ITS NOT ABOUT YOUR BRAND, IT’S ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMERS!
In the past, traditional marketers didn’t’ have the luxury of a two-way conversation with customers, but they did have a captive audience. Consequently, traditional marketers pounded consumers over the head with marketing messages until the public bought from them. If you’re over the age of 40, for example, you know the Jolly Green Giant jingle-not because it’s a great song, but because you were exposed it so it so many times through televisions and radio that you couldn’t help but learn from it.
In a crowded marketing and advertising world, mindshare is how much your customers are thinking about your product or service. In order to win your customers’ mindshare now, your marketing can’t be solely about your brand, or products, or features and benefits anymore. More than anything, you have to get your customers talking or get involved in their already ongoing conversation. If they’re talking, and you’re at the top of their news feeds on Facebook, you’ve got some mindshare-more valuable than paid advertising, which customers can readily choose to ignore. Messaging has to be about your customers. What are their hopes and dreams? What do they want to do, hear about, talk about, and share? What’s actually relevant to them?
This lesson is a hard one for companies to learn, because it involves unlearning much of what they know about marketing, promotion, and publicity. They’ll ask, “what about our brand? How can we spend precious marketing dollars and time on messaging that has nothing to do with our brand or company?” It’s the results that matter, so remind yourself about the newsfeed for example. If the message is all about your brand, people don’t find that message interesting or relevant, then they won’t even see it. On the bright side, even if the message isn’t about your brand, at all, if it’s being