Capturing a Digital Nomad

Capturing the attention & imagination and the hearts & wallets of a target audience has always been a hard ask. There is no doubt this challenge has got harder as the market has become busier with more platforms to sell, more products and more services – and a nod to “less is more”, austerity and the “need over want” movement.

Clever marketers have used location and environment - through geomapping or hotspotting - to be able to place their customers and market to them effectively. However, what happens when that customer changes their location and their environment weekly, even daily? What happens if their working environment – like me on holiday – goes from an office in Brighton to the ski slopes of New Zealand? When your target customers’ constants are not constant and their needs and wants could be changing day in, day out?

The answer lies in the brand.

We are entering a world where choice is at a maximum. Whether it’s the choice of what to wear, the phone we use or the coffee we drink or the choice of where we work and how we work. With every one of your customers’ choices comes multiple options from providers offering better deals, different products with different benefits. To be able to make your product or service the chosen one of choice, customers need to know and trust your brand.

Good brand relationships are a bit like good friendships - they need to understand what you are about, and like a friendship, choose to have you as part of their life. It’s about having the same values so that whatever the situation you remain relevant to them – wherever and whenever. It means customers understanding what your brand values are and being clear in your communications about what your brand stands for and standing by it.

Like all the best friendships, you might need some time away from each other for a while – so maybe if that digital nomad is travelling you connect in work mode but not in rest mode. It might be that your brand is relevant across both work and play but like a good friend needs different things from you at different times. In brand terms that could be the phone that takes the best photographs and allows you to download them super-fast, but in work mode means has the capability to connect you to your colleagues on the other side of the world. For a coffee brand, that could mean a coffee cup that collapses so you can take your “keep cup” with you on the go, and a loyalty scheme that works across the world.

It also means knowing your place and not overstepping the line. So, for example, it might mean offering downtime on your phone or encourage less data usage for rest periods. It might mean no adverts during the weekend or after 6pm. It might mean no winter promotional offers for those travelling to hotter climes and vice versa.

There is no doubt that the way we live and work is changing rapidly – and mapping our customers’ lifestyles will become a tactical task, rather than a strategic approach. Understanding the strength of your brand and how you can adapt to their adapting landscapes will be the answer to a truly successful brand of the future.

All I Want for Christmas...

So December is edging closer and closer. The John Lewis advert is live. There is a nip in the air. My children have already written their lists to Santa. Christmas is definitely around the corner.  As young innocent faces look with excitement and anticipation at the presents stacked under the tree, their eyes glinting with the fairy lights and advent candles, the question is 'Will they get what they really want this Christmas?"  And if they do get their heart's desire, will it really live up to expectations? Change their life?  Make them better, funnier, prettier, and more popular?

Marketing and communications campaigns can be a bit like Christmas morning. (Bear with me here, it’s not as tenacious as you think).  The client briefs an agency, or a consultant, or an in-house team looking for them to transform the hearts and minds of their customers with a succinct, stylish, engaging and impactful campaign that raises awareness, gets 10,000s of inches of media coverage, is a viral phenomenon and of course, drives their product or service into the number one slot in their market.

However, sometimes, just like Christmas presents, what the client thinks they want as opposed to what they really want or need, is quite different. And often the challenge is getting clients to realise this, understand the gap between customers’ perception and their own and put their trust in a good communications consultant, either internal or external.

A great example of this is clients who tender out for a new website - new branding, new copy, new approach. Often well needed as company websites are like mattresses, well used and often out of date, although essential, often forgotten.  So the client brief explains the history of the company, what they do, who they are, and why they are wonderful. Yet, do they think about their customers’ needs? Do they address these needs? Do they tailor different areas for different audience sectors? Or do they stand on top of the mountain and shout loudly about how great they are? The agency that doesn’t massage the client’s ego, but thinks about the best way to engage with their audiences, is the agency that in the long term will bring the best return on investment.

It is like the guest at the dinner party who sits all night talking about themselves, without asking questions to their neighbouring guest, or even tempering the conversation to mutual interests.  What will be the lasting impression of the guest? A bore. A massive ego. Tiresome. The guest who listens, who carves their conversation according to the interest piqued by certain subjects and who enquires as well as engages will be the one that everyone wants to be friends with when the dinner plates are cleared away.

So back to my Christmas analogy.  If you don’t get what you really want for Christmas, don’t despair, it could be the exact thing you need this Christmas, but just don’t realise it.  Don’t be swayed by the glossy wrapping paper or the branded box, take a real look inside what is on offer.  And if you still can’t see the value, there is always next Christmas.