We live in an ad, ad world. Without them, there'd be no television or radio, no social media – or we'd have to pay a lot more for such things.
According to Revcontent, "76% of consumers say they feel ads are necessary to get free content online". And while that's true for the most part, that doesn't give marketers crate Blanche to annoy the daylights out of them. Here are four strategies to make consumers happy to see your ads:
1. Make it personal
Nothing's more annoying than a pushy salesperson – don't let your marketing take on that persona. Shoving your brand down people's throats is not only a huge turn-off, it's ineffective. Consumers either tune you out or worse, they take note of how annoying you are and vow never to give your brand their business.
On social particularly, the landscape now is consumer-centrist, so your marketing strategy must reflect that. Forbes Contributor Daniel Newman describes it this way: "Influence no longer lies with the suave, silver-tongued marketer and glossy marketing brochures. Consumers need to be marketed to in the way they want to be marketed to".Accomplishing this means applying social monitoring and analytics to uncover consumer sentiment, creating a gateway to authentic conversations between consumers and marketers. You've got to push past demographic generalities for the real data.
A recent webiner by the American Marketing Association offers a great example illustrating this by Chris Leet, Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Net Base. Leet lists demographic characteristics of two men who both:
- Were born in 1948 and grew up in England
- Were married twice and had 2 children
- Were successful in business and wealthy
The reveal? One man is Prince Charles, the other is Ozzy Osbourne – they couldn't be more different. Thus, the marketing approach for each of them must also be. Social listening gives you the information to make your messaging personal – so use it. Because consumers love it when you do.