Are you in the way? Or are you along the way?
That is the question that you must be able to answer when it comes to your marketing initiatives.
I recently decided to visit New York City with my family. Coordinating a schedule with everyone’s sightseeing activities was no small task. As it turns out our trip to the Empire State Building had to be bumped in the schedule as we were waiting for a clear day. We were to go up the building on the afternoon of our last day. And on that clear sunny afternoon, my family and I were barreling down West 34th Street, like a bunch of camera commandos on a mission. Nothing would get in our way to slow us down.
And then it happened. Some street vendor was waving a brochure and saying something about cutting down your time in the line up to get into the Empire State Building. He was quite astute to what mattered to us most. He saw us coming and he totally understood the value of time to us. So his message was completely focused on the time-saving element. Amazingly he got everyone’s attention and we stopped to see if this was myth or reality. And in 5 minutes, he gave us the scoop on how long the line-up gets. Yes, it was almost as if we had come along as pre-sold customers. We gladly bought his tickets to the short line at a 30% premium. This guy was no longer in the way. He was along the way and was able to speed us along our journey faster than we had anticipated.
I am not the first person to point it out. But let’s be clear. All marketing is an interruption. Of course we live in a world where it is part of how we discover and learn about things that may have an impact on how we carry on. Up to some threshold, both in quantity and density, it is comfortably tolerated. People know that they have to take the good with the bad.
But what swings the pendulum from high annoyance to comfortably tolerated, is not just the quantity and density, it also about the context of the message. The context that complements your marketing message brings with it value and respect for what you are offering. You may have an advertisement, but it is not treated as negative disruption if in fact it complements the interests of the target buyer in some way. The right context not only gives your marketing message the strength to resonate, it also cedes you some credibility for actually having your message placed in that particular context. Both of these factors increase the potential engagement that your message will receive.
Although we don’t see as much of it anymore, the web pop-up banner is just an ideal example of in-your-face, attention-stealing mechanism that just does not earn trust. And on the flip side, visitors can’t help but notice those context-sensitive headings that present the familiar phrase “You may also like…”. So that is the goal. First, that marketing message must be created so that it resonates with the target audience. And then you must find or create the right context for it to truly get the strongest resonance. You must find a way to be along the way that your buyer is travelling and not in the way.