Before launching any new marketing tactic or campaign, one critical question must be answered: How much are your customers really worth? Defining what you are (and aren't) willing to spend on attracting and engaging with new customers is essential to your marketing strategy, managing budgets and to protecting your ROI.
From experiential marketing to branded pop-ups, micro-influencers and digital advertising, marketers today have plenty of channels to connect with people. But which is right for your brand? And how much should you be spending? While it might be difficult to decide on exactly how much you'd be willing to pay to engage a new customer, one thing is for sure: no-one wants to be paying more than they need to be.Adding to the complexity is that there is a huge difference between "reaching" and "engaging". As marketing channels have progressed, so too have consumers. They are now in tune with their wants and needs, with a strong unwillingness to settle for anything less. While it might be relatively easy to pay your way into a consumer's line of vision, getting them to pause, reflect and engage is much more difficult.
Cost of engagement is increasing
In this highly competitive landscape, genuine connections are worth more than ever — both in an emotional and monetary context. Ever-growing noise and content thrust is at consumers from every which way. The globalisation of sales via digital channels also mean that people are bombarded with options; what used to be a choice between two brands is now a global mix of hundreds. All this has made it harder than ever for marketers to get cut through and attract attention, let alone build genuine customer relationships.
Traditional tactics no longer work
Brand messages splayed across billboards, printed in magazines, or produced into TVCs, can cost hundreds of thousands, all without a guarantee of customer engagement. Mass targeting strategies, once the pinnacle of product promotion, have lost traction in the face of technology. Data insights and channel diversification have provided marketers with opportunities for targeting ever-more-specific niche user groups. While big-name brands may still see the benefit in engaging in mass marketing tactics, the truth for most of us is very clear: traditional advertising fails to deliver the personalised experiences that today's consumers are craving.
Into the digital age
From sponsored posts on Facebook, to Google Adwords and YouTube ads, digital offers an easily accessible advertising tool. And, with more information available about demographics than ever before, customising content for consumers is a breeze. It's also relatively affordable, with the average cost-per-click on Facebook at just $1.70 and Google ads at $2.00.
However, there is no point spending time segmenting and personalising your brand messages if they never even reach your target publics.
According to Marketing Week, almost half of online campaigns don’t reach their target audiences, let alone engage them and establish meaningful relationships. Digital can be an effective way to get your message out, but the risk remains that messages will be disrupted or disregarded. With more than 181 million people now using Adblockers (and rising), waning attention spans and constant flicking between screens, getting your messages heard online is hard. Getting it to resonate? Near impossible.
Experiential reborn
There's no denying the efficacy of experiential. Where digital struggles to create physical and personal encounters, experiential thrives, allowing for invaluable brand experiences, fostering brand loyalty and leaving lasting impressions.
Experiential guarantees physical reach, and now, with Brandcrush, marketers can harness the power of experiential for less than a Google click. Booking an activation through our network of premium Activation Hosts, brands can get an average cost per reach of just $0.78.
Gone are the days of train station trips, handing out packages and products to peak-hour commuters. Once the epitome of experiential, these mass marketing strategies were effective in getting brands into hands, but not necessarily the right ones. The high costs of samples, set up and labour are hardly justifiable when you consider the hit-and-miss nature of mass campaigns, not to mention the difficulty of actually measuring the return on investment.
The relevant and targeted nature of Brandcrush activations means that you not only save samples that would otherwise be wasted on disinterested parties, but you will also get a much better bang-for-buck with the cost per reach. Budgets are better allocated and products are better promoted through hyper-targeted demographics, in the real world.
Activating through Brandcrush is also an investment for the long haul. Developing invaluable relationships with customers creates brand loyalty early and enhances customer lifetime value meaning less of a chance they'll leave you, and fewer costs to reengage them down the track. Customer retention — big tick.
A report from Sampling Effectiveness Advisors shows 73% of consumers said they were likely to buy a product after trying it. Only 25% said the same thing about seeing a television commercial. Real world reach and customer engagement for less coin than a click? You do the math.