Is this the era of loneliness?
The pandemic was just the last strike on a more and more individualist society, in which distractions, entertainment, eating systems and societal protocols push us to a place of loneliness where everything can be achieved from the comfort of our homes.
This has drastically affected the way people acquire anything they need: groceries, clothes, gifts… even medical care and education have shifted to a system in which they attend online. What does this mean? It means that marketing, shopping process and the magnitude of delivery processes have evolved at a flagrant pace, that not all professionals have been able to keep up with.
Twenty years ago, propaganda was all over the place: in the streets, in physical magazines posters… now, less and less we see that kind of material. People are with their noses on their phones, we even overcame the laptop. I see it on my websites, the visualizations from laptops are 10% compared to the 80% of cell phone display.
This has two sides we need to analyze.
On the one hand, we have the urge to sell. The work of a marketer, so far, the classic salesperson, wanted to sell and earn a commission. Fair enough. They just took the chance in a world where publicity was just getting mature and people didn’t have instant access to all the information, literally, in the world. So when you had someone come to you and explain something magnific, you didn’t know, about a product or service, you were prone to purchase it.
Now, however, customers are fully informed. They know what they want, or furthermore, they think they know what they want or need. Classic marketing had to disappear because the audience has become an educated, up-to-date, questioning customer.
This means that you can no longer just make something look amazing. You’re going to give some solid, good answers to those asking questions. This process has turned the marketer into a kind of psychologist for the audience.
You need to deeply understand their needs, wants, problems, fears, worries and joys. Agencies have to form in human psychology their agents.
The fact that society is locked in their homes and our mental patterns have adapted to lonely activities, has made our interests drawn into more philosophical subjects. People have more time to think about deeper ideas and question their own existence.
Therefore, the material that we create for them, needs to be something sensorial, solid, transcendental and with a meaning. The necessity for growth, wisdom, achieve goals in life is as stronger as our evolution to a minded frame of thought.
You need to give solutions and answers. Your product or service needs to resonate with their inner psychological paths and fears.
There has been a recent period of marketing practices where the same system was applied to any kind of business, and these agencies made vast amounts of money because it worked. For a while.
This was sustainable because not everyone was wise enough on paid ads, social media audiences was visibly differentiated between platforms and because the percentage of business and brands advertising on them wasn’t as high as it is nowadays.
What happened? When everyone jumped in the pool, we run out of water. That’s why you don’t see that kind of agency anymore, and the ones remaining had to evolve and offer something else that wasn’t just paid ads.
Currently, you can learn almost anything on the internet, on your own. Why would you pay thousands to someone to run paid ads for you, if you can invest a couple hundred in a fantastic workshop or course that will explain A to Z?
They need more. More than an ad. More than a salesman.
Secondly, we need to consider that when our rituals change, in this case, the way we buy, acquire, deliver and consume, we, marketers, need to change with them. The issues with the delivery won’t be the same as they were two years ago. Platforms, technology and digital systems evolve constantly, and this means new challenges and goals for agencies.
The spectrum of services that we can offer is so wide and differs depending on what customer you are attending to. This means that we need to be wise about their world, the tools they use, the problems they might find while purchasing, consuming or using a product or service and how to deliver the best solution possible. And the fastest.
Because you kick a rock and you have 20 people with the same, your idea.
Educate yourself, never stop learning, be updated on the news, find out what people need and master the delivery. That’s the key.
In the era of loneliness, my friends, is a challenge but also a wave of opportunity to grow and change the world, one customer at a time.
TBM Horror Digital Marketing 