There’s no such thing as magic when it comes to marketing. Or is there?
Magic marketing is a concept that applies to some campaigns that just seem to take off and achieve viral status. However, other than being outwardly deceptive, it’s crucial to acknowledge that there’s always a lot of hard work and strategy behind implementing a successful marketing theory.
Entering a new market and trying to make it big in a specific niche dominated by competition, creating brand awareness, repositioning your business, undertaking social marketing, or accomplishing numerous marketing objectives doesn’t require magic.
It requires the perfect blend of passion, creativity, resilience, market insight, and business knowledge.
Marketing Magic is Between Art and Science
Marketing is a delicate balance between art and science – it takes creativity to come up with campaign ideas that will resonate with your audience, but it also takes data and analysis to determine which channels will be most effective for reaching them.
There’s no easy answer or shortcut when it comes to marketing, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the effort. The challenge for any marketer is to create campaigns and programs that appeal to the right people, in the right way, at the right time.
To do this effectively, you need to understand human behavior – why people make the decisions they do. You also need to be able to measure the results of your efforts so you can fine-tune your approach.
How Does Marketing Magic Work?
The real magic of business marketing lies in having a clear objective from the start and identifying the resources you need and the channels through which you’ll spread your marketing message.
From a creative perspective or art, identifying the gaps in your marketing strategy will allow you to know your target audience, their preferences and needs, stereotypes and value systems, and the various relevant studies, formulas, and market research based on your said observations.
From a scientific perspective or science, you get to focus on human psychology as a whole, explore mass media channels, aesthetic and linguistic expressions, as well as audio-visual and graphic means of communication and data resources that help marketers obtain the key aspect of marketing – persuasion.
When put together in a bag with the right marketing budget, the marketing magic unfolds. Success depends on how the communication resources are applied along with the implementation of lead generation strategies and the overall marketing theory.
This ‘routine’ involves hours and hours of work from the various organizational departments that seamlessly blend into teamwork that magically transforms into a planning process that can be further optimized through audio-visual means for impact maximization and the ideal use of marketing channels that sell your campaign.
The Four Aspects of Magic Marketing
The power of marketing lies in the way deception gets perceived by the consumers. Although marketing involves selling the half-truth by hiding the negative aspects, consumers perceive it as acceptable since they inherently believe in the positive picture painted by the marketing tactics.
Here are four of the major aspects of advertising that make it seem like magicians at work crafting the perfect illusion of marketing.
1. Utilizing special techniques
In the world of advertising, special techniques refer to marketing tactics that efficiently attract consumers and potential customers. While the original tricks are not known to the public, the effects of the branding strategy are clearly illuminated through the illusionary lens of marketing magic.
2. Hacking human psychology
It isn’t uncommon in business advertising to be led to believe in a certain possibility knowing very well that our decision is based on limited known facts. Experienced marketers offer their services knowing full well that marketing to the human perception is an illusionary strategy that works wonders.
Clients and customers alike are led to believe in a product/service effectively since our mind unconsciously makes inferences based on sensory or perceptual clues. What we see, what we hear, we end up biasedly relating or unrelating to it.
Marketers ensure that their advertising magic hits the right senses to lead us to believe that, for example, a refreshing perfume will make a person seem more attractive.
Start experiencing marketing magic and achieve your desired results?
3. Attention Retainment
In this day and age, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to retain the audience’s attention or lead it to something beneficial for your business. Keeping a customer interested in your advertisement relies on manipulating psychological tools to hold attention where needed.
Marketers require their audience to pay attention to only certain aspects of their marketing efforts and not the complete message. Such sales tactics rely on the principle of misdirection since the competition to attract and retain the audience’s attention is many-fold and not as straightforward as promoting open communications between the brand and its consumers.
4. The experience of entertainment
The way in which your advertisement or marketing message gets presented to your audience is crucial to its success. Whether it’s your website, a social media post, your physical shop, or online service, it’s vital to design the advertisement keeping in mind the element of entertainment.
All businesses understand the importance of entertaining through their advertisements or promotions by keeping them relevant to the user’s needs and not just base them on an advertising strategy.
The goal is to ensure greater levels of customer satisfaction, but, through clever brand marketing.
Creating Magic Through a Consumer Perspective
Let’s take the following case as an example.
Say, a random consumer has come down with a nasty cold, feeling sick and uncomfortable from the inside. In such times, a simple word of acknowledgment or goodwill puts the mind at ease, knowing that someone somewhere cares enough.
The said consumer so happens to pick a cough drop lozenge and unwittingly comes across these words printed on the wrapper – Stay strong today! or Hang in there buddy!
Maybe it was just an act of clever marketing, but if you think about it a bit, you’ll see that this idea was born out of changing perspectives from a marketer to a consumer. Even something as small as an unexpected word of encouragement from a stranger adds value to the customer’s buying journey long after the purchase has been made.
In other words, here is what you can take from this customer-inspired marketing idea.
1. Meet your customer’s needs first
The primary purpose of the cough drop is to alleviate the nauseous feeling of a cold which is where the quality of the lozenge matters above all. The same cough drop brand then figured it’d add more value to its customer’s purchase by utilizing something as simple and usually discarded material as the wrapper.
If the consumer would have simply thrown away the cough drop wrapper, the marketing efforts would’ve gone in vain. However, to a customer who is seeking encouragement in his/her sick moments, the little energizing message on the wrapping goes a long way in brightening up their day.
The moral here is to, of course, meet your customer’s needs first, and do it efficiently. After, look for other means to connect with your consumer to fulfill their secondary needs and wow their customer experience.
2. Search and maximize an underutilized connection source
The inside of a cough drop wrapper isn’t usually a marketing channel, is it? However, it still serves as a small connection source with your customers.
As stated in the previous point, when you’ve accomplished your primary purpose of fulfilling customer experience, and you’re looking for other means of adding value, look for areas where you’re connecting with your audience, but not as meaningfully. Search for those ‘wrappers’ and employ them to add value to the branding experience.
3. Your sales are about your customers, not you
When offering value to your audience, the objective of marketing tends to steer towards promoting branding rather than addressing customer queries and needs effectively. The intent might be to make your company known or generate more leads, but the result is typically falling sales and decreased consumer interest.
If you take the above example into consideration, the cough drop brand wasn’t invested in promoting itself as a brand or giving out any calls to action. And yet, the consumer found it delightful to come across an unexpected word of encouragement in his/her difficult time.
Always ensure that no matter your marketing intent, you should always put your consumers first and not your brand.
Making Magic Happen
When we say marketing lies somewhere between art and science, it refers to an intersection of three variously different elements.
The Art of Marketing
Artistic intuition is crucial to creating out-of-the-box business campaigns by understanding human behavior and appealing to their emotional nature. Brand standards like visual identity, graphics, print ads, and even slogans require a certain level of creativity.
Do you want to combine science and art and obtain some marketing magic for your business?
The Science of Marketing
Data is the biggest factor in determining which promotional strategy will be effective under what circumstances. Collecting consumer data helps marketers develop systems beyond just emotional responses and give a clear picture of why consumers favor specific products and which marketing tactic resonates with their shopping habits.
Marketing Itself
The magic of marketing lies in the intrinsic values of being thrilled and surprised with innovative offers and branding strategies implemented through personalized and unique means of advertising.
Getting the Marketing Magic Just Right
Marketing was once all about television ads, huge billboards, cleverly designed fliers and catchy posters, and even direct mails.
Today, marketing is more data-driven with social media and online channels and platforms allowing room for complex campaigns and automation. It makes sense to then match the rising consumer demands and exceed their expectations as well as expertise to strike the ideal balance between art and science to create the perfect marketing magic.
So, whether it is art or science you’re looking for, Growth Hackers will help you find the right balance for your brand. Our team of experienced marketers will work with you to understand your goals and create a customized plan that combines the best of both worlds.
With Growth Hackers on your side, you’ll be able to reach your target audience with impactful, data-driven campaigns that deliver results.
Reach out to us today and get to know more about how we work. Or contact us to get detailed insights on your digital marketing queries.
