Cutting through the Clutter
One of the biggest challenges marketers face is NOISE! Not just the noise your competitors are making but the cacophony everyone is making to your audience group looking for a slice of their wallet.
And nowadays, while it seems that this should have got easier, we have so much choice, where and how do you spend your money wisely? From a consumers point of view, it feels like the noise is everywhere - nothing worse than getting an ads for bikinis after you've already bought one and a thousand clicks later and you're still not unsubscribed. How do you break through the clutter? Do you beat them over the head with ad-after-ad-after-ad-after-ad across all possible offline/online touch points? Do you adopt the Seth Godin Purple Cow approach? Do you spend gazillions making crazy ads? Buy prime time TV? Make one relevant then tons of irrelevant videos? Continue to create content that eventually no one reads? And my absolute worst .. making inanimate objects talk because its a new idea?
I believe it starts with 3 things:
1. Really really giving a damn about really really understanding your customers! Make no assumptions. I've sat in many boardrooms over the last 10 years and been surprised and disappointed about the general sweeps made about key audience groups. So do the work. Get out and understand their world, and why they should part with their money to buy your service or product.
2. Get to the point! Years ago when I worked with the guys at Bates Wells, we used to Onion to get to the essence of a clients offering. That single minded thing. Very hard to get to. But the sweetness of getting there allowed all sales and marketing material that followed to be super focused. Keep it short. Keep it brilliant.
3. Have courage to be bold! Years of advertising have taught me that if you are in a same-same category e.g. realtor, lawyers, healthcare, doctors, accountants, plastic surgeons, food, technology, banking, .. ok, almost every industry etc. you better have the courage to stick your neck out or you will definitely die among the clutter. I remember a drugs company asking us to create another same old same old white coat ad for their very boring, 5th market entrant beta blocker drug. Small budget, but of course they wanted big results. We convinced them to do a comic! Shock. Horror. But they had courage. And it did the job beautifully with over 300% growth in year one! Why? It cut through the clutter.
Be Bold, simple, succinct.