Creative Content: Owning The Relationship With The Consumer
“When you create stellar content native to a platforms context, you can make a person feel; if your content can make a person feel, he is likely to share it with others, providing you with amplified word of mouth at a fraction of the cost of most other media. Best of all, you not only own the content, you own the relationship with your consumer.” — Gary Vaynerchuk
There are a multitude of ways to stand above the competition when it comes to creating and delivering marketing content. Being authentic and true to the brand, staying relevant and in-touch with consumer trends, constantly redefining self-image amidst the ebbs and flows of social media.
One unquestionably important way to stay atop the apex of consumer interest is through the creation of a feeling - a sentiment on the part of the consumer’s engagement. It’s something that ought to never be taken for granted because it’s lies at the heart of, rather, it is the heart of, the relationship between a brand and the consumers loyalty.
In an increasingly loud online world whereby we see waterfalls of Tweets and mountains of Instagram photos, a striking visual presentation coupled with an edgy post may no longer hold as much water as it did yesterday.
Dissecting effective content, one quick underlying value becomes immediately visible: the ability of such content to provide an immersive momentary experience that leaves the consumer wanting more and, ultimately, pull the tantalizing trigger of conversion.
“When companies connect with customers’ emotions, the payoff can be huge. Consider these examples: After a major bank introduced a credit card for Millennials that was designed to inspire emotional connection, use among the segment increased by 70% and new account growth rose by 40%” — Harvard Business Review
Creativity is key in this endeavor. It takes a substantial amount of creative juices to find a way to burst through the screens and into the heart of a consumer. So how is creativity achieved?
32% of marketers say visual images are the most important form of content for their business, with blogging in second (27%) — Social Media Examiner
Visuals matter, but only about a third. Written content is crucial as well, factoring in almost another third. Weaved into both, however, is style and originality. To grab hold of a consumers imagination, a company has to first employ its own imagination — that’s really the simple crux of it.
The more imaginative, the more original and inventive a particular piece of marketing content is, the more likely it is to pull in the attention spans of consumers. The more immersive it is, the deeper those attention spans will be pulled in.
Imagination and creativity is the fuel that drives feeling; without a consumer’s mind being activated, there’s little to no chance that they follow through on the marketed offer or identify with a particular brand - it’s strikingly simple science, though easier said that done.
Think about it. A consumer is bombarded with advertisements on an hourly basis, assuming they spend that hour casually navigating the muddled waters of social media. Marketing content begins to look more and more like white noise that serves no purposes — trickery is annoying, generic appeals are boring, misguided posts are embarrassing but, a feeling, that can’t be denied.
For respect must be allotted to the consumer - they're the be-all and end-all. If focus is directed towards simply turning a dollar rather than engaging in this symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit and bilateral respect, it's a two-way loss scenario. And to not engage with the attentive mind of a consumer is to deny such respect. In an odd way, it's as though an offering, in the form of an enticing invitation, must be made to grab and hold an attention span.
In fact, it can be said that the sentiments spurred in the hearts and minds of consumers are the only genuine things left in an increasingly artificial and loud environment. They stand out. They instantaneously offer a hint of authentic experience that’s hard to come by nowadays, an unadulterated and unpretentious offer that’s both captivating and worthy of further exploration.
It seems that, in the modern nexus of social feeds, genuine feeling (spurred by imaginative and creative content) is the only real foundation that can withstand the expansive quakes of insincere, inauthentic and deceptive marketing efforts that continuously frustrate and tire the attention of consumers.
In other words, it's a call to adventure, poking at curiosity and tantalizing the prospect of a worthwhile experience. This is the true foundation upon which a genuinely symbiotic relationship between producer and consumer can form.
Sources:
https://hbr.org/2015/11/the-new-science-of-customer-emotions
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/visual-content-marketing-strategy