Identifying unique and effective platforms or marketing strategies to penetrate your audience can be daunting. But, there are some common tactics that can help you generate some ideas. These are the 3 steps to create unique marketing ideas:
“Finding the right person, with the right problem, at the right time”
Each portion of the statement has a trigger or trackable item that we as marketers can use to further refine our marketing efforts. Take the simplest stage; the right person, this is the where. It simply means we must understand our target audience and then prove that we can find them in a certain location. Think audience groups via advertising channels such as Google Ads. It provides an opportunity for us to prove whether our audience will see our content on said platform.
Looking to Jump Ahead:
- Why You Should Care: Beating Information Overload
- How To Use The 3 Step Process Of Creating Unique Marketing Ideas
- Case Example
Get Through The Information Overload With Unique Marketing
Before we jump into further detail on each section, I think it’s important we discuss why someone should go through this process.
We live in a world of information overload. Where everyone’s competing for the attention of everyday consumers. What does this mean to us as marketers? We have to produce great content? It needs to be short, sweet and to the point? Yes to all of the above but even more importantly, we need to stand out. It’s through the combination of where, when, and how that we can get more than just the 2 seconds of attention.
Consider the audience for a moment. If we are looking at a shopaholic, someone who frequently engages with ads on social media. We know that they are seeing an immense amount of ads on Facebook or Instagram, which means we potentially already have our “finding the person”. But how can we be sure that we will stand out on the same playing field? When these individuals have hundreds of companies targeting ads at them the same way we may just blend right in. Now flip over to a C-suite executive, they likely see hundreds of directed LinkedIn messages or email marketing attempts. They begin to build up an immunity to these marketing efforts. They will count you out before even reading it because they’ve seen hundreds just like it over the last month.
This challenge of competing for attention is not new and neither is this method of combining the critical triggers to improve efficiency. The key factor is that everyday the information overload continues to grow and everyday the importance of unique targeting methods grows with it.
3 Steps To Create Unique Marketing Ideas (How To)
We know what it is we are trying to do; stand out. Why we need to do it; information overload. But now, we need to know how we can. Successfully completing the how comes down to one simple question; how well do you know your target audience?
Finding the Right Person:
As mentioned at the very beginning, we are simply trying to figure out where our audience frequents. Ask yourself a few introductory questions:
- Are they engaging on social media?
- What does a day in that role look like?
- Where do they spend most of their time (Computer, phone, meetings, travelling)?
- Who do they interact with on a day-to-day basis?
There are many ways to figure this out but I’ll be honest it can take a while. Most organizations opt for the trial and error approach and then get caught in identifying whether it was a success. They think “Oh! It has to be LinkedIn”, then proceed to invest the next 4 years into LinkedIn as their main platform. This can be a risky approach to say the least.
A more productive method might be to speak with current clients, speak with competitors or substitutes, or even outsource to a specialized agency that’s worked with clients such as yourselves. All viable and vary in cost/time resources. A final option would be to use Tactycs (subtle nod to ourselves). We specialize in finding where your audience is, with a data-driven system we look at every factor about your audience and build you a custom strategy to engage them. For a much more affordable rate than an agency and significantly less onboarding time. If you’re interested check us out here. We work with clients one on one to ensure they get the results they need.
Once you have an idea of where your audience is frequenting, DO NOT forget to prove it. Just because you paid someone to help you in this area does not mean you shouldn’t still prove the viability of said platform. Getting step one down is critical, if done wrong the rest of the process will be a waste.
With The Right Problem:
The second stage is qualifying that they are experiencing the pain point that you solve. The most important concept in this stage is ensuring that we can convert the “right problem” into some sort of trigger. The simplest example of this: an individual needs help identifying unique ways to engage their customers, they proceed to search via Google, we can then track that search and utilize a combination of SEO and SEM to rank. In this example we can verify that this individual is experiencing the problem and we can make some sort of marketing decision based on the trigger (searching in Google > advertising based on search).
The above example is in no way creative, it is meant to show you the process of problem, trigger, response.
- Problem: What is the customer feeling, experiencing, looking to solve? This problem/solution statement or concept should be ingrained into your business
- Trigger: What is the customer doing as a result of this pain? Are they seeking assistance immediately, are they hiring, are they looking to learn, are they searching for a product to alleviate the stress, etc.
- Response: Are you able to respond to this trigger? Can you utilize the trigger to enact a suitable response?
At The Right Time:
The third and final stage isn’t always required. This is dependent on your audience and their buying process. As an example, B2C versus B2B have very different decision factors which means the “right time” changes.
In the most basic example of problem, trigger, response, we can see that the response happens immediately and is the only touch point required for the sale. This is a fantastic spot to be but is hard to find. Typically we use this approach to get our business on their radar. Then we continuously define the right time via various touch points.
This third and final stage is where trial and error becomes more acceptable. Depending on the way we introduced these leads into our funnel we have to identify the best way to nurture them through. A typical layout for this might be as follows:
Even between these two problem, trigger, response groups we can see that Group One requires significantly more nurturing. There will always be an explanation to the required touch points. In the scenario of Group Two we caught the attention of a lead before they hired someone, which means they already have a budget and an immediate need to fix the problem. That means we should take a more aggressive approach to our nurturing.
Bringing us to the end of the 3 steps to create unique marketing ideas. We see both consistency and variation depending on your organization, audience, and capabilities. If you simply don’t have the time to go through this process, consider contacting Tactycs here to see how we can automate your marketing and improve results.
Creating Unique Content Ideas
The 3 steps to create unique marketing ideas above is a high level how to process to help you understand where you need to start. But, there is also a question of great, unique, and engaging content ideas. What should I post on my social media?
There are countless ways to do this but we’ve created a free resource that has over 100 social media ideas. Understanding the right person, right problem, and right time will allow you to select the perfectly unique ideas from the above resource!
Example of The 3 Step Process:
Tactycs – Saas MarTech Company
The Right Person: Medium sized business with an unbalanced marketing team that is overwhelmed based on the organizational requirements of the marketing department. We can filter for this scenario via LinkedIn Navigator.
The Right Problem:
Problem: Having a hard time engaging or converting with their audience, especially with the limited time they have to trial and error there way to better results
Trigger: Look to hire a content strategist
Response: RSS Feed on major job boards to catch companies looking for this role
The Right Time: Immediate response via a call or LinkedIn connection based on the urgency of this unique approach
Summary: We identify the company size and imbalance via LinkedIn where most B2B businesses live. We then wait for them to be experiencing the pain point enough that they hit the trigger. They have the intention of hiring, the budget, and the need for assistance. We sneak in before they waste too much time on the hiring process and provide an alternative. Acting immediately to save the company from unnecessary resources and utilizing LinkedIn as the tool for the major touchpoints.