What would be of your marketing if tomorrow you would be left without behavioural information, pixels, tracking, preferences, and so on?
Just a reminder that the tools you use today to deliver your message are just tools. Much more important is what’s behind that: what you stand for, what your customers stand for, what your products stand for. Once you have that clear, the rest will come no matter what.
I am shopping for a new car, and only today I spent a couple of hours looking for a good option for my family and myself.
With all the content and ads we are exposed to nowadays, I find it puzzling that there is no single space on the internet where I can go, say what I am looking for and get a number of customised (i.e., based on the needs and wants I would state) offers from different dealers.
We have been sold the idea of behavioural advertising (i.e., ads based on where I have been and what I have done on the internet) and of contextual advertising (i.e., ads based on where I am on the internet). Businesses got lazy, and forgot about the arts of asking and (really) listening.
Of course, when you ask and listen, there are two things happening that possibly get businesses (and marketing departments) into troubles.
First of all, you have to deliver. On-demand advertising would mean that when the customer expresses their needs and wants, you need to have a single matching offer to meet those (rather than having a range of offers that may bend customer’s needs and wants).
Second, you have to be the best. While many different businesses can ran ads on the same topic and find solace in some more or less meaningless metrics (reach, impressions, engagement, click-throughs, conversions, and so on), on-demand advertising would have one winner only. The one who gets the deal.
ABC is the trend-setting original German working glove, packed with innovative state-of-the-art technologies and super features.
Ad in airline magazine
ABC working gloves are the only one in the world to be equipped with the new and revolutionary anti-penetration material PATENTIX® – a high-tech, ultra-strong and lightweight textile felt. The material was originally developed in the United States as part of a special project for the US elite soldiers, Navy Seals, who would use bulletproof vests that were particularly lightweight and flexible.
The integrated PATENTIX® safety layer in the XYZ32 model shown, weighs only 32 grams and is thus 55% lighter compared to other textile anti-penetration layers used in working gloves. Finally a working glove without side effects! See, feel and try ABC at selected stores http://www.abc.com
It can be argued that the ad is not for me. That I do not belong to the target audience, as I am not a person who uses working gloves in the workplace. It can also be that people using working gloves in the workplace, or people buying working gloves to be used in the workplace, will immediately get the benefits of a working glove without side effects, and will then rush to the website and the selected stores to buy it.
And yet, there is a better way to make our audience understand what we stand for, what our product stands for. While most brands out there use the name of their products, the alphanumeric codes and acronyms of their models, the meaningless label of a registered trademark, and an endless list of pointless features, we could start by saying what all of it means to those who will have to chose between our product and all of the alternatives, and then use it day in and day out.
Sure, it takes a lot more effort. But if all we talk about is ourselves, who will listen?
P.S.: I have replaced the parts that could more directly identify the brand in the ad. Those parts are underlined.
An important reminder by Bernadette Jiwa.
If you want to be listened, begin with listening.
If you want to be heard, begin with hearing.
If you want to lead, begin with opening to the people you want to lead.
If you want to sell something, begin with understanding the people you want to sell to.
It is that easy.
Content marketing cannot just be an excuse to collect an email address.
I give you my contact because I am interested in one piece of your content. You follow up to ask if I enjoyed it, and then you start sending out regular emails I have not asked for, on topics that barely touch on my initial interest, widening the range as time goes by. And the bottom line of each of these communication is the exhortation: “buy!”.
This is not how it’s supposed to work. This is not how it’s supposed to be effective.
It’s not, because you are breaking an early relationship based on trust. I have trusted you with my contact, and you have trusted me with your piece of content. And then, what? How would you treat a human being in a face-to-face interaction, after the initial exchange of trust?
Perhaps, asking them what their interests are. Sending them something similar to what made them give you trust, and carefully see if it works. Answering their questions if they have any. Politely enquiring on what can be done to improve the relationship.
And at some point, draw the line and quit.
There must be a moment, a time, when you’ve tried enough. A moment when it’s clear it was just a temporary exchange more than a real interest. A time when sending one additional email is more damaging than not sending it.
In a world in which everything is free (only in monetary terms), we are not used to design the “quit” stage. And yet, one of the most remarkable marketing email I remember is the one of a company who did.
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