting.
Customer experience mandates an always-on presence: A more informed customer expects consumers today an optimal experience that “allows them to shop and receive their purchases where they want, when they want and how they want.” This means providing the ‘continuous experience’ across brands, devices and format: mobile internet devices, computers, brick-and-mortar, television, radio, direct mail, catalog etc. Today’s marketer is channel-agnostic and is aware of sites, platforms and channels the customer is researching, eliciting recommendations, price-comparing and ultimately, buying.
Sustainability, not campaigns: The value of social media as an open channel two-way conversations now provides brands with the ability to not only build relationships, but benefit from the effort and commitment to nurture customer relationships through these channels. Word of Mouth and Advocacy are strong indicators of brands doing it right. The value of organic traffic that results from content value, social consistency and customer-commitment, will surpass the more costly campaign-driven ad-buys and promotions.
Social cannot be outsourced: Agencies will never be able to truly be able to build effective community management services. This function needs to live within the organization. Customer relationships with brands cannot be fostered via surrogate means, and then adopted into the organization. Only employees within the organization, with the proper knowledge and solutions, can effectively troubleshoot customer complaints and provide the right responses in the expected timeframe. An emerging discipline in community /customer relationship management will be critical to gauge the pulse of the community and to bridge the gap with the organization.
Context is key: Google has gone beyond just keyword and now tries to extract real meaning from what people search or speak about. Semantic algorithms go this one step further and now give marketers the tools to truly understand what people need and want. It’s here that will help predict and define areas the brand can connect and provide value to customers. The best explanation of this was from Matt Hixson of Tellagence: It’s here he writes, “Relationships are formed, often over a period of time, around a context. Think about your relationships. You may have interacted with me over time about startups or social analytics. The more we interact the more we start to trust each other about the subject. If one day I start giving you parenting advice you’re probably going to look at me like I’m nuts. You don’t know if I have kids or if I’m a good parent or bad parent. We may form a relationship within multiple contexts but our relationship and level of trust changes from topic to topic.“
Customer-centric needs to be the standard: As digital grows up, the areas mentioned above will move companies to start to shift in ways that puts the needs of the customers at the center of the organization. One-to-one marketing will a reality as data allows us to truly customize experiences for each customer. Retention will get increasingly harder as mediums and platforms rise and fall with the nomadic consumer and Facebook and Twitter become less standard platforms. Where pundits have prophesied the death of marketing, a more responsive, dynamic and collaborative organization will take its place.
A dynamic organization is a social organization: The result of these changes will inevitably move away from marketing and become embedded in all parts of the organization. A responsive, dynamic organization means that PR, HR, Product development, Inventory Management, Operations will need seamless communication channels to properly receive and disseminate information intra and outside the company to stakeholders and customers. The future CMO, in my opinion, will become more operations-minded but will rely on the collective organization to function effectively.

Marketing is no longer a discipline with best practices and tried and true techniques. As long as technology exists, and media evolves, consumers will continue to find new ways to connect and consume information. What’s clear is that these days our traditional definition of longevity is short-lived. Not only does the marketer need to morph with the times, the organization does as well.

Thinking About Creativity in Marketing

In the old days of positioning and messaging, a creative team was made up of primarily a copywriter and an art director. Together, they would create what Leo Burnett called “the marriage of words and pictures that produces the fresh, the memorable and the believable effect.” The campaign would then go on air and the job would be done. That was marketing in creativity.

However, as should be abundantly clear by now, the world has become significantly more complex. Campaigns don’t end when they go “off air” any more. They live on as consumers praise them, trash them, mash them up and discuss them online. Control, if it ever really existed, has become a dangerous illusion.

In the movie What Women Want, Mel Gibson played a creative director who gained the ability to read women’s thoughts. Armed with this new power, he became an advertising superhero, able to glean insights and compose brand messages that created meaning for the consumer. It was an idealized version of the ad business, but not far off the mark.

Historically, the ad business has revolved around positioning and messaging.

Positioning was the essence of marketing strategy and the message was what gave voice to the brand. A strong marketing message was no less than the beating heart of a successful business and brands were crafted, revered and, most of all, tightly controlled.

In the “Mad Men” days of Don Draper, messages were broadcast on TV to a public that was fairly monolithic. There were just a few channels, so you could be sure that once you were on air most of your consumers would hear what you had to say. Very little thought went into how to reach them because they were so easy to get to.

Positioning and messaging are still important and probably just as important as they always were, but they no longer enough. The marketplace has evolved and we simply need to do more.

While broadcasting messages will continue to play a central part, consumers themselves are sharing brands as well. While they can’t be controlled, they can be encouraged.

Creative directors native to digital know this instinctively. Mechanisms of interaction need to be designed to empower consumers, but care must be taken not to intrude or offend. This is still an emerging area and we still have a lot to learn.

Most of all, the new creativity will no longer revolve around one “big idea,” but hinge on the combined talents of diverse network of teams.

Without disparaging the great accomplishments of the past, or the genius of those form whom they sprung, I think it’s fair to say that the future of marketing creativity will be more rich, nuanced and immersive than anything we’ve seen before.

Secrets to Share From Lego Campaigns

What is the key for your marketing persuasion?1 We feel emotion is the most critical element for 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. Certainly Leo Burnett understands what is needed, though. Certainly something we should learn how to apply well. The Lego marketing campaigns surely have.

It is a simple concept. People don’t read ads, they read what interests them.1 So if you are going to generate marketing campaign designs, you are going to have to create 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?

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.

I have to admit. I am a big fan of the Lego company. We have done several analyses of their marketing and innovation activities.

Related: 12 Best Examples of Successful Advertisement Elements

So it is time to evaluate Lego marketing campaigns. A great competition going on within the creative toy industry. Lots of great products? Yep, no doubt. And some even better marketing and advertising campaigns.

Have you seen the recent Lego TV ad promoting the Lego movie in the UK?

If not, you should invest 3 minute now and check it out. It will prove benefitial in reviewing our ad analysis.

Let’s examine this commercial and what contributes to its strengths and weaknesses as a component of an effective marketing campaign. And its ability to influence or persuade.

Marketing or advertising, you need to create information that your customers find interesting and worth talking about and remembering. At the end of this article, please comment on whether this advertisement achieves this goal. Let this community know what you think.

Do we believe this is such an effective advertising campaign and if so, why?

Strong value propositions

If you have a product that truly discriminates you from your competition, build your messages on these. Give your customers reasons to select you. This movie ad grabs you with 4-5 short excerpts. Each excerpt having an element of music and great use of visuals. No between your eyes value proposition, but just great examples from the movie. Good strategy.

Consider the end state values

Customers and particularly the target customers are looking for entertainment using new technology, Lego products, and the application of imagination and emotion. No reason to view the movie without these and the marketing strategy certainly is addressing this end state in our opinion. The most important value points.

Be relevant to your target market

Keep in mind that one message does not fit all. It starts with knowing your target market. Here the target markets are families and young people and they are featured prominently in all of the movie components. Most of the movie components, and there are many good ones, are written for sharing with young audiences and their family members.

Grabbing attention

Interesting information, well presented, showing emotion, always holds attention, yes? Keep in mind that people don’t watch ads … they watch what interests them. Your ad messages must be interesting to your target communities. This message certainly grabs and holds attention based on emotion, superb visuals, cool Lego products, and a great sound track. Letting the visuals totally carry the messages.

Simple messages

Superb visuals and visuals so simple that you quickly grasp them and don’t lose interest. Keep in mind that pictures are far more valuable than words. And the music has a way to keep you tied in. Creating customer interest does get any simpler than this, does it? A very simple, yet entertaining design, don’t you think?

Make your ad a component

Always make your ad part of an integrated marketing campaign. There are a series of similar ads in this campaign … all geared to address the Lego movie in a similar vein to target customers. All follow the same theme … simply shine light on the value of the products and the use of great imagination. Great visuals. Entertaining music. Little talking. Definitely no selling. Taking a page from the past Lego marketing strategy.

Influence and persuasion

There is no better means of influence or persuasion than emotion. Hands down the best, in our opinion. The higher degree of emotion creates the more differentiation and makes it easier for your brand to project uniqueness and its word of mouth messages. Emotion is the secret language of the brain … Lego knows that working on emotion will improve their persuasion or influence.

This commercial focuses on emotional appeal in grand fashion, in all components of the movie excerpts. It is the secret of this commercial’s success.

Summary

Lego marketing campaigns aren’t complete without its core message, the religion of “play,” which binds this multifaceted movie together. “Play is an absolutely essential need, not only for children but also for grown-ups,” Mads Nipper, the chief marketing officer of Lego, says. Sounding more like new-age gurus than businesspeople, Nipper and other Lego executives repeat the word “play” over and over, reverently, taking a basic source of human happiness and placing it at the center of their brand.

Remember, it is not what marketing campaigns do with the consumer; it is what the consumer does after viewing the marketing.

We believe the Lego marketing strategy is a winner. Simple, yet interesting. Not selling, but focus on play. What do you think?

Does this commercial persuade you?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?

Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

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 how reasonable we will be.

More reading on marketing and advertising from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Guinness Marketing Campaign Shows Their Creativity

Secrets to Share on Lego’s Marketing Campaigns

12 Lessons from Ben and Jerry’s Marketing Strategies

Guinness Marketing Campaigns Show Their Creativity

Have you noticed that the world of marketing is changing? And rapidly. Traditional media vehicles are losing effectiveness as people communicate in new and different ways. Mass audiences are fragmenting into small segments. Developing a point of difference is harder than ever. This Guinness marketing campaign demonstrates that Guinness marketing has certainly noticed.

Guinness marketing campaign shows selling is not marketing.

Feelings have a critical role in the way customers are influenced.

-David Freemantle

And Guinness marketing has adapted and come up with some cool new marketing ideas. This new ad from Guinness proves that beer commercials can be so much more than guys and bars.

“Empty Chair” tells the story of a bartender who leaves a pint of Guinness at an empty table every night amongst birthday celebrations and sports team’s victories. No one sits at the table, and the woman shoots a dirty look to anyone she catches eyeing one of the empty chairs.

Related: Would This Galaxy S5 Marketing Video Persuade You?

Without fail, the frosted glass is there each and every night. It’s a powerful image that serves as a sign of hope for the bartender. But we aren’t exactly sure who the beer is for until the very end. Everything comes together when a soldier finally returns home to claim his Guinness.

The spot finishes with the tagline “The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character.”

Guinness’s marketing story based on emotion has flipped traditional beer advertising on its head by getting rid of the template and telling a story – a real emotional story – that connects with people. The responses were overwhelmingly positive … customers and particularly the target customers are looking for meaningful stories. The emotion in this marketing strategy certainly is addressing this end state in our opinion.

This Guinness “Empty Chair” commercial salutes the character of a community as they honor one of their own who is out of sight, but not out of mind. They remind us that a true test of character is what you do when no one’s looking.

The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character. Guinness proudly raises a glass to those who are #MadeOfMore.

Guinness has made the message as clean and simple as possible. You cannot over achieve on the simplicity of the message. A message that the reader will quickly grasp and fully appreciate. Keep in mind that pictures are far more valuable than words. Guinness certainly gets it and tells an interesting story as it weaves the message together.

Many business leaders are uncertain about the future. What will great marketing look like in the years ahead? Guinness’ spot shows the way.

The spot works in many ways.

First, it breaks through the clutter. It is visually arresting, surprising and beautiful. After watching it once I wanted to watch it again. There is no better means of influence or the power of persuasion than emotion. Hands down the best, in our opinion. And enhanced with a great dose of curiosity.

Experiences that trigger our emotions are saved and consolidated in lasting memory because the emotions generated by the experiences signal our brains that the experiences are important to remember.

Second, it has solid branding; it is clear that this is for Guinness and the brand’s personality.

Third, it communicates a benefit. The entire spot revolves around the Guinness commitment to people. It is very clear that Guinness has something special and remarkable that they want to share.

The ad has generated an astonishing amount of buzz and attention. It is engaging, well branded and focused.

The ad was serious and emotional. It is like they left a note that says:

… there will be a seat left open, a light left on, a favorite dinner waiting, a warm bed made…because in your home, in our hearts, you’ve been missed. You’ve been needed, you’ve been cried for, prayed for. You are the reason we push on.

It touches deep emotions about loss and longing. And the spot worked to build the brand; it made people feel proud of Guinness and its values.

Stories and emotion are the future of great marketing, aren’t they?

Summary

So remember this:

It is not what advertising does with the consumer; it is what the consumer does after digesting the advertisement. After looking over these commercials … how much have you learned?