The New Rules of a Catalyst Marketer
A spinoff on David Meerman Scott’s rules — I delve into the precursors to making a mark amidst the digital clutter, which oftentimes can be tricky and frustrating.
It is one of a marketer’s assumptions that the media their audience consumes define their persona — a set of characteristics and habits that shape most marketing efforts today. As we work through intertwining our everyday lives with online activities and advancements, brands should be at a step forward in meeting an ever-evolving consumer journey that has shifted from traditional funnels to circular models that better complement an individual’s decision-making process.
I will list 5 New Rules for the Catalyst Marketer, that center around pulling consumer journeys towards the brand and building it up to be aspirational. In the words of Scott Godin:
“When we seek to make change, our instinct is to start pushing. But shifting to pull can create efficiencies that can’t be matched by mass promotion.”
Setting Objectives and Knowing Your Unique KPIs
It starts with building SMART goals — specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. It is also important to categorize your business goals and marketing goals — making them complementary to each other but at the same time distinguished, so there is a method of clarity, focus, and motivation to work on each one. Goal-setting isn’t complete without Key Performance Indicators. KPI metrics can be overwhelming with numbers but when broken down and organized into channel-specifics (email, paid marketing, SEO, etc.), gauging performance will be more efficient and can set a precedent for succeeding campaigns.
Know the Meeting Point of Your Brand and Consumer
When strategizing executions towards your objective, don’t forget to be in touch with the consumer! Consumer profiling is more than demographics — it extends to behavior, psychographics, perception, and attitude. Going back to the journey, a marketer must meet the customer at the right platform and at the right time to implement a successful pull to the brand. Although these days, there are limits imposed by privacy policies that must be kept in mind — I weigh the pros and cons of this in another blog.
Create Your Unique Narrative
A 2014 HBR article by Paul Zak tells us to capitalize on good storytelling:
“When you want to motivate, persuade, or be remembered, start with a story of human struggle and eventual triumph. It will capture people’s hearts — by first attracting their brains.”
Know the narrative arc that best suits your brand — be aware of the tone and keywords that are associated with this. Customer sentiment can also play a part in this as they are the receiving end of a product or service — for me, using sentiment analysis tools like MonkeyLearn is a helpful tool to utilize this type of data.
Optimize Your Assets According to the Brand Narrative
Website design and UX, Social Media, Search, Email — familiarize yourself with the difference of each one and know that content must be tweaked to accommodate a variety of formats and platform do’s and don’ts. Reflect on how your brand can adapt omni-channel marketing by gauging what type of media represents your brand well and putting in elements that make more meaningful consumer experiences via visuals, audio, keywords, and unique call-to-actions.
Be Innovative (With Caution)
With efforts focused on virtual space, it’s easy to get lost in technological trends like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the metaverse. Although the metaverse offers a more immersive experience than traditional advertising, it has posed limitations in appeal to consumers as most people underestimate what it takes to convert analogue life to digital. Assess your brand’s appeal, there are circumstances when niche products don’t have to ride on every tech trend to reach consumers.
These rules will hopefully lead to the right focus paired with a creative openness. With this, any marketer would be equipped with a toolkit for a hardworking digital campaign.
