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Today, the current trend, especially in the U.S., is all about getting more awareness and exposure on either ourselves or our businesses. The digital age has given birth to a playground where everyone has a voice. It almost seems like we live in a culture that is constantly screaming, “Hey, look at me!” It is this particular attitude that contributes to all the noise we deal with on a regular basis as we walk through a normal day.
Everywhere we turn, we see billboards, TV commercials, phone and email notifications, and ads on park benches and buses. We hear radio and podcasting ads. The list goes on and on. This issue seems to have made human evolution so efficient at detecting forthcoming sales pitches that one would think we now have a sixth sense that is constantly waiting to set off an alarm.
People’s attention spans have drastically been reduced as well — from around 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds in 2018. This is a huge cause of concern for marketers or influencers who are constantly trying to get attention to promote their products or services. Can we watch or listen to a single piece of content without being advertised to? Is this realistic?
It is time for a new paradigm shift to take place in the way we focus and deploy our marketing efforts. People like different. People enjoy a sense of randomness in their lives. The individuals and companies that can operate on the “fringe” will be the ones in the foreseeable future who likely change the culture and start a new movement in the way consumers digest information. I have a personal friend, Charlie, who is a highly successful serial entrepreneur and who built a successful underground podcasting community, only accessible to those with a secret phone number that one person, Charlie’s mother, had. Based on a recent conversation Charlie and I had, here are some eye-opening insights on this paradigm shift that I believe must take place:
Value Without Advertising
In order to take our businesses to the next level, we need to implement a way to grab the attention of consumers, pique their curiosity and take them through an educational journey where they do not feel like they are being advertised to.
We need to flip the marketing script to where customers feel like we are handing the microphone back over to them. This is empowerment and builds trust with clients.
One way we started doing this at my agency is by establishing genuine relationships with customers via text messaging. Texting customers has been around but is still a new concept, relatively speaking. The way in which we text clients also helps us take relationships to the next level. We allow our texting to be a two-way street. Many marketers fail to recognize the importance of this.
It’s important to practice an open-invitation policy. For example, we will ask for direct feedback via texts on products or services from our clients as they directly use them. Welcome all feedback, good or bad, as this provides very quick and informative analytics on how to improve on your offers.
We also use text drip feed campaigns as part of our CRM in order to nurture new prospects when they sign up for the first time. One last value-add to build the relationship is utilizing text campaigns on clients’ birthdays so they feel special — tossing in a discount code or freebie along with it to sweeten the deal always helps.
When you text consumers in a broadcast-type format, it can come across as promotional and sales pitchy as the client feels they have no voice. The agencies that can practice handing the microphone back to their clients are the ones that will help create the paradigm shift.
The Concept Of Invisible Influence
In a world of everyone seeking fame and striving for attention on social media, the idea of invisible influence looks very promising. It generates a sense of prestige without trying to be prestigious and establishes community.
The idea of invisible influence is not an entirely new concept. Let’s look at speakeasies, for example. Back during prohibition days, speakeasies were escapes or hidden societies from the public prohibition laws that ran the country. People simply do not like to be told what they can and cannot consume. Speakeasies had a certain way of remaining off the grid and “invisible” to the public eye but were still able to become prestigious without even trying to. They also built tight-knit communities among their members.
The invisible influence concept has shown to get the community more exposure by attempting to become less exposed. How can this be? People love exclusivity! It makes them feel important and like they are a part of something that others cannot access. To speakeasy members, it brings forth a feeling of prestige in a sense. It is marketing brilliance in an age where everyone is out to steal the microphone for their 15 minutes of fame.
To implement this concept into their own brands, businesses could focus on building communities that are “hidden” to the outside world. This could be in the form of a secret phone number that you can only obtain from someone on the inside. Or it could be as simple as a hidden website with a secret passcode needed to gain access.
In response to these trends, there is a huge demand among people who want to have more freedom with the information they access and consume. Moving forward, communities and businesses that are able to control the community vision, intention, purpose and content distribution, and do so without the distractions of other third-parties, will be the ones who flourish and lead by example. This is the future of building high-quality relationships with others and will lead the wave on how to stand out in an attention-driven society — without even trying to.
