'Jaws' Contains An Amazing Message For Marketers
Anytime I can infuse, imbue and inculcate it into any digital marketing, advertising or branding topic, rest assured I will.
So listen up brand managers, brand marketers and all those in the digital marketing and all other marketing realms.
And see just what Jaws, brand managers and consumers have in common.
The year was 1987.
While many of us were trying to Walk Like An Egyptian, one among us was seeking revenge. Revenge on a creature so feared, so terrifying as to cause mass exodus from both a movie theater AND an ocean at the same time.
Why was this one person seeking revenge on such a vile beast?
Because this time... it was personal.
And much like Ellen Brody before them, marketers and advertisers need to realize that to defeat their beast, as it were, they need to get personal - for when a brand establishes a personal affinity and delivers a personalized experience to a consumer, all is well in the world.
The findings of a recent survey from Responsys (full disclosure: my employer) and Ipsos bear this out.
The headline in the press release says it all:
The Consumer Has Spoken: Personalized Marketing Inspires Positivity Towards Brands
As you will see in this infographic, the results are pretty telling and should really come as no surprise. As Scott Olrich, President, Marketing and Platform at Responsys says, it's all about the "R" word.
“Today, in the relationship era of marketing, marketers are realizing that they can in fact orchestrate relevant and targeted experiences at scale across multiple channels, and that this more sophisticated approach can have the greatest long-term impact on the success of their programs," said Olrich.
Alexandra Braunstein, Senior Marketing Manager at XO Group Inc., a global media and technology company says the onus falls squarely on those developing and implementing the campaigns, AKA those in the marketing chairs.
"Consumers are demanding more personalized relationships with their favorite brands," said Braunstein "So as marketers we must provide our customers with the most relevant content at the right moment throughout the customer journey.”
Here's some of the key findings, which are also reflected in the infographic:
- Sixty-one percent of U.S. consumers feel more positive about a brand when marketing messages are personalized.
- Nearly half (44 percent) of consumers are less responsive to non-personalized or “mass-marketing” messages.
- More than half (53 percent) are more likely to purchase when a brand personalizes digital communications.
- More than half (52 percent) trust brands that enable consumers to share their marketing preferences more than brands that do not.
So clearly the operative word in all this is of course: Personal.
But there are other highly pertinent and relevant words that carry a lot of weight - or at least they better with marketers.
Those words are "positive, trust, cross channel."
Anytime you can glean a positive feeling among consumers AND establish a sense of trust with them, you darn well better be doing it. And you better be doing it at every turn, AKA every channel you market them to.
Ok, so now you know what Jaws, brand managers and consumers have in common.
And don't tell me you've never seen Jaws: The Revenge.
You know you have.
Named one of the Top 100 Influencers In Social Media (#41) by Social Technology Review and a Top 50 Social Media Blogger by Kred, Steve Olenski is a senior creative content strategist at Responsys, a leading global provider of on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions. He is a also a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing and co-author of the book StumbleUpon For Dummies. He can be reached via Twitter, LinkedIn or Email.