As a customer, all I want to know is "what can it do for me?"
Marketing any product or service has become so easy in the current day and age with the help of numerous platforms Print, TV, Telemarketing, Online etc and especially with the help of Online Marketing platforms i.e. Social Media, Email, Search Engine (SEO) and Mobile Marketing platforms, you might have seen a toothpaste advertisement 5 times while travelling to work in a train or a bus.
No doubt, the reach of your product or service is tremendous and the hype that you wanted to achieve on different platforms has been accomplished in a successful manner but the marketing campaign doesn’t translate into sales revenue as expected, Why? What was missed? Why didn’t people buy the product or service?
I am sure you would have seen different organisations asking these questions to themselves after a huge and successful marketing campaign. There can be several answers to these questions but what I have generally seen is a big disconnect between the product or service being offered with the customer, as we love the product or service marketing campaign but at the end of the day...
What’s in it for me?
People around the world have changed and become a lot more complex in the 21st century than what they used to be before. The ever changing and evolving element in human psychology has never been so rapid than the earlier generations. We are making different choices, different decisions for ourselves everyday. These choices and decisions are relevant to even our day to day routines. Your 7 days in a week are all different from each other, whether it concerns your work life or your personal life. All in all, in today’s world, nothing is constant in our lives. People are constantly changing i.e. their needs, requirements, desires, strengths, weaknesses e.t.c. are also changing. That is why the campaign numbers are achieved, the revenues from the campaign might be high as well but for a short span of time, the concept of brand loyalty has decreased considerably over this digital marketing era as customers are not able to connect to the product the way they used to, the attachment is missing or what we call in our marketing term, the SWEET SPOT is being missed by different companies out there.
Why is this happening? Why are customers not staying connected to a brand / product / service for a longer period? Why is there an overall decline in brand loyalty ratings globally?
There can be multiple factors behind this but as per my understanding and experience, the marketing campaigns in the current era are becoming so much tech savvy and hyperactive that its missing the core ingredient of customer needs & requirements. In the earlier years, the marketing campaign was all about how can this product / service help you or what it can do for you but in the current era, the marketing campaigns are all about, how many platforms are being used to promote it? How many likes / hits it will receive? What will be campaign rating be on different platforms? How it can become the talk of the town? etc so yes, most of these campaigns will have the coverage but will they have the SWEET SPOT connection with the targeted segment of customers? Not sure...
Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong believer in the current marketing channels and platforms as the new era of digital media has surely given a lot of small and mid-size organisations the reach to market / promote their products or services anywhere and everywhere. This does even out the odds for all companies when it comes to marketing but then what’s the differentiating factor(s) when it comes to a successful or unsuccessful marketing campaign?
As per my observation and analysis, the organisations (no matter small, medium or big) that have utilised the best of both worlds were able to achieve better and higher success ratios in their marketing campaigns than the companies that relied on only one of the platforms or channels to market their products or services.
If the new and creative Digital Marketing technologies provide companies the reach, innovation and creativity, the traditional marketing methodologies provides higher levels of customer engagement, brand loyalty and very importantly customer satisfaction. The traditional marketing methodologies e.g. face to face, telemarketing e.t.c do have a higher probability of getting answers to the customers question "What’s in it for me?" than the innovative and creative Digital Marketing techniques. Also, another additional benefit of traditional marketing methodologies is the accuracy and reliability of data i.e. data collected from the customers through face to face as well as telephone interactions has more emotions / feelings as well as candidness attached to it than the data collected from digital marketing platforms. With reference to bringing human psychology into the equation, what people write, answer or see on computers or mobile phones is different from what they say, respond or interpret during a face to face or telephone conversation. In most cases, the involvement is better in the later than the former.
All in all, a suitable combination of both methodologies can bring out the best results for any organisation out there. Mixing the important ingredients of creativity & innovation of the new digital era with the engagement & emotional aspects of traditional era is bound to serve you a complete, successful and importantly a long-term marketing campaign.
The future is nothing but a mixture of your past learnings and your present successes!
For information on how we can help you reach the sweet spot, get in touch!
Tipu Sultan
Relationship Manager
Tipu's role sees him communicating directly with clients ensuring optimal campaign delivery. Tipu is passionate about customer behaviour, understanding their needs and requirements, and explore and implement new and innovative customer engagement ideas to provide the best possible service.
