One of the reasons we love marketing? Things are always changing.
It might be a new platform, a new tool for content creation, a fresh perspective, new audience needs… no two days are the same in today’s world of marketing.
We were talking about this in the office recently and the team started to get into what they are most excited about and what they’d love to see the back of 😅.
So today, we thought we’d share some of those thoughts with you for this quarter’s ins and outs… Let’s get into it 👇🏼
❌ OUT: Scarcity Marketing
A tactic where businesses use deadlines and stress to push for a sale 🙈
We’ve definitely noticed an increase in this over the last few years as financial stress and economical strains creep into all markets. As a short-term strategy, it can be effective in the short-term for things like events, but it can start to feel pretty icky after too much! If you've ever opened an email with four countdown timers and lots of “BUY NOW” energy, you've come across Scarcity Marketing, and if we were betting people, we’d put money on the fact that you didn’t enjoy the content.
So, what should we be doing instead? This brings us nicely to our 1st IN of today’s blog ⬇️
✅IN: Feel Good Marketing
The trouble with scarcity marketing is that trust can only last for so long. If your content causes your audience to feel stress, they’ll eventually start to avoid what you share, even on a subconscious level. Enter feel-good marketing where your goal is to leave your audience feeling noticeably better than before they found you. Maybe you’ve inspired them to take action on something, you’ve taught them something, you’ve made them laugh or smile, or you’ve shared something they can relate to. And no, it doesn't need to be “happy happy happy” every post. Focus on making content that holds value and inspires your audience to engage more, not pull away.
❌ OUT: AI Scaremongering
Ahhhh the world of AI 🤖 let’s be honest, it’s new and a little intimidating for a lot of us, but as a creative agency, we’re confident the scary stories of robots coming for our jobs are just, well, stories… Yes, certain jobs will be replaced by AI, but guess what? Like with all new tech, new jobs will be created 👍🏼And right now AI needs a lot of human input to achieve great results. It should always be finessed by a skilled creative before it’s ready for the world. That said, we’ve found that it’s saved us valuable time in the office and is making our lives a little easier. Let’s just take a second for the generative expand feature in Photoshop 🙌🏼 #gamechanger Here’s an example below using an old photo of me and Mum…
✅ IN: Connection, Connection, Connection
With that general distrust of modern tools like AI, more and more of us are looking for meaningful connections online. We want to know we are interacting with real humans! We’re also looking for communal spaces in the post-pandemic world, both on and offline. Another reason why personal branding is still huge, and why creating community spaces and events is once again becoming more important. Expect to see lots more businesses looking at live events again, online summits, and online support groups tailored to all kinds of industries.
❌ OUT: Vanity Metrics
Not sure what vanity metrics are? These pesky stats are the ones most of us obsess over on our social media. The number of followers you have, the number of likes your last post received… In isolation, these can seem so important in isolation, but in the big picture of your marketing strategy, vanity metrics can be a BIG distraction. This is why it’s so important to have a well-considered plan for your marketing, and to define which metrics actually reflect how well things are going. No one wants to have a million followers on LinkedIn, but zero dollars in their business bank account!
As an example, if your goal on social media is to get your brand in front of more people, the key metrics that you need to focus on are impressions and comments. Impressions will show you how many people have seen your posts and comments are the golden currency on the platform for getting you more impressions. If both those numbers are going up, you are moving in the right direction.
✅ IN: Long-form content
Now before we get into this, let’s be clear, short-form isn't going anywhere just yet but, after being bombarded with 30-second clips here, there, and everywhere, we are seeing a shift in people’s longing for longer-form content again. Leading platforms like TikTok have been allowing users to publish long-form for a while now, Instagram extended Reels’ duration not long ago, and the stats on YouTube continue to rise.
And, the bonus with long-form is that it’s perfect for repurposing. You can make it work really hard. Take a podcast as an example. For every 1 hour episode of our Creative Juices podcast, we have up to 6 short highlight clips, 20+ photos, and an opportunity to write individual pieces about things we’ve taken from the conversation. Yes, long-form content generally takes longer to create, but it can also be a very efficient way to produce content if you get the right system in place. Now is a very good time to start experimenting with long-form if you aren’t right now.
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We promise, no scarcity marketing, AI scaremongering, or vanity metrics. Just simple, easy to digest advise from our own experiences over the last 10 years 😊
