It’s not easy to be a marketer, because you have to distil the same message “please buy our product/service, it’s good and better than the competition” into at thousand different interpretations. Moreover, what worked ten years ago is not necessarily going to work today. Sure, some principles can carry over and seem timeless, like celebrities looking mysterious and sexy in the fragrance advertisements they’re hired to start in. Yet that doesn’t mean all methodologies last without question.
How can you square the difference between both of these two standards? It’s not exactly easy to figure out. It highly depends on your industry, the product you’re offering, how connected it is to the culture, if you have anything new to say at all, and of course, the developing needs of the market.
Perhaps, while we wonder about the proactive approach, it’s good to consider what not to do. Over time, customers have become a little tired of repetitive marketing efforts that seem to say the same thing every time, which is why a popular jingle only really has a shelf life of a few years before it needs to be redone.
With that in mind, let’s consider the main repetitions to avoid:
Absolutely, here is the final, clean version of the blog post, with no lines between subheadings and no word counts included.
- Social Media Brand Relatability/Outrageousness
A brand that tries too hard to be your friend often misses the point of why people follow them in the first place. Nobody opens up Instagram hoping a company will suddenly understand their struggles as a twenty-something, or try to speak in the newest slang because they know there’s someone at the other end that has tried their hardest to make that sound relatable. The Wendy’s Twitter presence was fun once, but the novelty of that is over. Most of all customers appreciate value, quick service, and perhaps a laugh if the joke lands, not a strained attempt at being relatable. The minute it feels forced, a brand risks alienating the very audience they want to impress.
Trying to be outrageous or controversial for the sake of it also wears thin quickly, as per our example. The best and most authentic marketing doesn’t rely on temporary shock value to maintain attention, but it builds a relationship through good quality content and useful products. Overly performative antics just look desperate after a while, like an uncle trying to impress his teenage nephews.
- Engagement Suggestions Without Incentive
The worst thing to see at the end of a long social media post is a generic call to action like “Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!” or “Hit that like button if you agree!” or “What is your favorite flavor?” without offering any real reason to comment that. People are smart, and they know when a brand is just trying to boost an algorithm score without providing any incentive for their time.
If a company is going to ask an audience to participate, they should provide something worthwhile in return. That might be a genuine question about how they should direct their brand, or a challenge that offers a prize, or just a featured mention on the company page. Asking for engagement purely for the sake of it makes customers feel used, like they are just a cog in a machine generating traffic.
- Meme-Chasing
Memes are short-lived, which is their nature. Think of how you’ll cringe a little if people bring up a meme from years ago earnestly, as they arrive with a flash, burn brightly for a couple of weeks, and then disappear from the cultural conversation, often replaced by something newer and even sillier. Moreover, it’s said that when a brand starts saying the meme, it’s pretty much done. That’s because it’s tough for a formal marketing department to move at the speed of the internet, and that delay is usually obvious to anyone scrolling.
Because we all know the meme has been approved by the head of marketing, it comes across as inauthentic and out of touch because the attempt wasn’t organic, but calculated. A much better approach is to develop an original voice and to find what yours is. For instance, a local grocer who really celebrates local events. That comes across as much moe natural.
- Clear AI Use
The rapid development of artificial intelligence has offered marketers some fantastic new avenues for efficiency and insight, as using AI to analyse market trends or to personalise customer outreach is a brilliant application of the technology. It allows companies to be quicker and more effective in their planning too, which gives them an edge in some respect. For instance, embracing AI-powered SEO solutions, is a good way to streamline what used to be a long, manual process and it works in line with the reality of AI summaries on search engines.
However, using AI to generate content that lacks any human polish or character is a misstep people are starting to notice. When blog posts are repetitive and bland, or customer service responses sound entirely automated, or worse, if all your graphic art looks generated and hollow, it irritates customers.
- Content For Content’s Sake
Flooding the internet with content purely to stay present or hit a publishing quota is a mistake. This often leads to posts, videos, or articles that are thin on information, repetitive, or poorly researched. Customers don’t mind seeing less content if the quality of what’s provided is high, like a fishing brand that creates a very thoughtful and personal first-time guide to fishing on their blog.
Like this, every piece of content should have a clear purpose and offer something of value to the reader, and they can separate that wheat from the chaff pretty well.
- Dismissive Marketing
Belittling the competition or dismissing the customer’s intelligence just makes a brand look insecure and weak, even if hyper-self-awareness about selling a product might seem like a cool way to go.
It’s one thing to highlight your product’s strengths and clearly show how it stacks up favourably against a competitor. It’s a completely different thing to resort to snarky remarks or aggressive, condescending marketing in this way, as if your brand dislikes its promotional effort but has to do so anyway. Many brands have leant into this, and it has something of a sour taste. Again, like the Wendy’s approach to social media, the novelty is no longer there.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily avoid the pitfalls customers are tired of in all manner of marketing campaigns.
