Is your brand a Wordle

Yo!

Yes, I’m one of the 300,000 people in the world who look forward to solving this little puzzle. To quote the insta generation, it’s so satisfying:) Created by Josh Wardle it was bought by the New York Times.?

Why did Wordle become a habit??

What’s the best predictor of whether a service or brand becomes a habit or falls by the wayside?

Research?says that five factors stand out:?

1. convenience

2. time-saving

3. cost-effectiveness

4. enjoyment

5. personal reward

Netflix is the second thing we set up in a hotel or serviced apartment.(The first is wifi.) Everything else is later.?Uber is the first stop for travelling and ordering food. I read content on Magzter regardless of where I am.?

Is employment a habit?

I conducted a brand workshop for the HR team of a Pharma company this week. Staying employed is a habit too, hopefully a good one.?We choose to do what we do because it’s convenient, enjoyable and rewarding. The biggest challenge with marketing an experience, however, is to deliver the “trial”.

A framework for "addiction"

How do we know that Wordle will be fun unless we try it? And if the first one is a flop try it a few more times till we’re hooked?

That’s where the ABCD model comes in. In this we describe the product or service in terms of the Added Value it delivers (maximum), the Behavioral Change (minimise) required to use it, Complexity (as simple as possible is best) and Diffusion (how will it spread itself).(If you want to learn more about ABCD there’s a chapter in my book,?Marketing Without Money, hint! Hint!)

In the case of Wordle it spread because there was an easy way to share your success in terms of a little grid with the letters masked.

Do you have a taster

So back to employer branding.?Some schools offer “trial days” before you sign up. Some companies offer internships so that jobseekers can experience the organization.

But if that’s not possible, how do you get your current happy employees to spread the word? Like Wordle, you have to make it easy for them to share what’s awesome for them - is it the easy (or no) commute? The enjoyable work? The rewards they receive?

ShareForward

If you have sufficient reviews on Glassdoor you can see directly what people like about your organization. If not look at reviews for similar organizations. Companies focus on “benefits” but often that’s a hygiene factor with “well organised”,“predictable work hours” being more important to the positive experience.?It’s also about framing for your target audience - a sabbatical sounds intimidating, but family study leave sounds like something all parents could use during certain milestones.?All attributes are not equal - for example, we may judge a phone by its camera rather than the call quality. (Read about?why your marketing sucks.)

Many companies direct their marketing activities to the important job of finding and retaining customers.?But the current shortage of talent means that some of that energy must be focused towards attracting and retaining this most precious resource.

(As a parting note, companies seem to tolerate a level of negativity in their Glassdoor feedback that they would never do in their user forums.)

I hope you enjoyed the read. Me, I’m off to do the daily Octordle.