Marketing is big on attention right now
Of course, getting and measuring our attention is genuinely about engagement. But as we increasingly focus on the impact of attention, we are playing into a digital world ever more cluttered with platforms and brands and ever more ‘real time’. This begs the question, are we too focused on the immediate impact of attention? Rather than jostling for short-term engagement and constantly competing for attention, should we not focus marketing efforts on building and maintaining continued relatability with audiences? After all, capturing attention is not the end goal — it’s just part of the journey to achieving long-term success.
The amount of effort and time spent on just trying to grab attention simply isn’t proportional to its importance in the marketing mix. There are other vital pieces of the puzzle that don’t receive the same love. The immediacy of digital can only be turned into sustainable customer loyalty and continued growth with a proper long-term approach to digital marketing. Building that trust, credibility and relatability doesn’t happen overnight, and it takes a much deeper understanding of your audience than just the who, how, what, where and why of their media and buying habits.
Let’s face it, it’s never been easier to get your message into the world, and it’s never been more difficult to stand out. So, whether they like it or not, most brands must play the long game to compete. Of course, you can chase that much venerated viral success that launches and cements you into the consciousness of your audience, but 99% of the time you won’t get there.
So, what is the alternative?
Start by setting realistic horizons for seeing longer results, and by defining what success looks like. You will always need a mix of short-term activity to drive your sales pipeline and longer-term activity to build relatability and credibility but don’t judge both by the same metrics or horizons.
It’s never an easy sell, but marketers need to be given time to drive longer-term marketing. Boards, investors and CFOs need to have their expectations managed with the return on — and long-term value of — marketing.
Next, build a marketing function that properly allows for measurement, analysis, optimisation and constant improvement. No one campaign will build a brand. You might get some sales from it — you might even get a lot — but a campaign-by-campaign-led approach can be somewhat futile.
You need to keep coming up with the next campaign to sustain the sales, and when each campaign is finished there’s little to nothing left to carry over, so you have to start again. With pressure on short-term results it’s tempting to put longer-term strategy in the ‘tomorrow’ or ‘too hard’ box. But the two are not mutually exclusive, in fact taking the bull by the horns with longer-term thinking will make your more tactical activity much easier.
Often, longer-term marketing is about identifying a ‘real world’ challenge and setting out to solve it. Take sunglasses brand Goodr, for example. The brand’s attention-grabbing marketing tactics have been noted in the past, but they are based on a strong premise of doing things differently and single-mindedly to solve a problem (i.e., sunglasses for runners that are affordable and not over-engineered). Goodr set out in 2015 with a mission to make sunglasses that runners would want to wear, and its marketing approach has supported this from day one.
Similarly, direct-to-consumer men’s wear brand True Classic set out on a mission to fill a gap in the market with its ‘elevated basics’ — affordable clothes that fit and look better. And while the brand invests in the online advertising that drives immediate sales, its marketing approach is all about driving its longer-term marketing mission.
Both of these brands understand just how important it is to build and maintain relatability with their audiences. Amazon really gets this — one of its leadership principles is focused on customer obsession:
Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
So, focus on what your audience actually cares about, not just on trying to get them to care about you. It helps if you are truly connected to your community. If you don’t have the insight already, then sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and spend time listening to your audience. This is something that fitness apparel brand Gymshark did to drive long-term relatability with its audience.
Ultimately, taking the longer-term approach to marketing is about building trust and credibility. As we’ve seen with even new brands such as Goodr, True Classic and Gymshark, you have to stay true to what you are and why you exist. Sometimes to achieve this, you have to build affiliations and associations with other brands, influencers, movements and so on. And keep it real, don’t try to be something different to everyone.
Attention is very much the shimmering gold in marketing. But sometimes shimmering gold turns out to be paper thin. There are no real shortcuts in marketing, even if in our world of digital immediacy, it might seem like there are. Have a clear business goal and set out a realistic marketing strategy to achieve this. With the right longer-term approach, sustainable growth will come, and with it, shorter-term attention and sales.
Featured image: cottonbro / Pexels
