The Digital Age: impacting thinking, buying and creating interactive content

Context rich and relevant information when and where your customer wants it: that is the new battleground. Google calls this the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT). The construct is not a new one; it is now just one which has become aggressively relevant.

Think about the last time you wanted to know something. The last time you wanted to get some guidance or advice. I am willing to bet that you reached for your phone and did a search. The search would either have led you to a Google SERP or to a friend’s social feed. Either way you were looking for context rich and relevant information that would answer your need.

While the social revolution has driven this trend pretty hard already; it is the trend of mobile, accessible information that is making sure that every marketer is trying to win their audiences ZMOT.

From the outside, this looks incredibly simple to get right, but there are a number of underlying factors to consider and factors that influence how complicated it is to get this right…

IT / marketing dynamic

While marketing may own the message and the client engagement; it can be argued that IT own the technology platforms and integration needed to make it work.

This is critical.

IT and marketing need to own this agenda together. With issues like cyber security and POPI becoming more and more real; marketing cannot discount the role that IT needs to play in order to maintain a business safe environment for customer and company data.

Changes in Content

As we move from a desktop centric environment to a mobile one, we need to be cogniscent of the message type and length. In a “traditional” desktop environment slightly longer form copy and video still work a charm. In a mobile first world however, the attention span of your audience is far shorter.

Our new attention economy demands that we get the point across quickly in as few words as possible. Video and images are the new hero’s that we need to embrace.

In judging the 2017 MMA SMARTIES awards it was very clear that traditional thinking about content will no longer work.

Looking through the submitted work this year, there was a clear trend towards interactive content that engaged with the user. The campaign mechanics were easy to understand and interact with; there were no complicated barriers to entry and the video and sound bites were quick and easy to digest.

Understand your client

All of the above points to the fact that these campaigns understood their customers at a very deep level. If you don’t have a firm grasp on understanding your clients wants and needs, then you are going to have a lot of difficulty in placing context rich and relevant information in front of them when and where they want it.

Take your time up front in understanding your clients’ needs and in testing your campaign to make sure that you get it right before you over invest in something that is not going to yield results.

Measure what matters

Arguably the most important aspect of all: measurement.

A lot of companies get lost in the sea of measurement and literally throw metrics at their client all day long. In the real world, what does a view of a video in isolation mean? Well, basically nothing — almost as much as a like!

To make sure your client is getting value from your work, you need to measure what is important to them. Are you driving sales? Then report on how your campaign has influenced sales. Are you pushing people to a store location? Then report about the number of feet that passed through the store as a result of your campaign.

Reporting on likes; retweets and follower growth are difficult metrics for your client to convert into a language that the rest of their peers (arguably the C-Suite) are familiar with.

As important as it is to understand how to position your client in the market place; it is equally important to remember to position ourselves with their client and their internal customers!