Nobody likes being “sold” to. I remember when I was a kid and telemarketers would call the house. These were the days before “no-call” lists and when actual human beings called to sell products. As soon as my mom recognized the caller was trying to sell her something, her response was the same: “No thank you, I’m not interested” and she promptly hung up the phone.
The same thing happened to folks at malls hawking their wares or to door-to-door solicitors. They could have been offering a million dollar gift with no-strings attached, but their message was always cut off with a polite, “No thank you. I’m not interested.”
These organizations paid actual money to have their messages dispersed and were almost universally greeted with dismissal before even getting a chance to speak. Why? They were intruding.
My mom had to get up from what she was doing to answer the phone. She didn’t ask for the call. She was bothered. Same with the door-to-door guy who knocked. The experience at the mall was similar, too. She was shopping, on a mission to look in the stores she wanted to go into. When people outside of those stores tried to intrude on her experience, she was unreceptive.
And not only did those organizations not make a sale, they created a sour taste associated with their brand. They created an unpleasant experience for the consumer. They didn’t invite her to a pleasant engagement; they busted down the door and demanded she pay attention.
I ask you, does that make sense for your brand?
The same thing is happening today, but instead of annoying telemarketers and mall hawkers, the intrusions come on the internet in the form of auto-play videos and pop-up ads. Not surprisingly, it’s estimated that 615 million devices have some kind of ad blocking software installed, up 30% in 2016. It’s the 21st century version of “No thank you. I’m not interested.”
Even traditional ad platforms like radio and television are now considered intrusive now that we have the technology to allow us to skip through advertising. Consumers can pay extra for steaming services like Hulu and Spotify that provide “commercial free” content.
Think about that: consumers will actually pay good money to avoid having brands intrude on their experiences. Should your brand be sinking money into intrusive ads that don’t deliver and foster that kind of negative interaction with the customer?
Except for the Super Bowl, everyone is looking for a way around seeing ads.
So what does that mean for your small business or nonprofit? How do you get your message in front of people without irritating them? Buy a Super Bowl ad with that extra couple million you have in your couch cushions?
Content Marketing: An invitation to engage your brand
Content marketing is the perfect “win-win” solution for both brands and consumers. Good content invites the customer to engage with something useful. After interacting with quality content, the user feels “gifted” not intruded upon or “sold.”
With effective content marketing, your brand isn’t just pushing a product or service, you’re supplying something valuable to your customer, some relief to a pain point…all free of charge! (And oh, by the way, your product or service offers long-term relief, too. It’s all right there on your website.)
Let Your Customer Call the Shots
I mentioned the mall experience earlier. One of the things that made malls so successful is they put the shopper in charge. They created a market experience that allowed the shopper to pick and choose where they wanted to go. They could browse or buy, completely up to them. Whether it was the guy who needed one last-minute Christmas gift and needed to “get in and get out” or those like my mom who wanted to spend the day there looking more than buying, the customer called the shots. Except for those hawkers I mentioned, who interrupted the experience and got a “No thank you. I’m not interested.”
The internet market is a lot like that, too. If your brand is on the internet, customers will find you, given the right content that serves as a kind of “store-front” for your brand. They’ll come to your website and shop around. They might buy. They might not. But at the end of the day, if you’ve provided them with a pleasant experience and shown them that your “store” is something valuable, they’ll be back. Purchase or not, you’ve created a customer, one that is now sympathetic to and engaged with your brand. That’s the goal.
Knuckleball Digital exists to help small businesses and nonprofits create positive engagements with their customers. Hopefully, you found something valuable in this piece. If you did and you own a small business or run a nonprofit, let’s talk. If you don’t, share this with somebody you know who does.
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