New research shows that brands need to build wider and fresher networks and recognise the power of category entry points. Category Entry Points (CEPs) are the cues that category buyers use to access their memories when faced with a buying situation. The link to the research is here.

Let’s face it the best search engine is our mind, our memory, and our experience. Most people will search memory first, then ask a friend, and only after that will they search online. Good marketing aims to capture the attention, the heart, the soul, and the mind of an audience. In other words, building the brand, the positioning, and the reputation will help your brand prosper. Over my 30 years, I’ve asked thousands of businesses what their ‘marketing’ objective is and 95% say leads or sales.

But the conundrum is, with new research showing that less than 5% of people are ready to buy,  the question should be, why is everyone wasting precious resources promoting the next “not so special” offer and over-allocating budget to online paid promotional campaigns? A consistent sales ‘push’ can adversely affect the relationship you have with your audience (because 95% aren’t ready to purchase!) so the real risk is brand fatigue.

With digital literacy now mainstream and online publishing so accessible there’s massive fragmentation. In 2022 almost every business knows how to ‘pay to play’ online and the result is our social channels are flooded with paid ads - our ‘social’ channels just aren’t social anymore. Plus everyone seems to be offering 20% off! Stop it!

Some brands publish hundreds of ads in any given year and over post and the reality is, bad communication is ruining a good thing and is counterintuitive to building brand loyalty.

There are all kinds of human attention - passive, active, and non-attention, The recent Cannes Lions Festival kicked off the discussion with “Triple Jeopardy” a panel of some great marketing minds: Peter Field, attention economy supremo; Adelaide guru, Karen Nelson-Field and creativity Maestro Orlando Wood argue Triple Jeopardy - “triple jeopardy” is the withdrawal of money from brand and putting it into paid performance promotions - it’s a short term approach, which if adopted on a massive scale, won’t build a brand.

For what it's worth, in my opinion … digital provided a way for marketers to report on the advertising investment in a way that people could see and ‘understand’. Click-throughs, impressions, sign-ups, shopping carts, conversions, and web traffic analytics. Boardrooms are typically full of educated business people, CFOs, CEOs, and business owners all looking for metrics, and digital brought the science that marketers needed to validate themselves and their budgets.

Personally, after more than a decade of digital, I question the metrics. Impressions … are they? Most ads served to me on my ‘social’ media channels rarely impress me, in fact, I find them intrusive. Yet, they are reported as an ‘impression’, which put simply means the ad has been scrolled through on a device.

These metrics are now being challenged. As they should be. Good marketers need to bring the conversation back into the boardroom, challenge the metrics and dive into the data. Ad effectiveness should be questioned. There’s too much leakage with online paid performance campaigns. Let's loop back quickly to remember ... less than 5%.

So, in a nutshell, I encourage you to watch this space and challenge the digital data being presented to you. More than a decade in, many early adopters are scaling back their own online paid promotions and moving it over to brand and comms but I see a lot of late comers still wanting to dig in. Beware. How consumers spend their money, where they spend it, and how often is not linear, and with so many messages being delivered (20% off … cringing) you run the risk of tripping yourself (and your budget) up.

Now, let me be clear, I’m not saying don’t adopt online paid campaigns or apply sales price promotions because they can be very effective to your overall marketing strategy, but they should not be the holy grail to achieve sales and leads!

Recognise that digital paid performance campaigns are promotions and just one element of your marketing mix. Consider all elements, adopt an omni channel holistic approach underpinned by a robust strategy to build your brand, open up your networks, and foster loyalty.

The rest will follow.

Want to discuss your strategy? I’m more than happy to shoot the breeze, so please get in touch.

Listen to the Triple jeopardy interview here.

Nicola.