We hear a lot about content marketing these days. Why is it so important? Content marketing builds customer trust, engagement, and loyalty — which are the foundations of long-term revenues and growth. 

As you are starting or continuing to build your content, here are three things to pay attention to.

Money doesn't just grow on trees, and businesses don't just print marketing collateral, posters and what not for nothing. Of course businesses want to maximize their efforts and become more efficient, marketing collateral and signage not excluded.

Personalized content is everywhere—direct mail, email, magazines, and even ads that follow you around the web. But as a marketer, how do you get there? Just dropping in data-driven content doesn’t guarantee success.

Focus on relevance.

Personalization doesn't just refer to including the person's first name on the direct mailer or advertisement, but ensuring that the offer is relevant to them. It doesn’t matter how “personalized” a document is. If it isn’t relevant, it is worthless.

An obvious example of this might be marketing for heavy coats and snow boots in Arizona in the middle of July. Probably not going to see much come from that.

A less obvious example might be a local residential landscaping service sending out a mailer to a list that includes a high percentage of people living in apartments or condos. It doesn't matter how great your services are or how well thought out the message was, if your services aren't relevant to the audience, your ROI will be terrible.

Make sure that your lists are updated and your message is relevant to the audience.

Localization is a form of personalization.

For example, a hiking store might include pictures in their advertisements with locations that are close to them. For example, their West Coast locations might have advertisements with backgrounds of Yosemite, the Grand Canyon or Zion. Whereas locations on the East Coast could have images of Acadia National Park, Everglades and the Appalachian Mountains.

Restaurants close to college campuses or supporting a local professional teams have been smart incorporating images or colors of these teams for advertisements in nearby locations.

Know, know, know your customers.

Understand what makes your customers tick, then market to what matters to them. For instance, the Millennial generation prioritizes experience over specs. If you sell custom bicycles, for example, capture their attention with the value of a family cycling together or how much faster their urban commute would be without getting caught in an automotive snarl.

Investing in your marketing database and developing an intimate understanding of your customers takes time, dedicated resources, and human resources, but it is one of the most important investments you can make.

Need some help? Let us help you develop your next personalized marketing campaign.

Just recently, a tweet of a dentists’ marketing advertisement went viral. On September 12, 2019, Ed Latimore, former Heavyweight boxer tweeted this image with the following response:

Well that's some good marketing lol pic.twitter.com/2mOiTX4Q1C

— Ed Latimore (@EdLatimore) September 12, 2019

Did you click on the link and look at it? If not, go open it. It's worth the 15 seconds and will help you grasp an idea of some of the crazy things our eyes and brains do.

What did you notice at first? Did you notice the eyebrow until you were prompted to by the words below the image? If not, don’t feel bad. There’s hundreds of comments underneath the photo of others who did the same.

In the comments, someone connected yet another photo:

Reminds me of.. pic.twitter.com/M2FjsxmK7R

— Bitchaari (@TheRainPoetess) September 13, 2019

So how come we didn’t notice the eyebrow? Or some of the other things in the image above?

According to studies, those with straight teeth are viewed as more successful, more attractive, more likely to get dates and more likely to get the job.

I don’t want to get into the science behind why humans are so attracted to teeth (probably something to do with teeth being an indication of internal health and good genes). But, if we are looking at the importance of this for marketers and businesses, we see that the human brain is very visual, and our attention is pulled to focus on certain aspects, even so much to the point that we may be oblivious to other details right in front of us.

Let's look at some stats:

• 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual
• People retain between 10-20% of written or spoken words and 65% of visual images
• Our brain processes visuals 60,000x faster than text
• 65% of people are visual learners
• 40% of all nerve fibers connected to the brain are linked to the retina
• More of our neurons are dedicated to vision than the other four senses combined
• We can get the sense of a visual scene in less than 1/10 of a second

Our eyes are EXTREMELY powerful! We use them to learn and our brain uses our vision as its primary source for information. This being said, if you are trying to market your service or product, and want it to be processed faster and more likely to be remembered, graphics is the answer. Draw your customers attention with signage, both print and digital.

Signage is a crucial aspect of marketing. So, let’s look at some signage stats:

• Signs attract 50% of start-up business’s new customers
• 35% of passerby would miss your business without a sign
• 76% of American customers walked in on a new business simply because of its signage
• 60% of businesses who updated their signage experienced a 10% increase in sales
• 68% believe that signage reflects the quality of a business and their product
• 4 out of 5 product brands noticed up to a 33% increase in sales through the use of digital signage

Signage and digital signage can attract customers, and from the statistics shared above, attracts a LOT of them. How many signs do you have outside of your location? How many signs or graphics are within your space? What's on the walls? windows? floors?

Art and custom wall graphics can completely transform a space.

Don't let your marketing strategy be missing teeth! Well... unless you're a dentist and you want them to! ;) Knock out signage is attainable with marketing strategy and a conscious effort focused on colors, words, design and location. Contact us today!