Fifty Shades of Grey (Marketing)
Fifty Shades of Grey ā when most hear that expression, they think of the steamy, sultry, sexy, erotic romance novel (and now a movie) written in 2011 by E.L. James. When I think about Fifty Shades of Grey, I think about businesses and marketing. (I know⦠I should really get out more, no?)
However, based on our experience at Remerge, we see the Fifty Shades of Grey within companies large and small when it comes to marketing messages, target customer, media buying, digital strategy, and more. Nothing appears to be black and white, no matter how successful the business may or may not be.Ā
In one such instance we were meeting with a client that told us confidently: āI do all kinds of marketing!ā As the client rattled-off each form of āmarketingā they were doing, I wrote each down on an index card and placed it on the conference table in front of us. Before too long there was a jumbled pile of cards including things like: Newspaper Ads, Radio Spots, Web Site, YouTube videos, Email Newsletter, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Ads, etc.
The client appeared a little put-off when I observed: āThatās not marketing, thatās a messā¦ā While nobody wants to hear their marketing efforts are proverbial farts in a windstorm, it was pretty easy for the client to recognize when all of these things were written down and presented visually on a table.
There was no āBlack and Whiteā strategy behind all of this effort⦠merely, Fifty Shades of Grey.
By explaining the importance of integrated marketing - using these tools together like an orchestra - we could see the clientās initial tension start to lift. We first defined who the āreal customerā was, and then, how to use these tools to better engage that customer.
Sliding the cards around the table we demonstrated how radio could be used to invite customers to a website (landing page) with a YouTube video to better explain the clients offer! Action points on the landing page could, at the very least, increase subscriptions to their Blog, Twitter, Email Newsletter, etc⦠if not lead directly to a conversion or sale.
Visually the client could see how simple tweaks to different shades of grey (marketing tools) could be converted into a more black and white approach (integrated marketing) to produce measurable results.