Kategori: Genel

We all know the concept of advertising. Creative activities that are done for marketing purposes and can appear in different formats in different channels. But of course, advertisements also have their own systems and a target to which their creativity is directed. Otherwise, every word spoken would be like talking to empty walls. So what is this target? The target audience, of course.

Just as trees blossom in order to attract bees and thus scatter their seeds, brands should arrange their flowers, i.e. their services or products, in a way that attracts the attention of bees, i.e. the target audience. We don’t want to attract goats instead of bees, do we?

The target audience should be analyzed well. As such, it is very important to know the target audience and understand what influences them. Because there are factors that shape the decisions in every person’s life. These factors are so many that it is not possible to mention them all in a single text. Therefore, we chose two of them: Socioeconomic status and culture.

Socioeconomic groupings Yes, we know, every person is unique. But since we can’t advertise to everyone individually, we need to group people with similar characteristics in order to be effective. This is why socioeconomic grouping is one of the most commonly used methods.

In the eyes of the marketing world, consumers’ consumption tendencies are shaped by their social class. And they are not wrong. For example, the price of a high-tech computer will of course be high. In this case, it would not be a wrong step to advertise this product to the upper and lower social classes. They are the ones who have the power to buy our product.

We are constantly marketing our product/service, showing it to our target audience in traditional or digital channels. But there is one thing we need to pay attention to in order for these marketing moves to have a high return: remarketing.

Remarketing is essentially this in a nutshell: Showing your product or service to people who visit your site while they are on another site and attracting them back to your own site.

If we look at the research, retargeted customers are 3 times more likely to return than those you contacted for the first time. It is also noteworthy that remarketing ads receive 10 times more click-through rates depending on the right targeting and ultimately increase online sales by almost 20%.

Let’s dig a little deeper.

Until a few years ago, influencer marketing was considered as “let’s give it a try” kind of marketing method which had very limited budgets. However, today it became a marketing method with a grand percentage of the marketing budget and is an essential part of the brands’ strategies. The change happened within two years as a result of digitalization and the increase in the usage of social media. Nevertheless, why are influencers have such popularity among all the marketing methods? It is because these influencers have a story behind which people can find resemblances with their lives. That’s why nano inflıuencers are the favorite type of influencers. 

Who are the nano influencers? They are the people with followers between 1.000 and 10.000. Although they have fewer followers, they have bigger impacts than the other types of influencers. First of all, their interaction still preserves the organic structure. In addition, the quality of their content is much higher than the others. If you wonder “what is the quality of content?”, the answer is the viewer of the content feels that it is not shared for commercial purposes, and thinks that he/she will benefit from the content. You can consider this like a recommendation that is given within the friend groups happening every day, just on a professional level. There is a belief that people who have small numbers of followers do not promote a product that they do not trust or believe in, which is true.

Opinion leaders…

Throughout the history of humanity, they have taken their place in different subjects under different names and have been the people who guide and give advice to the masses. They set an example with their lives and played a role in making groups better, more productive, and perhaps more up to date. So, is there a place for opinion leaders in a world order where access to information is so easy? Of course, there is! Now they have become influencers of digital media.

So, what place and importance does this influencer world have in the business life? From the accounts we follow for recipes, to users who share shopping and fashion advice; collaborating with these people, who appear in many media from instagram to tiktok, has the potential to provide great advantages for brands. However, in the rapidly developing digital world, it can be a little difficult to find your way, since even the existence of social media dates back to 2004. While the number of companies that realize the importance of influencer marketing is increasing day by day, the intricacies of this marketing method are not known by most companies.

Until a few years ago, the return of advertising campaigns on social media was measured by the increasing number of followers. However, in the new order, it was realized that this was not a correct evaluation method. The main thing is to establish a bond with potential customers and followers, to interact with them in the long run. Therefore, influencer marketing is getting more and more important. Because while a brand’s advertisement of its product appears to be a purely commercial transaction, an influencer doing this creates a much more friendly atmosphere. When social media users see that these people, whose story they know, find parallels with their own lives, and perhaps see as role models, prefer your brand’s product; their mirror neurons that lead them to purchase come into play.  A type of neurons of our brain called mirror neurons allows us to imitate the behavior of others and to empathize with them. Thus, people who see themselves as one with the other, have a positive impression of the product with the positive comments of the influencer, even before they try the product themselves. Thus, the paths to purchase are opened.

“Advertisement”, which takes its roots from the French word réclame means to claim or to protest what is put forward by shouting, and it occupies a great place in our lives. Advertising has a great impact on many of our decisions, from the chewing gum we buy when we are at the cash register in the grocery store to the cars that are bought after an extensive research and spent large sums of money. With advertisement, we attribute value to a brand and create an image in our mind. Advertisements that are so effective in our value judgments have offered us an ideal life, ideal people, colorful and perfect universes for many years. However, the time has come for this system to change and “come down to earth”!

Many brands around the world realizes that cellulite-free legs, non-porous skin, and shiny hair lose their credibility. Because in the world of advertising, the expectations of “aspire” and “wish to be like the person in the image” are replaced by the expectation of the creation of the perception of “these people are just like me”. If those who see the advertisement cannot see a similarity, they begin to doubt the quality of the product or service. That’s why it’s more effective contacting with us when they show someone with messy hair, a person who is tired or people in whose lives not everything to be “glamorous”. We can even say that an extension of this is that the advertisements that feed on celebrities and their inaccessible lives are replaced by people called micro-influencers, who have a small audience but a lot of sincerity. We all know that Jenifer Lopez does not use that shampoo, Ronaldo does not shave with that razor. But we are users of them, so why shouldn’t some of us tell us about it?

What is your purpose? This question is an inquiry that we have encountered at least once in both private and public spheres. Even we have started rolling our eyes at this “having a purpose” term. Is it an overrated notion or an unavoidable fact? What is “purpose” really, in itself?

What we see in dictionaries is the definition that we search every day. It is simply the answer to “why?” But as it is simple, like every other simple concept, it has a much deeper form where people have the urge to discover the purpose of everything, every moment to make sense of why, why they are buying, working, trying, doing things in general. Finding and having a purpose defines the actions we are making. Business at its core is the same as this to an extent. Brands with a deeper meaning beyond its products or services, that have a solid stance among every other only-profit oriented brand last and has a positive impact on the long run in uncertain times like today.

It is a sine qua non for a brand to have a purpose, but the way the brand produces a value from that and integrates this form to the culture of the order within your brand is pivotal. At the very end of this well-designed process, purpose eventually leads to value and therefore, profit. So, it is a strategic internal and external mistake for a company to devalue itself to not care to grow by having no purpose.

Correlatively, relationship marketing and management is a tricky but crucial road that leads to success and loyalty both in B2B and B2C environments. The more you create value, the more you acquire it, in different forms but without exception. Creating value for customers and continue doing it with a purpose relies on finding the “why” underneath the skin, at the heart of your business beyond its financial  aspects. Why did you make this product, what positive impact and difference will it create? In brands, having a solid basis, meaningful history, and a focal perspective towards future trends are three important tickets for a damage-free course of action.

Finding a purpose shouldn’t be just an attachment or a new business development criterion, a tool, but rather a perspective that you either build on or adapt to your culture to filter what is your true stance in the market.

The world is transforming into digital and trends of this “digital world” constantly changes. Every year we look back to annual changes and developments in this digital world to better understand the future. As we move closer to a brand new year, here are some of the top marketing trends to watch out in 2020.

Content Marketing: Ephemeral and Interactive Contents

Ephemeral content is mostly images or video posts on social media that are available only for a short time. Snapchat posts, Instagram and Facebook stories are examples of ephemeral content. This type of content is not something new, albeit the interest for it increases rapidly. Ephemeral content is appealing for both the sharer and the user because of its temporariness. People share stories more freely and users engage in the stories more eagerly because, well… The story is going to disappear, eventually! People do not worry about if their content is embarrassing or awkward as much as in permanent posts and users don’t want to miss the story which will vanish forever. This is ‘fear of missing out’, in short FOMO, and it is common human behaviour. For business, FOMO must be considered seriously when building a social media strategy. People are going to show more interest in your page if you post appropriate stories to boost their curiosity. The engagement of your page will rise considerably with the right ephemeral content strategy. Moreover, interactive and engaging stories will influence your customers to develop a positive relationship with your page and your brand. Live streams, polls, contests, games, shoppable posts, countdowns, quizzes, and 360° videos are examples of the interactive content and most of them can also be used in Facebook posts and stories, and Instagram posts. With this, you can raise your consumers’ satisfaction with your product and can strengthen their loyalty for your page and brand. Ephemeral and interactive content are very popular today and continue to be an important trend in 2020. 

Voice Search

One of the significant trends for 2020 is voice search. As the voice-activated search technology evolves, it becomes more and more important to pay attention to creating a “voice-searchable” content. 

People use voice-over technology to ask the daily weather, give commands like “call Anna”, set alarms and voice-type messages. They have become accustomed to using voice over technology by its practicality. So, using voice-over when possible is becoming more like a habit. Because of that, creating voice-searchable content is very important to keep up with the evolving technology and to get ahead of your competitors. Your customers and your potential customers will be more loyal to your brand, and you have a positive impact on them if you give importance and effort to voice technology. 

On the other hand, the variety of questions asked is increasing. However, digital marketers are not giving this increase enough attention. But in 2020, as we see more improvements in voice search technology, digital marketers cannot ignore the change. Voice over technology will be another trend in 2020 to watch out and optimize your website for voice search to maximize your search potential!

People tend to shorten their decision-making process to simplify the task with some unconscious cognitive processes. There are a great number of brands who compete with each other through various distractions and they make the process even more difficult for the consumers. This is why people follow their instincts as a guide to avoiding the complexity of the process. These instincts or the source of unconscious behaviour can be differentiated in 7 different groups according to research. Those instincts can be the reason why people are not choosing your brand and what your brand needs to have to use those shortcuts according to cognitive biases theory of a behavioural scientist.

Consumer buy what they already know

People repeatedly choose the same products or brands year by year. Because as humans we are prone to go with the default option and do not like to disrupt the status quo. People think that if it works for us once it will work again and let’s not think about it. This is also a stage where consumer loyalty is started to be created. Brands can focus on customer satisfaction and promotions for brand loyalty to be able to make useful this shortcut for themselves.   

People buy what other people recommend or buy 

As human being, we are open to being influenced by other people. Other people provide reassurance for the product that it is a good choice and this creates a very active shortcut in the decision making the process. Influencer marketing is a great tool to create this shortcut into people’s mind. Obviously, brands are using this channel and the effectiveness of the method is quite high if it is used accurately. Ratings and reviews can be also highly important. 

People buy with their heart instead of with their head

The emotional effect of the advertisings are well-known fact and there are several examples that create difference regarding branding and perception management. Emotional interactions between brands and consumers create an instinct to convince them what to buy. Brands are phenomenal to use people’s emotions and drag them into their products. The more this is done, the more people have an urge to buy particular products as a part of unconscious cognitive bias. Therefore, the constructed communication between brand and consumer is highly substantial to create this effect.

On 16th of July, Elon Musk who is the founder of SpaceX and co-founder of Tesla has introduced Neuralink, a neurotechnology company that has been working on connecting the human brain with computer interfaces for the last two years. According to Musk, even in “a benign AI scenario” humans will be left behind but with a high bandwidth brain-machine interface technology, we can effectively have the option merging with AI. Even more exciting, in the future humans may have the option to “achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence”. 

Neuralink’s primary goal is to understand and cure important diseases and eventually to help secure humanity’s future by preserving and enhancing the brain. So, Neuralink aims to create a well-aligned future -the future of “superhuman intelligence”. With this technology, brain-related diseases will be possible to address and neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, OCD, epilepsy can be curable. Musk says that the operation will be “as simple and automated as Lasik (laser eye surgery).” and the patient can walk away within a few hours. The treads are remarkably tiny, about a tenth of the cross-sectional area of a human hair, and therefore the operation will be done with robots to be very precise. The device will be completely wireless and long-lasting. “The interface to the chip is wireless so you have no wires poking out of your head…It’s Bluetooth to your phone,” says Musk.

Thanks to its “intuitive” chatbot TOBi, Vodafone transformed its customer experience by streamlining its engagement with customers and personalising the sales journey.

Focusing on customer journey is a necessity of the era which makes a great number of brands successful.  While a lot of SME’s are trying to differentiate themselves in the competition by using new technologies, big brands also uses the advantage in a great way. Vodafone through the collaboration with MMT Digital, start to use new technology which makes completing customer transaction possible by the means of chatbot from the beginning to the end. The results show that this new technology helped to improve customer completion rates and satisfaction. Furthermore, The artificial intelligence assistant has also boosted conversion rates by making the sales two to three times faster than the traditional website.

Vodafone came with this project by using the insights of its customers. Vodafone realised that a significant number of potential SIM-only customers were dropping out during the check-out process. At this point, it should be said that it is really important to read your customers’ opinions, your weaknesses and problems to solve them.