Lets me share with you data that made me arrive at this conclusion:
* 62% of people trust brand less – PwC
^ Result: Advertising message believability - put out by brand owners - will be trusted less when taking buying decisions!
* 32% of online consumers trust a stranger more than a brand - Forrester
^ Why? Real people have no axe to grind. They will put out facts, not fiction!
* 73% of people wouldn’t care if brands disappeared tomorrow – Meaningful Brands Study
^ Lesson for us: If our brands disappeared tomorrow customers will not endlessly mourn for it. They will move on…
* Today’s customers distrust & recent one-off campaigns that interrupt or intercept them – Forrester
^ Why? People resent unsolicited disturbance. In extreme cases, they develop resenting towards it if the unsolicited interruption continues uninterrupted.
* WOM – Word of Mouth is 50% more likely to trigger a conversation than ads. – Maverick
^ Real people with no axe to grind will put out a fair opinion, which can be counted upon to take the decision!
Result: As consumer’s distrust of brands grow, so does their use of ad blocking technology – so much so that consumers are more likely to survive a plane crash rather than click on a banner ad. Spend is getting wasted!
What communication strategy should a brand formulate to overcome these issues?
For that you will have to answer 2 questions:
* Question 1: Who are customers listening to?
^ 74% rely on social media to inform / take purchase decision
^ 90% trust peer recommendations
^ 84% take action based on the opinion of others
* Question 2: How can these customers be engaged?
By keeping the following insights in mind:
^ Forcing the same product messaging into new channels is not working
^ Content that tries to sell doesn’t. Content that tries to help does.
Where does the answer lie?
It seems to lie in embracing Influencer Marketing which helps you reach consumers with the message about your product they actually want to hear coming from the voice they already really trust!
Disclosure: The content shared in this post is from ‘How To Make Influencer Marketing Your Performing Channel in 2016’. To read the full article click here:
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In this series, Rajesh Srivastava, Business Strategist and Visiting Faculty at IIM Indore gives you a regular dose of strategy case studies to help you think and keep you one step ahead as a professional as compared to your peers. Rajesh is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore and IIT Kanpur and has over 2 decades of experience in the FMCG industry. All previous Strategy with RS posts can be found here.
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