If you look at how we learn, how we search, how we discover, how we transact in our everyday life—it’s not linear.
Paulo Simas is Chief Creative Officer at W2O Group, the leading independent provider of analytics-driven, digital-first marketing services to the healthcare sector.
Simas previously founded the branding agency ODA, which was acquired by W2O Group in 2009. He has won dozens of international and industry awards.
In this episode of Velocitize Talks, Simas shares his industry insights into how brands market themselves in this age of tribal and purpose-driven demand.
The consumer’s always right (0:50)
More and more marketers are trying to figure out who their audience is: where they live, who’s influencing them, what they really care about, and where to engage them at the right time with the right message.
Digital marketing has forever changed the way marketers reach and interact with their audiences. According to Cisco’s Consumer 2020 study, consumers want to be more informed and have greater leverage than brands. Until recently, brands dictated the user experience. It’s now the customers who choose how they want to interact.
Before sharing their information with a brand, over half of customers are seeking personalized experiences in their everyday lives. That said, brands need to provide hyper-relevant and personalized information to consumers to attract, and keep, their attention.
Connect the dots (1:55)
We can get very granular by taking large groups of people in a macro segment and then creating these micro segments. This is where tribes really start to form.
Simas has launched over 100 brands and believes in creating “tribes” to deliver the right narrative. It’s that narrative that can amplify a brand’s potential. Tribes are formed out of the basic human need to connect with others who share similar opinions, experiences, or affinities. Members can also reach out to each other in times of need or stress.
In his Tedx Talk, Get to Know Your Audience, Simas stresses the importance of ascertaining why—and how—people share their experiences. When applied to traditional demographics and psychographics, that information, can be used to better understand consumers. As a result, it will provide a more robust view of your target audience.
Cause and effect (3:43)
If you look at what consumers and individuals are looking for in their brand, it’s well beyond just the product. It’s well beyond the transaction and the engagement and the experience. They want to know they’re part of something bigger.
Before a brand aligns itself with a cause, it needs to identify its purpose and then choose a relevant cause. As Jim Stengel, entrepreneur and host of the CMO podcast, says, “Purpose-driven companies witness higher market share gains and grow an average three times faster than their competitors, all the while achieving higher employee and customer satisfaction.”
Simas references Nike as an example of a purpose-driven brand that has done this exceptionally well. Nike’s success stems from being an established brand that has worked on building trust over many years with their consumers. It’s much more difficult for newer brands to do because they have yet to earn that trust.
In brands we trust (5:11)
There is a point at which to say that something went wrong. We are here to do everything we can to regain the trust that you gave us for so long.
The Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report, Brand Trust in 2020, found that trust is the second most important factor in the decision to buy a new brand (53%) or become a loyal customer (49%). These two trail only price and affordability (64%). According to the report, brands that deliver on that trust will create stronger customer relationships.
However, when a brand does misstep, they need to regain trust through clear communication and, most importantly, make it right.
Measuring success (8:17)
Marketers are still looking at what to do in search, in paid, online, offline, and all these things are individually measured, versus actually putting them all together and finding a true aggregate.
Agile marketing can help brands move closer to the customer by using emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to understand customer acquisition. Marketing as a whole will need new metrics to help them see what’s driving loyalty, engagement and sales.
In moving from vanity metrics—open rate, page views or clicks—to measuring intent and action, new metrics have risen to measure success: customer lifetime value impact, marketing maturity score, cross-channel visibility, and customer health.
For more information on W2O Group, check out their website and follow them on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter at @W2OGroup. To stay up to date with Simas, follow him on LinkedIn.