4 reasons to stop forcing creative marketing and start focusing on your customers
By Candace Huntly
There is so much noise out there. Between ads on TV, radio, billboards, product shots in movies, and paid social, content marketing for blogs and social media, experiential marketing, and so much more… your customers are tasked with sifting through a lot every day. To combat all of the noise, brands try to get creative with their marketing. That’s not a bad thing, however, it can have negative effects if you put too much focus on creative marketing and not enough focus on what your customers actually want and need from you.
So what? What does this mean for your marketing strategy? Should you just avoid creative marketing? That’s not what I am saying, but you do need to find a good balance between pushing creative boundaries and focusing on the needs of your audience.
Here are 4 reasons to focus more on what your customer wants and how to put them into practice.
YOUR CREATIVITY MIGHT NOT RESONATE WITH YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
When you get started in business, you need to make sure that you develop a really detailed picture of who your ideal customer is. If we’re using buzzwords, this is called a buyer persona. A business can have multiple buyer personas, but you need to make sure that you look at all of their behaviours before you start to reach out to them with marketing. Consider questions like:
What need are you filling for them?
How do they normally interact with brands?
Where Do they hang out? (ie. Social media, in-person events, etc)
What kind of content resonates with them most?
Answering these questions will ensure that you aren’t moving in the wrong direction with your creative marketing. Everything you do should fit within what your ideal customer wants from you.
YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE THE SKILL SET TO EXECUTE YOUR PLANS SUCCESSFULLY
Did you come up with an AMAZING idea for your marketing, but you don’t really know how to execute it properly? Or maybe you don’t have the time to do it the right way? You’re not alone. If you are a small business owner or a solo entrepreneur time is a precious resource. Also, you won’t have the skills to be able to do everything. In my experience, when people try to execute a strategy without the necessary skills, they usually don’t get the results they want from their efforts.
In this case, you have a couple of different options:
Avoid the strategy altogether – but where is the excitement in that, right!?
Update your skill set – your strategy will be delayed, but you will be able to do it on your own.
Hire someone to help – the old adage “hire your weaknesses” is really strong advice.
In many cases, you will likely want to update your skill set as your customer behaviour changes so you can make sure you are meeting them where they are.
YOU’RE NOT PRIORITIZING CUSTOMER FEEDBACK
Customer feedback is one of those things that if you’re lucky enough to get it, you have to make sure you use it. And it is often helpful too when you are trying to connect with your customers in more meaningful (and creative) ways. When it comes to trying something new, don’t be afraid to ask your customers directly what they think. And if you considering doing something different, ask them what they think of the idea before you even do it!
One of the hardest things for business owners is to ask for feedback. Usually that’s because you’re either afraid you won’t like what you hear or you’re afraid no one will say anything at all. Chances are, if you ask for feedback you’ll get at least one customer respond to you, and even if it’s only one, the feedback is extremely valuable.
YOU HAVEN’T CONSIDERED HOW IT FITS INTO YOUR OVERALL BUSINESS STRATEGY
If you’re considering getting creative with your marketing strategy, you still need to make sure it fits into your overall business strategy. Are you staying true to your brand personality? Are you making sure you’re taking your customers into account? Does it help you reach your business goals?
Anything you implement into your business needs to be a part of the bigger picture. For your marketing, than means making sure that all the pieces fit together and you are creating a better customer experience. Sometimes that means making less “noise” with your marketing and taking a more strategic approach depending on where you are at with your business.
Are you in the process of building your marketing strategy or taking your existing strategy to the next level? Where is your focus? Are you too highly focused on doing creative marketing or are you focused on giving your customers what they need? If you’re not sure, book a free 20-minute conversation with us and we’ll help you get on the right track!