Think about the shareability of the ad. Is this worth the time and effort for the public to film it, and share it? Go there, and you will get a massive ROI on a relatively small stunt, rather than plowing hundreds of thousands into online buys and promoted content.
4. Make Every Word Count
It’s said that only 28 percent of the words written in any online article or advertisement are actually read by the consumer. Or in other words, 72 percent of everything you write will be completely ignored. You must carefully consider every word in your advertisements. Is each word working hard enough? Will five do instead of fifteen? French mathematician Blaise Pascal was the first of many smart people to concede that being concise is not easy. Something he deftly summed up when he said, “I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.” In other words, getting to the point is not easy. But these days, it’s more essential than ever before.
5. Grab Their Attention Quickly… and Keep It
As a society, our attention span is getting shorter every year. The average attention span of a person in 2000 was 12 seconds; in 2015, it had gone down to 8.25 seconds. Keep in mind, that’s shorter than the 9-second attention span of a goldfish.
Now, it’s easy to say the title of this section, but much harder to do in practice. Everyone is screaming for attention. The clutter is as worse as it has ever been, and will only get worse. So, the only way to stand out is to be genuinely different. However, that’s not enough. You also have to be different with meaning. It has to relate to whatever you’re selling, or you’re back to the old “FREE SEX — Now we’ve got your attention, let’s talk about insurance.”
Once you have done almost the impossible and hooked a consumer, you have to keep them on the line. That means combining several strategies in this piece. Make every word count. Make the content relevant. Make it easy to scan, and absorb the main points. Make it easy for them to make the next move.
6. Stop With Social Media Bombardment
Enough is enough, and consumers are voting with their clicks. Facebook spits out promoted content regularly, and the reaction of 90 percent of people viewing it is to minimize it, or find ways to eliminate it altogether. As a consumer yourself, you should know this all too well. How many times have you seen an ad appear time after time on your social feed? So much, in fact, that you are taken from having no opinion on the brand, to absolutely hating it.
Now, advertising and marketing media buys used to concentrate on two main things — reach, and frequency. Reach is still vital, but frequency… that’s a much more complicated issue. If you hit people over the head with the same message over and over and over, and they are not responding, you’re doing damage to your brand.
But, if your message evolves, and finds ways to enhance the consumer’s life in some way (be it comedy, information, music, entertainment, or advice) then your frequency will be welcomed, and will start to work. You have the chance to do this with your brand’s own social pages, as well as newsletters and websites that are constantly updated with relevant content. Be smart about frequency, and it will pay off.
7. Take Full Advantage of Personalization
You may well have used personalization in the past, but not to the extent with which it is now being offered. When direct mail first started to use personalization, it was crude and unconvincing. “Dear Mr. Smith,” or the more conversational “Hi John” openings didn’t convince anyone. This was clearly a plug-and-play letter, and the meat of the content was about as personal and inviting as a used car salesman’s pitch.
Times have changed. The Internet, combined with other date collection methods, mean businesses now have access to a massive amount of information about individual consumers. It’s not just a name, address, and phone number, but favorite holiday spots, make of car, most visited websites, and even brand of underwear. The data mine is enormous. If you use it wisely, you can tee up messages that really connect with consumers in a way they never thought possible. There is, of course, a fine line between knowing them well, and too well. If the consumer feels like their privacy has been invaded, you go from being in touch with their needs, to downright intrusive. So, make sure your personalized campaigns don’t get so personal they feel violated.
8. Augmented Reality Will Continue to Grow
If you don’t already know about it, augmented reality is a fast growing part of the advertising, marketing, and PR mix. In a nutshell, this tactic superimposes a CGI world over the real world, through the use of modern technology in smart phones, tablets, and other devices. The Pokemon GO phenomenon brought augmented reality to the mainstream last year, and it is only going to get bigger.
How can you use it? Well, there are so many ways to dive in. For instance, if you’re marketing a chain of coffee shops, you can superimpose their locations on a live street view taken through a phone’s camera. You could create virtual treasure hunts, or reveal hidden messages in billboards, websites, and magazines. In fact, if you can think of a way to bring an impossible world to life, you can probably do it with AR. The one drawback is that the user has to download an app to experience it, and that can be a big barrier to entry. Just make sure your content it worth the installation.
That’s the outlook for 2017, based on the last few months of 2016, and the first two months of the year. Jump on these trends now, before they go off the boil.