Whether you like it or not, the frustration of thousands of competitors on the internet is real. Although you cannot stop your competitor, you can gain the upper hand by feeding your potential audience things that are emotionally relevant to them, while giving them the best information about your product. Just imagine this scenario. You’re browsing for a new item on the internet and you have the intent to purchase such a product. You click on the description and there is barely any useful information, in fact, all it states are the pricing and the color options available. You will dismiss that vendor and look for another. The truth is, many business owners neglect their marketing strategy and we are here to help you get a head start! Before embarking on any marketing strategy, be sure that these five points are in your strategical toolkit to help you maximise your marketing.Â
- Cultural and generational Sensitivity
Before reaching out to your target audience, you should know about their culture. If you think that your marketing efforts are friendly towards all cultures, think again. For example, just this year, Nivea’s “white is purity” ad was seen to promote white supremacy. It was intended to advertise Nivea’s “ Invisible for Black and white” deodorant. It showed the back of a woman’s head enshrouded with thick and Long wavy brunette hair cascading down her back with the slogan “ WHITE IS PURITY” in caps. In cultural sensitivity, we need to be mindful that there is no “right vs wrong” or “mine is a better approach” mindset. In the internet culture today, generational and interest group segregation is more prevalent than ever. With generations spread across converging social media platforms, there will be clashes. Our advice? Don’t pull a Lady Gaga meat dress until people trust your brand enough.Â
- Communication Lingo
PR nightmares are the last thing you want greeting you early in the morning. According to this article by spottrender, you can prevent PR nightmares due to unintentional messages that may be emotionally triggering. For example, in 2015, Starbucks had its own nightmare with its “race together” campaign which was in response to a series of police shootings. It was slammed as a cheap marketing ploy when all they did was to place stickers on their cups to signal their support. One method is to conduct a quick survey with a sample group of existing or potential customers. This is the validation phase. A potential trigger can be identified in areas of low likeability, bad brand opinion and a high agreement on the scale of offensiveness of the overall ad.
- Using video animation for higher brand awareness and recall
The attention span of the average adult has decreased to 8 seconds. If something seems vaguely boring, we scroll past it. How can you tap into the tier split second of your audience’s attention? Create a dramatic hook for your audience to latch on. In a Nielsen survey conducted on Facebook on their video content ad, viewers were already recalling ads they have never watched. Even at less than 10 seconds of viewership, there was already purchase intent. Not surprisingly, the more captivating videos you churn out, the longer the appropriate audience would click and watch and increases lead generation and purchase intent.
- Know your target audience
Thankfully for social media campaigns that are semi-automated, audience targeting and insights have never been easier to manage, tweak and pinpoint to a micro level. According to Facebook for Business, the first step to understanding your niche market is to be able to build a comprehensive list of the traits of your customer avatar. The clearer the image of the customer avatar you have, the clearer your measurements will be. The easier it would be for you to tweak your marketing efforts.
- Never forget the Rule of Seven
In marketing, Rule of Seven is a concept that states that a prospect needs to be in contact with an advertiser’s marketing message at least seven times before they trust the brand enough to actively seek out, use or buy that product or service. It’s a marketing maxim developed by the movie industry in the 1930s.(1) Having a clear roadmap for your marketing strategy increases your chances of achieving these seven touch points. Something that is becoming increasingly difficult to capture. Not all touches are created equal. Imagine the game of broken telephone, only that the original message must be engaging enough to start the game. What message would you want your audience to share down their grapevine? From these five points, the bottom line for marketing is summarized aptly in this quote by Dr. Markus Giseler of Big Design Lab.
“Start developing a more sociologically oriented understanding of how cultures change and how new energies can be captured and turned into economic capital.”
Our last piece of advice: Never compromise your corporate morals and human decency in creating an effective ad. Information across the internet is easy to come by. How will you mold your brand into a trustworthy authority? Gram is a Singaporean Animation Company that creates animation videos to increase sales and demand. They specialize in explainer videos to create an immersive experience for your audience. For more information, visit their website at https://gramvideos.com.
