Reaching Your Audience Has Never Been Easier. Engaging Them Is Harder Than Ever.

The marketing communications game has changed. On the one hand, we have more audience touchpoints to capitalize on. Yet, on the other, messaging that was once considered innovative and memorable is now generic and ignored. Some brands flourish in this newly connected world, while others struggle to find their footing. Why, you ask? Here’s my take.??

Content is Being Consumed at Record Paces?

Thanks to award-winning programming, highly addictive entertainment apps, and multi-screen viewing, we’re exposed to a mind-numbing amount of daily content. The amount of online video alone watched by the average adult has almost doubled since 2018 – totalling a whopping 18 hours per week. And embedded in every one of these hours is an increasing number of advertisements. It’s estimated that most North Americans are exposed to anywhere between 4,000 to 10,000 ads per day. Hard to imagine because we’ve become so accustomed to it, but it’s true… and it’s impacting our ability to absorb everything we see and hear.??

The takeaway?

• Easier to Reach: More audience touchpoints provide us as marketers with more ways to get in front of our audience more often.?
• Harder to Engage: Capturing and holding consumers' attention is increasingly challenging in our world of extreme abundance and availability. Ad fatigue is real, requiring marketers to constantly reinvent creativity and build a real connection to spike interest. The best advertising shouldn’t feel like advertising in the sense that it should provide some higher-order value to the viewer.??

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The Power Shift Continues?

Over the last few years, we have seen a major shift in consumer power and preferences, forcing brands to evolve communications. This shift has been fueled by the introduction of social/entertainment platforms (ex. TikTok, Twitch) – giving people around the world a stage to express themselves and entertain their communities. What was once a one-way street of controlled, persuasive communications is now a two-way highway of content co-creation. And with TikTok now having over 1 billion users and being the most downloaded app for three years in a row, this reinforces the belief that there are no signs of this changing any time soon.

The takeaway?

• Easier to Reach: Content is king. And with the rise of content creators, it’s easier, quicker, and cheaper than ever to create quality content.???
• Harder to Engage: With user-generated content (UGC) comes a loss of control over the brand voice. If not protected, this possible fracture in communications can weaken consumer perceptions and ultimately lower audience engagement.??

Trust Is Earned?

“Transparency” and “Authenticity” are two words that are thrown around more times than you can count in the marketing world, and for good reason. Consumers today no longer respond to figures who’ve made their name purely from Instagram “likes”; instead, they respond to people who have a demonstrated cultural influence within a respective industry. Celebrities, athletes, politicians, etc. used to be the endorsers of choice, but nowadays, brands are turning to real people who have deep roots in the community and have an organic story to tell.??

The takeaway?

• Easier to Reach: Influence can now be attained without the need of large marketing budgets and/or market expertise. This opens opportunities for many brands and helps smaller companies punch above their weight class.??
• Harder to Engage: Authenticity is tough to achieve, and community takes a long time and legions of believers to build. Brands need to seek out influencers/ambassadors who genuinely believe in the brand and its purpose if they’re going to stand a chance of connecting with the community.??

How Does a Brand Excel in Our Changing Landscape??

It’s not enough to reach your audience now; you need to engage and connect with them in new, more authentic ways.? Because when you do, the payoff is huge. An engaged audience is one of the most valuable things that a brand can have. A perfect example of this was in the news recently with the headline “Penn Gaming buys Barstool for $450M”. Why would a casino company pay $450M for an online publisher when it only generated $100M in revenue? The answer: its audience! Penn Gaming understands that an army of loyal fans provides an infinite number of future possibilities for the brand.??

So, as marketers, we need to find innovative ways of connecting with our audience and turning customers into fans. By doing so, we can tap the impressive influence of our advocates and capitalize on our realized reach. At Elemental – the Human Connections Agency, we take pride in building bridges between brands and their audiences because we know that real relationships are what form lasting loyalty.??

Sources:?

1. Content Marketing Trends 2022. HubSpot. 2022.??
2. Brand Success in a Digital World. Forbes. 2022.??
3. Important TikTok Stats Marketers Need to Know. Hootsuite. 2022.?
4. Strategy&, Streetwear Impact Report, 2019.?
5. Deal with Penn Gaming is Ultimate Win-Win. Forbes. 2022.?