How to avoid bland marketing
- 5 minutes read
How to avoid bland marketing
- 5 minutes read
*This article belongs to our Buyer Personas series inspired by the book ‘Buyer Personas’ by Adele Revella and Jim Kraus.
In 2024, we have a prevalence of bland marketing efforts where numerous campaigns done by very creative and knowledgeable people fall flat. Why? It seems that marketers have forgotten their role, so they learn various tools to compensate for the lack of direction. Nowadays, the software development jargon has found its way into marketing, where we have full-stack marketers. Nothing wrong with having full-stack marketers; these people are versatile in several marketing branches and know how to use various tools. Usually, full-stack marketers can do content creation, SEO, analytics, testing, and ad setup and management. Having a full-stack marketer is an excellent addition to the team of specialists because they understand several marketing aspects and can jump in, help, or contribute to the conversation with their unique understanding.
However, no full-stack toolset can replace knowing your customer – which is the core of marketing. Knowing the psychological profile of the ideal buyer persona is the essence, and all strategies begin at this point.
Yet, it seems that we rely on data more and more as time passes. Data such as impressions, customer behavior on the website—the so-called heatmaps—or site speed; we take into consideration all these data points at face value without looking at their background.
Data doesn’t allow risk-taking, so companies instead double down on what the data says works. This isn’t wrong under the assumption that the data is correct and paints an accurate picture of the customers. But first, let’s ask if the data is correct, shall we?
How data is collected
Companies usually collect data from 3 primary sources: Google, surveys, and owned media – primarily websites. We can talk for days about Google Analytics, impressions, survey responses, KPIs, how many people came organically compared to ads, and dissect all customer pathways on the website.
These tools do a great job of capturing a customer’s behavior on the website and are essential in confirming or denying the assumptions we create for them. Assumptions can range from whether the landing page content is done well to what demographics like our content best.
However, what’s missing here is the person-to-person interaction. At no point is the customer asked, personally: “Hey, what do you think about the information we have here?” There is no proactive person-to-person approach to understanding the customers (and no, surveys aren’t proactive).
Sales and call center teams (if there are any) have this person-to-person interaction, but these teams’ goals are different from marketing. Namely, these teams don’t actively get to know the customer. Instead, they either help the customer solve an issue or sell to the customer. Both teams possibly operate by following marketing guidelines. So, it essentially falls to marketing people to know the customer well.
And very few marketing people interact with customers directly! And again, sending surveys with preset questions doesn’t do justice to how customers experience a product, a brand, or a company. Customer perception of the brand is very often far more detailed than a survey can address
So, what can marketers do?
What to do instead
Instead of solely relying on data, marketers should speak with customers directly. Calling to gauge their sentiment is a more personal approach. Consistent communication is vital to understanding the customers. And in this case, marketers call existing customers, so no sales tactics are needed, just the common courtesy of asking to talk about the product or service they use.
Distribution of subscribers’ optimal day of the week. Source: MailChimp
Marketers should always have survey-like questions prepared, but answering all questions shouldn’t be the goal; the discussion should be primary instead. Some example questions are:
And just like that, any marketer can gain deep insight into the customer’s decision-making process, whether they’re happy with their decision, and what the company can do to make them appreciate the product or service more. If the whole team does this for a week, they can get outstanding leverage on the entire industry and competitors. Collate this data with the previous interactions, and you will have a lot of data to create a buyer persona, which is better than any competitor not doing this can have.
A good buyer persona means no more bland marketing
No tool or survey can help marketers understand their customers better than personal interaction with them. Even emails don’t do true justice because the tone of voice is lost in written-only communication. And these extralinguistic details—sighs, amazement, happiness, or apathy—are easily registered during a call. Calls give space to people to transfer empathy and emotion just via their tone of voice, and this information is indispensable when creating a buyer persona.
As marketing teams create the buyer persona, they can identify what messaging really resonates with customers and what they can discard. Furthermore, marketers become experts on their customer base, and as such, they can represent customers in every discussion on strategy, website development, messaging, or product development. And defining buyer personas is the first step to avoiding bland marketing that falls flat among its target audience.