Senior Designer
‘Spamming’ is one of the biggest business killers in marketing, especially for new business owners. When you spam people, they get turned off and want you to leave them along for good.
It's when you're overly pushy towards trying to get people to go to a link or buy something when they have no idea of who you are. And if you are doing this, it's time to stop right now, and rethink your entire marketing approach before you develop a bad name for yourself or your brand.
The only thing it is actually “good” for is making you look desperate, but it is also a way to suicide for your business and reputation. Never do any kind of spam because the consequences are becoming more and more severe as time goes on. Building goodwill and having empathy for the people you are willing to serve is the better way.
Let’s say that you have more marketing channels, content, and technology to reach potential customers, —but the tools alone are not going to be enough, connecting and building trust with your audiences has never been harder. Here are some insights for you on how to connect with them.
You know your audiences need what you have to offer, but your messages aren’t connecting.
You’ve tried everything—gave some expert recommendations, best practices, and have the latest tools. But you’ve hit a plateau, and your results are falling short. It feels frustrating, right?
To get your existing or potential audience to trust you, you’d want to consider shifting to empathy-based marketing. Empathy-based marketing is about walking in your customer’s shoes to understand their personal experiences and how we can better help them get what they want. You don’t want to think like the customer. You want to BE THE CUSTOMER!
“If you try to please everyone, you’ll stop pleasing the people you care about.” -Seth Godin
Here’s a brief story about The Journey of Air Jordan:
In 1984, Michael Jordan signed a five-year deal with Nike worth $500,000 per year. Nike was a struggling company back then, and Jordan himself preferred either Adidas or Converse. However, Jordan agreed to give Nike a try.
When introduced for the first time, the Nike Air Jordan 1 was black and red, which was banned by the league for being controversial. However, Jordan continued to wear his shoe whenever he played at the Chicago Stadium. And the NBA fined Jordan almost $5000 per game.
Jordan wore the shoes despite being threatened with fines (which Nike paid for), and of course, he played like no one has ever played before, that was everything you could ask for. Then it’s sales just took off. At that time, the shoe retailed at $60 and reportedly earned the brand $126 million. And now Air Jordan is single handedly—the most recognized basketball shoe ever created.
Rapper Nas, who appeared in The Last Dance (Netflix, 2020), compared the shoe to Star Wars' very own lightsaber. He added that one 'needed' the shoe to be like Jordan and was more than a status symbol.
From this case, we learn that we truly can't please everyone, and that sometimes, a business has to take a risk in order to set themselves apart from their competitors. Whether the risk is through countless ways of business or taking the path that less traveled.
What can we do to be a better marketer?
Learn about Psychographics!
Psychographics are kind of like demographics. It’s a study of consumers based on their activities, interest or opinions to gain deeper insights into target markets’ psychological and emotional motivations and create a relevant message for specific segments. Psychographic information might be your buyer's habits, hobbies, spending habits and values.
If Demographics explain “who” your buyer is, through their status, age, gender, race, and geography; Psychographics dig down to the market’s cognitive/thinking, emotional responses and motivations; moral, ethical and political values; inherent attitude, biases and prejudices.
So with that being said, Psychographic marketing plays on subconscious personality characteristics. And that can help the advertisers to capitalize on impulsive decision making.
In conclusion, to be a better marketer you need to get to know your customers by surveying them, analyzing the types of products they buy, and reviewing what your customer’s values are. The more you understand their Psychographics, the easier it is to make suggestions and incorporate the tips above to create positive customer experiences.
“People don’t think what they want, they think what they dream of.” -Seth Godin