We’re pretty positive that if you’re reading this, you already know what marketing segmentation is and most likely clustering as well. For those that may not understand what these terms mean, we will define them before diving in. Marketing segmentation is the identification of unique groups with commonalities that exist within your audience and will respond to market action similarly. It can be done through geographic locations, demographics, psychological traits, filmography, and/or behaviors. It helps brands minimize risks through understanding which products/services will sell and the best way to market them. Clustering is very similar to this. It uses machine tech and algorithms to find these unique relationships between the people in your audience. The difference here is that while marketing segmentation organizes the audience, clustering actually creates new groups based on their unique characteristics. This helps brands gain a competitive advantage over their competitors. The benefits of clustering vs segmentation are that it is done through machine learning and not manually. But, that being said, it’s also a pitfall. It cannot be done with technology. Let’s imagine that a brand has a high-end dress line. They use clustering to find out who they should market too. You enter data that you’ve collected from past purchases and input this into a cluster analysis tool that will give you the answers you’re looking for. This is an example of clustering in marketing. It helps tailor messaging for the right groups. Segmentation can only take you so far is a broader approach while clustering dives into the quantum details of your audience.
Loss Aversion
No one likes losing and it isn’t limited to certain parts of our life. Losing sucks in any way, shape, or form. Loss aversion is the behavioral phenomenon that individuals perceive loss more severely than gains. According to Behavioral Economics, the pain is about twice as powerful than a gain. This means that people will go out of their way to make decisions or take risks purely based on what they avoid losing rather than what they will be gaining. This is why it’s sometimes argued that punishments, rather than rewards for doing or not something are more motivating.
This or That: The Framing Effect
Let’s create a hypothetical for you. You go to the store to get some yogurt. One claims to be 80% fat free and the other brand says that it only contains 20% fat. Which do you choose? If you’re like most individuals, you choose the 80% fat free option. This is the framing effect. It is a cognitive bias that influences our decisions by the way that information is presented or “framed.” When something is framed in a more positive way, we tend to lean in that direction since we’re wired to avoid loss. This can sometimes cause us to overvalue how something is said and undervalue what is being said. Looking deeper at this takes you into the prospect theory of psychology. As we age we become more susceptible to the framing effect as our cognitive functions diminish.
Sticking with What’s Familiar: The Mere Exposure Effect
Sometimes the best decision is not always the familiar one. The mere exposure effect, also known as the familiarity effect, is when people chose preferred things, they’ve seen over things that are new. You can see why it is also called the familiarity effect because we tend to choose things that are familiar. This effect occurs even if the exposure is short and goes unnoticed by the viewer’s conscious mind. Therefore, the more someone has been exposed to something the more likely they are to like it.
Decoy Effect
How many times have you been out to purchase something and ended up with more than you essentially went for? The decoy effect may be the explanation for how you’re being influenced without knowing it. This is a pricing strategy that offers 3 options and one of which is only designed to get you to switch your choice to the more profitable one.
The Verbatim Effect: Get the Gist?
How many of you have read something long and when asked about it can only recall the overall gist of details? We know that we have! This is called the verbatim effect and it is defined as a cognitive bias that causes people to only remember the gist of the information instead of its exact form. And, this isn’t limited to text. It extends to videos, photos, infographics, etc. So, how can brands use this to their advantage in marketing? People are skimmers.
While Supplies Last: Scarcity Marketing Tactics
Why do we all want things that we can’t have? This is what the scarcity principle is based upon. Creating want for a product or service through limited accessibility. Things that seem rare are perceived to have higher value. Marketing uses this principle often to get customers to buy but there needs to be proof of scarcity, of course. Here are some examples of ways that marketing use scarcity.
Extra, Extra Read All About It: Press Releases
News spreads fast nowadays in the digital world we live in. Before the internet, the press release was used to reach a wider audience through sending them directly to journalist. The journalist would then publish in their newspapers to reach a large audience, but only if they deemed the releases to substantial enough to send out. With social media today, it doesn’t matter if anyone thinks your press release is subpar, it’s going to go out anyway. It has become a way for companies to reach their audience directly without the middle man so it’s important for brands to know how to use them strategically to benefit their marketing tools. There are some key elements to your release that you want to make sure you have as well as sending to the proper places. Aside from this you need to know why you’re creating it. Let’s start with that.
Getting Up Close & Personal with Gen Z
Gen Z… they crave success. It will be important to understand them in the upcoming years as they come of age and will be the audience that brands are marketing to, if they aren’t already. Let’s talk about their top 3 priorities in life. 1. Clothing and fashion choices. 2. Making money. 3. DEI. Well, this third is as important for society as number one is, isn’t? it’s also important to note that this generation is still young and their priorities may change over time as they age. What are they interested in?
De-Influencing
It seems that the forecast for trending influencer marketing uptick in 2023 may be fiction more than fact. We’ve reported that it may be trending upaward this upcoming year through our research, but with economic uncertainty on the rise, that may not be true at all. Everyone in the U.S. has been more cautious with their spending habits and has increased their scrutiny over “influencer authenticity.” This became a recent reality when a popular creator was accused of wearing fake eyelashes to promote L’Oréal mascara. Our favorite part of this scandal is that it has been coined “Mascaragate.”
How to Create a Focus Group for Company Data
Focus groups are an important research tool for agencies in understanding their audience. They can be done to be aware of demographics, psychographics and behavioral patterns of their customers. This information can be obtained through surveys but a focus group provides the brand with a deeper understanding of their consumer. That being said, it’s important to ask the right questions when you want to get specific information. Here are some tips to coming up with the right questions for your research.
Psychographics for Advertising/Marketing Strategy
Psychographics sounds like a pretty intense word does it not? It’s not nearly as crazy as it sounds and it is a key component of marketing and advertising strategies. Psychographics uses psychology in conjunction with demographics to create a set of traits to group consumers by what influences their purchasing behaviors. It’s psychological and cognitive traits of consumers that reveals their beliefs, values and goals. There are factors that influence their psychographics such as, personality characteristics, lifestyle, social class, habits, behaviors and interests. So, how do you find the psychographic data from your audience? Well, there are a few ways. Interview existing clients by sending out a survey or asking directly. It’s asking questions like, “what did you do over the weekend?”
Behavioral Marketing
“Organizations that leverage consumer behavior data to generate insight outperform their competitors but 85% in sales growth,” according to Microsoft. Demographics are important for marketing efforts but it won’t be enough to fulfill your business model goals. This is where behavioral marketing can come into play, as well as psychographics. We’ll talk about the latter in tomorrow’s blog. Today, we are focused on behavioral marketing alone. So, what is behavioral marketing? Let’s define it as the method of using behaviors, interests, intentions, locations, etc. to target audiences. Although it may seem similar to psychographics, the difference lies in that this reveals consumer’s beliefs, values and goals to understand purchasing habits. Behavioral marketing is important to helping your brand tailor ads, attract more leads, increase sales and strengthen bonds with your customers. However, that being said, it’s not enough to just understand your audience because they may not all have the same behaviors within their demographics. This is where segmentation comes into play. Some common segmentations are purchasing behavior, engagement levels,
eBooks: What, How, & Why
If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably also read an eBook at some point in your professional or personal life, but have you ever considered writing one for your business or brand? eBooks are a great way to offer information to your audience and gain more followers and to build your mailing list. eBooks give people the full spectrum of the information they are looking for on a particular topic all in one place. I mean think about it, why read your eBook when they can just surf the web for the info they’re curious about? There’s a reason for this. They are fun, easy to read, visual, as well as educational that people actually want to look at. Aside from this, there are other benefits to creating eBooks, such as inexpensive & quick to produce, easy distribution, can be more in depth than blogs, they’re easily accessible to your audience and they increase in brand credibility. Now that we’ve discussed what it is and how it can benefit your brand, let’s talk about how to create one. As with any book you must first start with a good topic and detailed outline. Think about common questions that people may have about your brand. What can you share that other brands haven’t? Second, design the eBook. Length should be somewhere between 5-10K words depending on the topic. It’s important to make sure that it is visually striking so add graphs, case studies, images, links, and graphics. It’s also important to use PDF or HTML for the eBook since it will be searchable on the internet if so. Be consistent with brand voice through text and design here as well. When designing it’s also crucial to place calls-to-action within the document. This is for lead generation, conversion and promotion. Once your eBook is complete, it’s time to start promoting. Best practices can include taking snapshots and sharing on social channels, share on LinkedIn and community groups where your audience hangs out. Happy writing!
A/B Testing
What is A/B testing? Well, if you’re in the marketing and advertising world chances are you already know. For those of you that may not it’s also known as split testing or bucket testing. Basically, it’s comparing two versions of something against one another other to determine which one performs better. They’re often used in marketing and advertising but it isn’t limited to these fields. They’re important experiments to determine higher ROI, lower the risk of failure and help strengthen your marketing and advertising efforts to name a few. So, we now know what it is and why they are done but how are they composed? First, you need to know what it is that you want to test. Do you want to test where to place a CTA
Communication Breakdown: Type of Communication Plans
Who remembers the Burger King “two equal buns” for Pride month last year? The marketing effort in Austria was meant to represent “equal love and equal rights.” However, they missed the mark terribly as the members of the LGBTQ community felt offended as it gestured a sexual innuendo. The German agency behind the idea had to act fast in response to the backlash and apologized. They promised to do a better job in the future of consulting the LGBTQ community when promoting their equal rights campaigns. This situation is a prime example of an emergency communication plan and while as we all hope this situation never arises for our company, it never hurts to be prepared.
