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Human and Helpful: Subtle Marketing Tactics

Human and Helpful: Subtle Marketing Tactics
Human and Helpful: Subtle Marketing Tactics

The fine art of keeping your customers during difficult times is about a combination of strategies. Marketing is something that we all need to constantly revise, either in terms of changing our content or making sure that we expand our reach on social media in the right ways. While 98% of marketers focus on content as the main form of marketing strategy, there’s a lot more to it than that. In fact, it’s partly to do with maintaining a sense of subtlety…

Deliver Your Marketing in Quick Bursts

When people read content, it’s unlikely that they will absorb every single word as if it was written by Shakespeare. Will you absorb this? People skim information, and like to have their content in bite-size chunks that is easy to consume. This is why video marketing is so popular. If you want to promote properly, you’ve got to get to the point. But what does this mean for old blog posts that you’ve left to rot? These aren’t useless. In fact, it’s important to get into the habit of repurposing content. There may be a fantastic blog from 5 years ago that just needs a bit of cleaning up. You also need to think about the fact that now many websites provide an option for the content to be read aloud, in keeping with the podcast generation that likes to absorb information audibly. This will also impact your search engine ranking. If you don’t know where to begin with this, there are companies like Unravel SEO that can help.

Incorporate Human Traits Into Your Social Media

The great thing about companies that use their Twitter accounts to engage in movements or personalize themselves more doesn’t just make for great entertainment, but it becomes shareable. There have been plenty of examples of companies putting across their attitudes towards racism and homophobia by telling celebrities who have crossed the line to not bother buying from them again. This doesn’t just command respect from customers, but it increases that share factor. It’s also a very brave thing to do. Companies may feel that they want to increase their stance by aligning themselves with a celebrity, but these days where morals are just as important as marketability, this can help you to build a rapport with customers that are on the same wavelength as you.

Simplify Your Marketing Strategy

The temptation is to go in all guns blazing with a wide variety of messages, colors, shapes, and anything you would get to think of! But look at marketing campaigns by big companies like Apple. There is no complexity in what they do. And they are the most successful company in the world. This trend has branched out into other industries. Companies like Google and Uber have simplified their marketing campaigns. By going minimal, you are focusing on the brand and making it widely recognizable. There is always the temptation to make your content grand, but sometimes, simplicity is just as effective.

Spread Your Content With Customer Input

In the world of hashtags and competitions on social media, it’s never been easier to share your brand. And when we are trying to get our customers to engage with us, this is the simplest form. A simple retweet or share on social media will get us into the public consciousness. But also, as far as marketing is concerned, it is free and simple advertising. By getting others to spread the word, you aren’t just promoting yourself cheaply but you are also getting a good understanding of customers are engaging with your brand. By spreading your content and your brand message, you can guarantee the people will like what you have to say and choose to spread it.

Work With Your Customers

Positive word of mouth is still one of the most important factors in how you promote yourself. Social media is not just about a platform to push your ideas and products, but it’s somewhere that you can interact with your customers. It’s important to dedicate enough time to interact with individuals on social media. This is doubly true if they have got a problem with you. Solving their problems on a public platform is not just a great way to keep that customer with you, but it also shows everybody your ability to take customer service matters seriously. There is nothing more damaging to a brand than having someone bad-mouth you across social media because of one mistake you’ve made. It’s far better and more morally sound to fix our mistakes by working with the customer. If we can do it on a public platform without making it look like we are drawing attention to our abilities to “heal the sick” on social media, this will work in our favor.

Make Fun of Yourself

While running a large business is serious work, when you are showing your ability to poke fun at yourself, this is going to endear you to customers old and new. It’s the perfect opportunity to make fun of yourself on social media. People are more likely to share something funny than they are something serious. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but when customers are savvy and don’t want to just share a business that is full of self-importance, something goofy is a perfect way to build some form of trust. We have to remember that many consumers don’t trust brands online. We are reticent to buy into advertising and marketing ploys. By poking fun at yourself, you are showing your human side in another, more important, way.

Being a brand is about making sure that you work with people that align with your beliefs; customers, employees, suppliers, and everyone in between. When you are trying to promote yourself, it can be very easy to over-egg the pudding. Being subtle is to do with ensuring your business communicates just what it needs, and nothing more. This could be to do with marketing yourself through social media or search engine optimization tactics, but also by bringing the human side to the table.

About the author

Mike K. Watson

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