Targeting made easy

In a survey by Emarsys of 2,000 UK consumers, 41% of respondents said they wouldn’t purchase from a brand again if they received haphazard marketing materials, while 66% say they would ignore all future marketing if a brand sent them hit or miss offers*. With these statistics in mind, what’s key to success is targeted messaging and one of the most important things is to understand your target audience.

Persona

If you haven’t already created a persona about your target audience then now is a good time. Creating a persona allows you to identify what certain traits of your target audience, this can be related to their goals, motivation or challenges they face. In highlighting these key personality traits of your target audience, you become more understanding of what and how they will respond to you, allowing more personalised and targeted messages in your digital marketing campaigns.

Once you find you have a strong understanding of the target audience, you move onto an ‘elevator pitch’; a few lines stating how you could help this potential client, as though you were stuck in an elevator, making it relatively informal, but friendlier, appealing to their persona you have already studied.

Content

Although keeping your website fresh improves your SEO, it isn’t the only thing you can do to ensure good targeted marketing. Here at Smart Cow, we have and will always believe that content is king, therefore the idea of tailored content to audiences in a bespoke manner is clearly a productive use of marketing efforts**. This not only means making content purely for viewers, but also making it easy for viewers to see, for example don’t post an Instagram picture on twitter, as it comes up as just a link. Not only that, but quality content on your website is one of the best ways to start improving your business. An inbound marketing agency like Smart cow would be happy to help with any further enquiries on this topic.

Email Marketing

If, as this research indicates, that 66% of customers would ignore all future marketing efforts after receiving one not targeted at them, can your business really afford to not provide targeted messages? Further industry research has revealed that primarily personalised welcome emails have been 320% more likely to lead to purchases than regular monthly emails***. Therefore a targeted and well thought out email marketing campaign can be more efficient and cost effective than a random email.

If you have any questions about creating a persona or digital marketing for your business, then get in touch today.

Content marketing agency

Talk to us about your content marketing needs and we’ll guide you towards the best combination of channels and strategies to utilise to make you stand out from the crowd. A reliable digital marketing agency in Croydon, Smart Cow will be glad to answer any further questions.

Sources: *econsultancy.com ; **Smart Cow Marketing ; ***Wordstream

#EpicAdvertising

The Drum has yet again brought to our attention another great Advertising campaign. This time from Moneysupermarket.com, a company renowned for creating innovative, fun and memorable adverts.

What makes the Ad stand out is its sense of nostalgia because of its recreation of the famous car scene from Thelma and Louise, as well as bringing back memories of the Sindy doll. Furthermore, its stunning cinematography, animation is a great example of how film making, and advertising has evolved.

Using a great story line from an old film and bringing back images of Sindy could be seen as a great advertising strategy for two main reasons.

Firstly, the consumer demographic for Moneysupermarket.com is likely to be older meaning they may get the references to the 1991 classic film and be drawn to the company. Secondly, despite younger people perhaps not getting the references, they can appreciate it as fun and entertaining, and with the younger generations they are then more likely to share the video allowing it to trend on social media as it is now.

Sticking with the company’s previous adverts, this ad has its own appropriate hashtag. Always beginning with #Epic – #EpicStrut, #EpicDanceOff and #EpicSquads. This ad is no exception –  #EpicSindy.

What makes Moneysupermarket.com campaign successful is the continuity amongst their adverts which helps us remember the branding and put it on a platform where it can start trending.

At Smart Cow, we thoroughly enjoyed the advert, not only because of its #throwbacks, but that it is a great example of excellent advertising, reminding us to keep campaigns and ads creative and entertaining to grab the customers attention.

If you need help or advice with your digital marketing strategy get in contact with us at Smart Cow Marketing where we can help give your business the boost it needs.

Sans Forgetica

Specialists at both the psychology and typography, design labs in Melbourne RMIT university have recently created a new font, designed at helping students revise better, people learn languages better, and elderly people struggling with memory loss*.

This new Font ‘Sans Forgetica’ is a play on the commonly known fonts ‘Helvetica’ and ‘Comic Sans’, also playing with the idea that it’s harder to forget. Here at Smart Cow we found it particularly interesting that the font not only has gaps in the structure of each letter, but also slants 7 degrees to the left, making it harder to decipher for the human brain. This tactic is known as the difficulty principle and is meant to promote stronger cognitions when the word is finally formed in your head.

Importance of fonts

When it comes to marketing, fonts are increasingly important. In online advertising customers spend mere seconds looking at your brand as we found in the email marketing blog earlier this year.

With the font of your brand name clearly being the first thing customers lay eyes on, it has to be seen as one of the most critical aspects of a brand, therefore it must be done right.

Fonts we like

One font the Smart Cow team believe can make a brand stand out in a luxury market is ‘Didot’, most commonly seen by many people as the font of choice for Vogue magazine since 1955. This font originates from the late 18th/ early 19th century in Paris and we think displays a certain level of elegance.

Another font we love is ‘Garamond’, based on the designs of 16th-century French engraver Claude Garamond. This font portrays a thin yet soft style, very easily legible. Ideal for advertising professional services or products, such as letting agencies.

At Smart Cow, we offer multiple tips on how creating the right impression at first glance for your customers. Get in touch with us for more and we’ll be able to help you perfect your online brand and digital persona.

Source: *www.dezeen.com

Is it time for a brand refresh?

We recently read an article in Real Business about colour psychology and brands. The logo is the first thing people see when they view your brand. Out of 2000 UK adults 53% say familiarity makes them trust the brand logo more*. So, it is important to create a logo that is memorable and coincides with the themes and ideology of the brand.

Coca-Cola has been voted Britain’s most popular logo*. Why? Well the psychology of colour might help. The colour red is bright and eye-catching, it also can make us feel impulsive**, which is something Coca-Cola has grasped onto with its latest adverts about ‘Impulsive Moments.’ The mixture of eye-catching and impulsiveness related to a product makes us feel that it is the perfect drink to buy in any situation. So, if you’re in a hurry? Coca-Cola. You’re having family and friends over? Coca-Cola. It seems to be imprinted on everyone’s mind.

From this case study it seems obvious that colour and logo design is a key part to making a business, it is an image that will stick with your business. Many colours have emotions and attitudes related to them. Brands are associated with different colours and for good reason too. For example; yellow can be seen as comfort and warmth. McDonalds has yellow on their logo signalling to the public they can rely on them, along with its impulsive red which makes people instinctively choose it**. Blue often is related to trust, hence why many tech companies have this as their colour as security is high on the agenda. Often colours will mean different things in different contexts, for example the colour green can mean health, Nuffield Health opted for green branding, or it can mean peaceful, Starbucks is a go to place for many to relax or work.

Picking a colour scheme can be hard but as the company behind the colour psychology research, 99designs, recommends ask yourself six questions when creating a brand: how do you define your brand gender, tone, value, time, age and energy?*.

At Smart Cow, we know that one size does not fit all, so a red for one brand just may not be right for you. That’s why when it comes to digital marketing and inbound marketing, we always recommend a mix and match approach for your campaign.

Sources: *Realbusiness.co.uk and **Cosmopolitan