Riffing off of the recent sale of the painting “The Scream”…
“Edvard Munch’s The Scream Sells For Record $119.9 Million”
…here’s another great marketing cartoon from Tom Fishburne…
Full post at “marketing clutter”.
From the post…
“There has never been a greater level of marketing clutter. Yankelovich Consumer Research charts that “we’ve gone from being exposed to about 500 marketing messages a day back in the 1970s to as many as 5,000 a day today.”
At the same time, marketing communication is often little more than a string of adjectives: bigger, better, faster, cheaper, etc.
So we marketers are interrupting consumers more, but with fewer meaningful things to say.”
So yes, marketers very definitely have a challenge in getting the attention of their prospects.
But wait! What’s this I find in an old Dan Kennedy newsletter from November 2004?
Yet another dire prediction of the death of advertising as…
“Consumers Feel Assaulted By Advertising”.
(Gee, what happened? The ad jumped off the page, rolled itself up and whacked the reader over the head?!?)
…reported a study from Forrester Research. In fact, what they found was…
“…consumers are shunning ads because the quantity and intrusiveness is too high, relevance too low.”
Hmm. So the real problem both then and today is, in fact, bad advertising.
More specifically, advertising that is not relevant to the prospect.
So how exactly do we make our advertising and copy relevant?
Here are 4 relevance factors…
1. Timing / Timeliness
2. Place / Location
3. Language
4. Customisation
Let’s look a little more deeply at each of these…
1. Timing
Dan Kennedy has a saying “the only difference between salad and garbage is timing”. Now we rarely have control of ideal timing. But we can take advantage of topical, timing based opportunities that arise.
One example, holidays, events and anniversaries each month ( for example, as discussed in my regular “Looking Ahead – Marketing Calendar” posts like this month’s “Looking Ahead – Marketing Calendar June 2012”.)
Another example, political events (elections and budgets).
2. Place
Actual physical location can often be highly relevant to your target audience.
Beyond that, you’ll often find that regional identity can be highly relevant.
For example, in the USA, the South is very distinct from other areas.
Consider the number of specialist magazines like “Southern Living”…
…and I found this interesting “Southern Women”.
In Australia, there’s a big difference between the “Bush” and the urban majority…
…and states like Queensland and WA tend to view themselves differently to the rest of the country.
So a location difference often incorporates mental and emotional differences as well.
3. Language
Every distinct group has it’s own “language”, vocabulary and phrasing. To be relevant you MUST understand and speak the language of your audience. If you don’t, you’re marked as an outsider, not relevant and not trusted.
4. Customisation
Pretty much everyone thinks that they are different and unique (OK, there may be a few poor lost souls out there who believe they are part of a Borg-like collective, but let’s not concern ourselves with them).
So, the more specific and customised you can make your offer and appeal…
…the more relevance your message will have.
Of course, it will be relevant to fewer people but that’s OK if you’re getting through to the right people.
More thoughts on tackling this issue from my good mate copywriter Pete Godfrey…
“Hey YOU! – Copywriting Tips To Grab Attention”.
So keep these ideas…particularly RELEVANCE…in mind and you’ll avoid prospects turning off to “Scream” in exasperation!