You might think that marketing is something that is already well-established and isn’t going to change a great deal in the future, but that’s not how it works. Communication is something that is always evolving, and companies are changing with it. Firms are still going to experiment with new concepts and try new things to get inside their customers’ heads and sell more products.
Getting to that point, however, can be a challenge. For mainstream firms, knowing which lessons to draw from companies that broke marketing conventions is difficult. You want to take risks, but you don’t want it to backfire.
So what do we know so far? What practical lessons can we learn from the most successful businesses that aren’t going to crater your brand?
While some of the old brass still focus on traditional sale tactics, most companies now concentrate on conversations to shift their products. Just glance at what is happening on social media. Firms are no longer spamming their audience with banner ads. Instead, they’re communicating with them in a back-and-forth fashion, sometimes one-on-one.
Conversations tend to be more effective because they are an exchange of value. Unlike advertising, you have an opportunity to provide assistance to your customers and remedy their needs, instead of passively sitting them in front of an ad.
Companies that do the same as everyone else never differentiate themselves and take off how they hope. Instead, they remain stuck in the mire, never really gaining the traction they hoped for when they first set up.
Controversial businesses, however, give themselves an edge. They’re not trying to please everyone. Instead, they’re using their edginess to grab market share - a particular audience who will agree with their message.
CBD advertising company, C-Word Marketing, knows a lot about the controversy in advertising, given the products that it promotes. But, it says, many firms have no choice. If they want to get ahead, they have to take PR risks.
Marketing gurus have been touting the benefits of pushing your products and services through multiple channels for a long time. Companies should be using social media, PPC, SEO, TV, radio, podcasts, and their websites, to name just a few.
The problem with these approaches is that they don’t communicate with each other. A customer could talk to a chatbot on social media and then have to explain themselves again when they call customer service. It creates a disjointed experience and leads to frustration.
Smart companies, therefore, began using so-called “omnichannel” approaches a long time ago. Here they combine information gleaned from each customer touchpoint so that it is available to the next. So, in the above example, the phone operator would already have details of the customer’s text chat.
Breaking marketing conventions might seem risky - and it is. But it can also lead to substantial rewards. You don’t have to do things in the same way as the rest of the industry.
Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay