NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR ADVERTISING
I’ve been preparing a conference presentation about the role of a club marketer in 2018 and beyond. As part of that preparation, I’ve been researching what clubs around the country are currently doing to communicate their products and services.
While we have come a long way with the products themselves, quite frankly how and what we communicate about those products and services is not great.
I look at a club journal and see page after page of ads, not content. Who wants to read a booklet full of ads? I certainly don’t and neither do your members.
Then I go to the venue’s Facebook and Instagram pages and see those same ads reproduced there! All mixed together with loads of copy in a mish-mash, and guess what…no engagement. These are called social media channels for a reason – people use them to share common interests, ideas and information. But there’s not much “social” about filling up your pages with ads and the latest changes to Facebook are going to “punish” you for these sorts of posts. Because of their low engagement, they will be seen by less and less people. At the moment you may get 1 out of 10 people who like your page to actually see your posts, and it will get even harder.
The message should be pretty clear.
No one cares about your advertising. At all.
To effectively influence customers, ads require a level of interest and unfortunately, marketers optimistically overestimate its existence. Their advertising is not working – but they keep doing it and wasting, time, money and resources in the process.
I also came across an article on Mumbrella this week that summed up a lot of my thoughts. It was by Justin Laing senior manager, strategic marketing and communications at the University of Queensland.
Justin describes his son complaining about an ad break during a product review YouTube video, and how he realised he was looking at the future of advertising in the process.
Justin’s five-year-old son Billy was watching a toy review on YouTube. It was literally a little American kid talking about the latest Batman figurine and explaining what happens when you “push this button” and what shoots out if you “pull this lever.”
Five minutes into the review, a very well-produced 30-second ad came on with perfect looking kids, exciting music and expensive sound effects. Their targeting was perfect, but the content didn’t cut it with their five-year-old target. Billy turned around to Justin, frustrated.
“Dad, why do we have to watch these ads, they’re so annoying.”
He knew the ad was an ad, but he had no idea that the review he had been watching was also the work of some clever micro-marketer. An astute brand manager somewhere in the US was incentivising the young toy reviewer (or his parents), but it came across as authentic, useful content.
And it had a five-year-old Aussie kid mesmerised on the couch, which is no small feat.
It’s a beautiful example of why old-school marketing just doesn’t cut it these days.
You can read Justin’s the full article here >>>
SOME THINGS TO DO TO MAKE YOUR COMMUNICATIONS MORE EFFECTIVE
There has been a seismic shift in marketing & communications over the past five to ten years. I realise it is not an easy thing to do to change and it involves an entire shift in thinking. As someone working in the industry, I also know marketers have enormous challenges with time and resources that may not have kept up with these changes.
But there are some things you can do.
-
OUTSOURCE
Not every club has a copywriter, storyteller or content creator on hand. Nor do they all have a strategic plan on how to manage and maintain that content. But there are specialists out there who can help.
One of those specialists is Daily Press who has a creative team of communication experts who can help you rethink, reposition and reproduce your content.
They even have an offer on at the moment of providing a free Social Media Strategic Plan which will get you started on the right track. To find out more contact Wayne Knight on 0412 745 780 or email on
-
EDUCATION
If you don’t know where to start, educate yourself. And keep educating yourself as technology changes continuously.
One way you can do that is through an Intensive Facebook & Social Media course The Drop has put together with Laurel Papworth.
Laurel is regarded as one of the world’s top 50 Social Media influencers and teaches Social Media at Sydney University. She has put together an intensive two-day course, specifically for pubs and clubs and it will get you up to speed on how to use and manage these two vital communications channels for your venue.
