The art (and science) of marketing and advertising have long been associated with deceit.
We remember our own experiences with this:
As teenagers, paying (much) more for certain brands solely based on our perception of them.
The pair of shoes we looked at which follows us across the Internet and appears in our social media stream posing as a friendly reminder. Lurking.
17-year-old androgynous models wearing designer clothing they would never be able to afford and we will never be able to fit into.
Advertisers leverage how our subconscious minds operate to trigger emotion and play with our biases. One of the most effective marketing decisions in the annals of history was the guy who rewrote his sign from $1 to $0.99 — our brains respond to odd numbers and are lured by this penny drop. $5 may be the new $0.99 in digital advertising — see more about the Psychology of Pricing.
Short-term thinking or misleading information can sometimes deliver results.
However, smart marketing may finesse our triggers and science, but rests on a foundation of truth.
Understand and define your target audience.
Evaluate and communicate your key differentiating points with them in mind.
Create an effective message, understand the optimal vehicle to communicate this, and do this in a way which brings you the most value.
Set up metrics so you can measure success.
And once this messaging has entered the marketplace: you will receive feedback. You will need to respond to this information. The world is in a continual phase of creation and change and your marketing must always strive to evolve. On a daily basis, 15 percent of queries submitted have never been seen before by Google’s search engine. That’s over 525 million brand-spanking-new ideas every single day, and this number compounds. As a consequence, each year, Google changes its search algorithm over 500 times. It responds to our collective mind knowing that to remain fixed would be business-suicide.
Buddha observed: “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”
Want to sell your product? Do us a favor: Solve our problem and be creative and intelligent in how you do it. Share this story with us in a way that resonates. Evolve this message (and your product or service,) as we all are continually changing. But remember: tell us the truth. We’ll come back and buy more.
Liz Hawkins Tahawi is a marketing professional based in the San Francisco Bay Area.