In the battle for consumers attention, brands should aim for creating marketing messages that are sticky and focus on offering remarkable experiences which will add value to consumers so they can keep coming back.
The old style of traditional marketing is all about shouting your message at your potential customers in the most efficient way, using the best platforms to reach out to your target audience more effectively. However, the whole essence of the marketing model today is that it should provide consumers with value. It is all about how you engage with your audience and sustain their attention over a period of time, making your message ‘sticky’ and building credibility and trust to ensure the best ‘return on engagement’.
As the customer experience becomes more important, companies are required to offer consumers progressive levels of convenience, speed and support, resulting in a rise in the level of consumers expectations. Grant Leboff, who coined the term ‘Sticky Marketing’, outlines a new model of customer engagement that requires companies to focus on “what your marketing can do for your customer, rather than what your marketing can do for your brand”. Creating a ‘sticky’ message means that you are gaining consumers attention and helping to keep them engaged over a longer term. But what really makes a message stick?
With the proliferation of marketing messages being bombarded at consumers through different platforms, marketers are required to gain real insight on how consumers are most likely to take notice and remember brands. Every person has a unique set of individual filters through which they experience and view the world. This of course includes the marketing messages directed at us. Mapping the consumer journey becomes critical if you want to get consumers attention and create a positive impact on your brand.
Hence, as products and services become increasingly similar, consumers are less concerned with the quality and features. With the myriad of choices available in the market today, consumers are obliged to choose the brands that deliver what they expect. The new ‘Return of Engagement’ model, which McKinsey&Co also discussed in their study about The new rules of consumer engagement, makes the perfect sense as marketers should aim to make their audience return by offering them a good experience as opposed to focusing on simply attracting consumers attention to their brand.
Delivery of Experiences
In today’s marketing arena, brands are required to work harder than ever to provide the right information and product experiences that will influence consumers buying decision. A great marketing message that sticks should be something that people can connect to at all possible customer touchpoints.
However, developing a compelling brand experience in which different touchpoints interconnect requires innovation and creativity. These elements demand strong attention to detail if you want to foster positive experiences across all channels and attract consumers to your brand.
Consumers are becoming ever more active in engaging in brand messaging across their channels of relevance, especially if it is a fun and enjoyable experience. The most powerful way to create a remarkable experience with your brand is to tap directly into a consumer’s emotions and show them support at every stage of their interaction with your brand.
Experiential marketing is the perfect mechanism to create the Bubble Gum Effect for your brand by offering consumers a real experience with your brand, which will engage their senses and emotions whilst providing information and support. Social media has also added a new dimension in terms of how consumers acquire and digest information, used as foremost to enrich consumer interactions. The challenge for brands lies in identifying the best ways to engage and disseminate value across multiple channels and devices in order to win the consumer purchase choice and ensure they keep coming back .
Here are some ways you can make your message stick and create the Bubble Gum Effect for your brand:
1. Offer value – Evoke consumers emotions by tapping into what they can achieve with your brand. What emotions your consumers want to feel? How can you make it real? It should be all linked to how your brand can solve their problems and add value to their lives.
2. Be available – Engage with your consumers in a dialogue. The way you disseminate your message and how quickly you respond to their enquiries will develop trust and keep them engaged.
3. Make it interesting – Wow your consumers with a visual image and challenge them to see things form a different perspective. People will remember your message better if you surprise them with a personal experience.
4. Focus on consumers needs – Make sure you deliver on your promises so you stay on top of people’s mind and earn their appreciation and support.
Hotcow is a multi-award winning brand engagement agency specialising in experiential marketing. Our mission is simple: to help brands understand the power of “experience-based marketing” and offer expertise in how to develop, plan and execute campaigns in the right way to get the right results.