What is the goal of marketing? The ultimate goal of every marketing strategy is (or should be) to develop a relevant product for the relevant target audience. This way another goal – making profit, will be fulfilled.
Relevance marketing is essential for a successful promotional campaign. Ads must be effective, eye-catching, and convincing. Your product presentation to the target market needs to be relevant.
Digital newspaper ads can be costly for small businesses, requiring a consistent budget for effective consumer awareness. Larger, more expensive ads have better visibility. Relevance marketing can offer an alternative approach.
Relevance marketing is essential for product development and promotion. It helps to attract the attention of your target market and potentially go viral. Let’s first understand what relevance marketing is before exploring examples.
What Is Relevance Marketing?
Relevance marketing is crucial in today’s digital age, with every aspect of life moving online. This constant exposure to new trends has made it challenging for businesses to profit.
How have businesses suffered from trends?
Trends inspire new products and guide development, but their rapid changes can pose challenges for businesses. The shift in demand can result in loss, as products may not be completed before a new trend emerges.
The fashion industry shows the contrast between fast fashion and sustainable fashion, with Balenciaga’s popular sock trainer design being quickly replaced by Triple S.
Fast fashion brands like ZARA, Shein, and Boohoo mass produce dupes, resulting in a surplus of unsold items. Disposal or recycling are the only options, leading to wastage of resources.
Those that purchased the shoe from Balenciaga, don’t have to deal with the same problem.
Balenciaga is a prestigious high fashion brand known for creating luxury items with lasting value. Their limited quantity pieces often increase in worth over time, becoming sought-after vintage items. Despite potential damage, these items retain value, unlike mass-produced items from brands like ZARA.
So what is relevance marketing anyways?
Relevance marketing assesses the fit of your offer with the target market’s needs, guiding product development and promotional strategies. Post-launch analysis determines the effectiveness of your efforts.
Relevance marketing and situational marketing are related but not identical. A mattress company aims to make high-quality products that cater to customer needs. Key factors include softness, firmness, materials, and designs for various bed frames.
When producing new batches, colors and advertising are adjusted accordingly. Pantone’s color of the year is used for color inspiration. Collaboration with a popular ASMR artist on YouTube is planned for advertising. The focus on relaxation and sleep in ASMR content makes it relevant for the product. The ad should feature a person that fits this theme.
Principles of Relevance Marketing
Smaller brands struggle to keep up with changing trends due to limited resources, putting them at a disadvantage. Following trends is crucial for success, but for smaller brands, it seems like a never-ending challenge.
You don’t need a new product, just tweak your marketing strategy. Small brands often use social media for promotions, which is cost-effective and flexible. Add relevant emojis in Instagram captions to connect with trends and attract customers.
Only the Principles of Relevance Marketing can help you succeed with smaller ads and less frequent ad placements.
Short-duration ads can be effective by being attention-grabbing and visually compelling, especially for one-time events like big sales. Following the Principles of Relevance Marketing is crucial to capture the reader’s attention and prompt action.
Every day we see many ineffective ads amidst a few great ones. To understand what works and what doesn’t, we studied daily news articles and analyzed all types of ads online and offline.
A Great Local Ad Series Example
Many lawyers advertise aggressively, especially in smaller cities, attacking each other’s advertising styles. The competition for mesothelioma class action suits is fierce on TV and podcasts.
Attorneys traditionally used personal contacts to attract clients, known as rainmaking. One lawyer excels in general business law, focusing on real estate and finance. He has been a successful rainmaker for years and is now building a strong online presence on LinkedIn and Twitter. In some fields, expertise will always be more important than new trends.
A law firm in a specific city is running effective local newspaper ads focusing on tax law. The ads use concise questions with white text on a black background to draw attention and convey their main message.
Ads feature firm’s Martindale-Hubbell rating, quotes from survey by other attorneys, headline about IRS troubles, and a list of tax problems they solve. Don’t call if no tax issues.
The competition eventually emerged.
They have run these ads and a few more for at least several years in the city. Over a year ago, another law firm started advertising in the paper with similar-sized ads on the same page as this firm. Those ads ran for a month or two and then stopped. Some ambitious ad sales rep probably went to these other attorneys and pointed to the success of our example tax law firm with newspaper advertising.
The new law firm decided they would advertise about all of the different services they offered. So the ad was all about them. Their ad listed these services:
- Estate Planning
- Divorce
- Bankruptcy
- T-19 Medicaid
- Probate
- Guardianship
- Juvenile
- Misdemeanor
- Real Estate
- Adoption
- Traffic
…and more.
They talked all about their firm and what they do – not about the problems their potential clients might have. As we said this firm advertised for a while and quit. Specificity, targeting prospective clients, and talking about the client problems serve our example tax law firm very well. And probably explains the waste in advertising dollars for the other.
So what exactly was the difference here?
One way to know if an ad is effective is by its consistent presence in the right place. Successful advertising is worth the cost if it yields positive outcomes.
A Top Notch Medical Newspaper Ad
Many marketers have mixed feelings about hospital and pharmaceutical advertising, with specialists believing it often wastes money and raises costs unnecessarily. While press releases and public relations can generate awareness, some advertising may still be necessary.
Hospital and medical practices are advertising free services for seizure sufferers through attention-grabbing seminar titles. The aim is to attract attendees and generate interest.
Cultural differences impact medical and gambling ads, with Eastern Europe allowing TV medical ads while Western countries ban them. Pharmaceutical companies must adjust campaigns based on location.
A Nationally Developed and Locally Run Ad
Focusing on the local market is crucial for every business. Establishing authority in your area is key before reaching a global audience. Successful local ads can be adjusted for global appeal, leading to increased profits.
To attract local audiences to a hypnosis event, advertise in newspapers with session addresses and date changes. These ads are key for bringing in new customers and have been perfected over time.
An advice:
Get help quitting smoking through hypnosis. Call now for an effective session with a guarantee. Phone number and address provided for easy access.
Now, hypnosis has been proven to help people with a number of other types of problems. The ad could be all about hypnosis or the hypnotist himself. But this ad should be about the prospects and one problem they want to solve. This way you can do brilliant Relevance Marketing.
How To Deal With The Competition With Ads And Relevance
Now, let’s talk about competing with larger companies in advertising. For instance, consider the popular trend of hotel shows for selling gold and silver items. In one city, traveling groups have been advertising extensively with full-page spreads for a week before the show begins.
They advertise consistently and strategically by placing ads in the same section as big ads during gold buying events. This attracts attention but also raises skepticism due to negative reviews. If customers prefer a more low-key approach, they may choose a local store known for quality products and years of service.
CAUTION – If this actually happens, whether in your home country or a country you are travelling to remember few things. Most of these operations pay you a fraction of what you could get from even the shadier pawn shops. Go to a good local pawn shop or jeweler to make your sales. Or go to an established coin sellers and collectors.
So how do you deal with the competition?
Smaller businesses should focus on advertising where big companies are present, without copying their products. Utilize relevant digital platforms like social media, instead of expensive websites.
Imagine a highly coveted new shoe from a top fashion brand that most people can’t afford. However, there is a chance for smaller businesses to offer a more affordable alternative, tapping into the desire for the original product. This can be achieved by emphasizing relevance.
Promote locally made products as trendy and customizable like big fashion brands. Small businesses lack resources for mass production, emphasizing sustainability and better quality. Customize items with unique details.
Conclusion
Why Should Campaigns With Different Marketing Objectives Use Principles Of Relevance Marketing?
Relevance Marketing is crucial for appealing to customers, regardless of marketing goals. Local newspaper ads with eye-catching headlines addressing customer needs can be effective in boosting business.
For small businesses in a competitive market, relevance marketing is crucial. By observing, determining, developing, and adjusting, you can effectively implement this strategy without breaking the bank. Share your thoughts on how best to incorporate relevance marketing into your advertising or ask any questions in the comments.
