consumer

INFLUENCER MARKETING

Influencers – the powerful craze taking over all social media platforms. Some may describe them as “wanna-be celebrities”. However, these people are transforming the way brands can promote their products and better reach their consumers.

The concept of influencer marketing can seem confusing and unbelievable. However, the truth is that it is effective.

So, why is influencer marketing effective?

“Someone who has the power to influence the perception of others or gets them to do something different”

Gerado A. Dada, Forbes

The role of influencers are to help make a product more relatable. This is particularly important to online-only businesses where consumers are not able to physically experience the product before purchase. Therefore, influencer marketing helps businesses to eliminate scepticism and make their products familiar.

It also relies on the concept of the mere exposure effect to sell products. Even if a consumer sees a sponsored post and have no direct purchase intentions from that post, the fact that they have been exposed to the brand in a casual context makes them more likely to be a future customer. Through subliminal messages, brands are able to secure a spot in the mind of the consumer without them even realising.

Consumers are starting to become annoyed by traditional advertisements and salespeople, particularly Gen Z and the Millennials. Compared to older generations, modern consumers are interested in authenticity and trust the opinions of those who live similar lives. In fact, 70% of teens trust influencers more than the traditional celebrity.

What are the implications for marketers?

The advantage of using an influencer to promote a brand’s product surrounds the idea that they do the hard work for you in regards to capturing an audience on social media. An influencer has intentionally built their own personal brand to be trusted by their audience. Their regular interactions with their audience means the ground work is already taken care of. Therefore, by creating a link to an influencer’s brand, it enables a brand to leverage the same associations through a seemingly natural, unforced approach.

However, despite its benefits, it is not the perfect method of advertising. Now that the use of influencers have well and truly saturated social media, consumers are left with an abundance of information that is sometimes too much to consume. This may lead to a post being ignored or potentially even negatively perceived, coincidentally meaning a waste of resources for brands.

Furthermore, the overuse of influencer marketing has driven platforms like Instagram to introduce certain measures that make it clearer when influencer posts are paid ads. This has involved using “#ad” or the inclusion of “Paid partnership with XXXXXX” in influencer posts. By making it clearer to consumers through these methods, it could be argued that this minimises the benefits of influencer marketing since they are supposed to be seamless and subtle. Examples can be seen through Kendall Jenner‘s instagram page as seen below.

What are your thoughts on influencer marketing? Do you believe this will forever be an effective mode of advertisement or do you see it becoming outdated just like other traditional methods?

THE MOUNTING PRESSURES OF MOBILE DEVICES

Mobile devices mean the world is literally at your fingertips. We live in a time where people want things done yesterday. Mobile devices put a lot of pressure on businesses to keep up with the ever-changing demands of consumers. Furthermore, brands are also expected to juggle the mounting cumulation of big data that these mobile devices generate as well as provide damage control for instantaneous displays of online word of mouth (WOM), that spreads like wildfire.

Have mobile devices destroyed loyalty?

There are endless statistics that suggest it is harder than ever for brands to retain customers. Accenture found that over 50% of consumers switch service providers within a year after a single poor customer service experience. In 2017, it was found 33% of customers will consider switching companies after one poor customer service experience. Astonishingly, Salesforce predict by 2020 that 45% of consumers will switch brands if a company doesn’t actively anticipate their needs.

It is now easier than ever for consumers to assess and entertain the idea of competing products on their mobile device. As a result, levels of brand loyalty are heavily depleting as consumers are becoming more price conscious and less prudent about purchasing from unknown brands.

The harsh reality of mobile devices

“One bad review can pull your star ratings down and cost you thousands of dollars in lost business.”

Nick McVey, small business owner

Regardless of how big or small your brand may be, mobile devices create a tough environment for businesses to operate in. Failure to keep up with the demands of an impatient consumer could result in unfair negative scrutiny. A single bad review could crush a small business, particularly when 93% of consumers are reading local reviews before making a purchase decision. Nick McVey, a small business owner, has felt this effect first hand when he received an unfair review which brought down his Yelp review from 5 stars down to 4.5. He believes this one negative review alone has cost him thousands in lost business.

Today’s consumer profiles

Today, mobile devices have shaped consumers to be impatient and demanding, requiring instant gratification whilst still remaining cautious by displaying traits of uncertainty avoidance. The true effects of the negative review McVey received are emphasised when the characteristics of the modern consumer are delved into.

Firstly, the impatient and demanding consumer. Mobile devices act as supercomputers in consumer’s pockets. It enables consumers to find, learn, do and buy whenever the urge surfaces. Brands are required to deliver mobile experiences smoothly and with rapid speed to ensure that consumers are not hindered in their on-the-spot decision making process. Failure to do so may result in punishment in the form of a negative review or WOM.

Next, the consumer that demands instant gratification. An emerging expectation for consumers, consumers are looking for instant answers with ease. At a push of a button, it is expected that a company responds to them quickly if not immediately. Facebook messenger, Instagram direct messaging and chat bots mean that consumers have many options to get noticed quickly by a company in comparison to the outdated email method. This type of consumer has created the need for organisations to provide support to every customer, every time, at anytime, anywhere.

Finally, the uncertainty avoiding consumer. This consumer can be quite conservative and loves to do their research. Hardly ever will they walk into a store and buy the first item they see. They will use their mobile device to compare performance, prices and features by filtering through copious amounts of reviews.

In summary, the significant role of mobile devices in a modern consumer’s purchase journey has created many challenges for brands. This includes shaping the demands of consumers. In addition, these devices have established a need for brands to introduce “damage control” measures to try minimise the destruction that consumers can cause with a mere push of a button. These mobile devices have created a realm of convenience for consumers, as well as a complex and often destructive element to a brand’s operating environment.

Do you believe the implementation of mobile devices have created a consumer that is impossible to please? Have mobile devices created a troublesome environment for brands?

A MODERN-DAY CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Imagine walking into your favourite store. There is a familiar smell that radiates off the products that surround you, a friendly sales assistant who asks about your day – your experience is consistent every time you return. It is why you keep coming back! This is what you might perceive to be the typical customer journey, right?

Truth is, the customer journey begins the first time a consumer becomes aware of a brand. The customer journey begins long before you walk through the entrance of the store, and continues long after you walk out too.

In a time before the internet, a customer would typically become aware of a brand through word of mouth, exposure to print advertising or a billboard. However, the age of digital disruption has profoundly impacted this path. Today, there are unlimited variations of a customer journey. This is hugely due to the expansive amounts of digital information available and communicated to consumers, often spoon-fed through their daily social media fix. The abundance of options consumers have available to purchase products or services online makes it vital for an organisation to effectively predict and foresee a customer’s purchasing behaviour from initial brand awareness to brand advocacy.

“The average customer uses 10 channels to communicate with companies”

Scott Rheinlander, SalesForce

The importance of providing meaningful and impactful customer experiences has become an emerging priority for organisations. It is more critical than ever for businesses to make memorable points of contact with consumers in order to remain competitive. As a result, there are a range of digital technologies that allow businesses to capture customer experiences in real-time and assist marketers to evaluate which touch-points are most critical in the customer journey.

ATTRIBUTION MODELLING

Sample Customer Journey with Attribution Modelling, Bright Vessel

A debate that arises from customer journey mapping surrounds the concept of “Attribution Modelling”. In the image above, Bright Vessel visually displays a sample customer journey, mapping out the number of touch-points and then relating them to the corresponding departments.

So, how do you evaluate which touch-point holds the most value? There are many types of marketing attribution models that use different approaches to assign value to specific channels. The question is, how do you achieve consistency across products within an organisation or across organisations? Is it fair to compare apples with oranges?

Although there is a lot of fancy technology for organisations to utilise, if attribution modelling eventually comes to be a legitimate form of asset valuation, this issue will come to be a headache for marketers and accountants alike. Ultimately, it is not an accurate framework and rather, should be used as a guide for businesses. I believe that attribution modelling can definitely be beneficial for an organisation. However, it should not be solely relied upon for decision making nor asset evaluation due to its absence of a range of components.

Do you believe that monetary value should be distributed on the basis of attribution modelling? Do you agree that it should not be the only tool used for decision making?