Of course, there really is not a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing. People are so incredibly diverse in their personalities and in what they want to see from marketers. Some want the cold-hard facts and evidence; they want straightforward and clear results that tell them about the brand/product.
Others, however, find interest in the emotional side of things. They are compelled to purchase and/or get involved when emotions come into play from the content they see. Depending on your call to action is, when & where they consume your ad is important. Maybe it presents best from a relaxed state on a weeking. Maybe your CTAs perform better on weekdays when people are interfacing with your ads under stress in the workplace. Market research and split testing are what will answer these questions. Some customers want the relationship, the social community that they believe a brand or product might bring them; they want to feel like “part of the club” when they make their purchase decisions.
Clearly, these styles of personality all result in different approaches to marketing. Yet, each of these personalities shares one thing in common with one another.
Turn It Around
Consumers, no matter who they are or what their personality type might be, do NOT care about your brand and what you are selling. They only care about one thing–themselves. This is not self-centered; this is human nature and something that we all participate in.
So, how do we, as marketers, appeal to them if they couldn’t care less about our ideas and products? The answer is simple: turn it around on them. In saying this, it means marketers need to abandon self-promotional tactics within marketing. It comes off as tacky and overdone in a world so saturated with false advertising and overzealous marketing ploys.
People are sick and tired of hearing about how great a company’s products are from the company itself. It is inauthentic and painfully obvious to the modern consumer that the company will say anything and everything to gain profits.
How?
Instead, marketers should start looking outside themselves. Younger generations today, such as Millennials and Generation Z, are vastly different from their parents and grandparents. They want more from companies today. They do not simply care about the product or service being sold to them. These generations want to know the company behind those products is actually making a difference in the world.
These generations are compassionate, and they want to feel good about themselves and what they are bringing to the world. Therefore, they want to purchase and support companies that also desire to contribute good to the world. They are far more willing to shop from a company that shares their same values than one that does not.
In the past, consumers did not care about ethics and values held by companies; those were two completely separate areas. Today, however, this is not the case. People, no matter who they are or what their personality type may be, want marketing that truly fits into the truth of their individual lives.
Meet People Where They Are
Marketers can fit into this truth by meeting people where they are. This may mean appealing to people’s emotions in a non-manipulative way that truly wants to support them.
It could also mean circumstantially–finding what is going on in an audience’s life stage and figuring out how the product or brand can make the consumer’s life easier.
How?
Essentially, marketers, before pushing or producing any content for the world, need to first establish the consumer journey. How does one do this, exactly? First and foremost, it involves knowing your audience. In knowing and researching your audience, you can determine where they are in life–what they want, what they need, and who they want to be.
Of course, even after narrowing down your audience to demographics and psychographics, each and every person will still likely have immensely different personality types. However, this will not matter if marketers are able to accurately nail down those questions about where they are in their current life stage.
After figuring that out, marketers can better tailor the consumer journey to an audience that makes them feel understood by the marketing, rather than feel manipulated or that they are being taken advantage of.
By doing this, consumers will feel like marketers actually care about them as an individual. They will feel heard.
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