Customers are needy—especially in times of need. The old rulebook for engaging with audiences has been torn to shreds, and companies the world over are brainstorming new ways to show customers how much they care.
In a time where everyone can use a little extra grace, the best way to win a customer’s trust and build beneficial long-lasting relationships is by showcasing a lot of empathy. Everyone’s lives have been upended in previously unimaginable ways (e.g., not being able to visit loved ones in the hospital), and putting yourself into their shoes is the first step toward understanding their pain.
Savvy marketers and disruptive entrepreneurs know all too well that attempts to be empathetic through content can be lost in translation (remember Pepsi’s ill-fated social justice ad featuring Kendall Jenner in 2017?). It’s much easier to task frontline salespeople and customer-care professionals with the chore of personalizing interactions and building brand loyalty at the ground level. Still, to really resonate in today’s emotionally charged environment, brands and marketers must incorporate empathy into the messaging if they want to stay relevant.
Establishing empathy in genuine ways
Creating compelling content that connects with consumers requires a thoughtful approach. Long gone are the days when brands could expect customers to look to them for all the answers and obediently nod their heads in agreement.
No, today’s customer is hyper-opinionated, super-educated, and more than happy to take their business elsewhere if the brand doesn’t check all the boxes—superior product, outstanding customer service, elevated stance on important issues, philanthropic, deeply empathetic, etc. It’s a long list, but commerce today is all about survival of the fittest. Those brands that put forth the effort are rewarded with customer loyalty. Those that don’t vanish into the dustbin of history.
So how can marketers establish empathy in genuine ways? Here are four key places to start:
1. Be creative.
To stand out from the competition—and to resonate with an audience whose collective attention span seemingly gets shorter by the day—brands need to crank the creativity up to 10. Chiquita Bananas did this by removing Miss Chiquita from its logo in an Instagram post that promoted social distancing (“I’m already home. Please do the same and protect yourself.”). If you haven’t checked out Chiquita’s social media accounts, do yourself a favour and make a quick visit to see just how creative bananas can be, then work to make something equally appealing.
“Don’t underestimate the power of creativity: Ideas matter only when they connect with people, so it is important to understand people and the cultural forces that influence how consumers think and behave,” says Tina Posey, CEO of advertising agency Javelin. “Listening and learning from customers to build empathy is the key to designing positive customer experiences, which create brand desire and build long-term relationships.Creativity is the ultimate effectiveness multiplier.”
2. Be patient.
People are stressed these days. The daily demands can be overwhelming, so expressing patience can have a calming effect. Nobody wants to be pressured into buying a product or service, especially now. Besides, building relationships (and letting a content marketing plan take root) is a process. The results from effective marketing don’t happen overnight; it takes a methodical approach.
Nestlé seems to understand the importance of patience. With families struggling to make ends meet amid the coronavirus, the food manufacturer set up a dedicated webpage to express empathy for its global customers and share details about how it was working to combat any snags in the supply chain. This statement has the added benefit of silently urging customers to be patient with Nestlé as the company works to keep operations humming during unstable times. With pressure coming at consumers from so many sides, the best approach for marketers is to remind the audience that you are here for them and patiently await their business.
3. Be gracious.
Two words that go a long way in 2020 are “thank” and “you.” In years past, it was easy for a brand to take its success for granted; expressing gratitude for a customer’s loyalty was often an afterthought. Now, with millions of small businesses chopped at the knees due to the pandemic, the importance of every customer interaction has been magnified. If you don’t appreciate your brand advocates now, you likely never will.
As such, brands need to express gratitude gratuitously. Don’t hesitate to show your love and appreciation for your customers, particularly now, when times are tough and budgets are thin. JetBlue, one of many airlines bracing for the worst as COVID-19 concerns gut the travel industry, is well-known for its attention to detail and over-the-top customer satisfaction. The company continues to send personalized notes via email and Instagram to its valued customers, which goes a long way toward strengthening brand loyalty. Be timely, be sincere, and watch the brand affinity swell.
4. Be informed.
Performing research and learning what issues matter to your customer base seems like a no-brainer, but many companies have been felled by assumptions and shortcuts. As mentioned earlier, customers today hold most of the power in the brand-buyer dynamic because they are more informed than ever.
Consider Millennials, who comprise the biggest demographic in the United States (recently overtaking Baby Boomers) and have explosive buying power. Does this group passively consume content? Hardly: YouTube research finds that 70% of Millennials who use the platform seek out videos to learn how to do something new. And 45% admit that a piece of YouTube content altered their perspectives on an issue, which shows that these younger buyers want content that helps them make personal changes. When you empathize with this desire to learn and grow, you’ve unlocked a key characteristic.
Consider the late, great Tom Petty when you wonder how most customers think about the majority of businesses: You don’t know how it feels to be me. So let’s get to the point and put empathy first. When you do that, you create a company that knows how to care and build valuable relationships that last.
I co-founded Wild Creations in 2007 and quickly built the start-up toy company into one of the fastest-growing companies in the US. I have been a finalist for EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year twice and recognized with over 40 awards for innovative products. Recently, I was named one of the world’s top 100 business bloggers, and I am a regular contributor on entrepreneurship, management, and leadership to top business publications. I’m now the Head Coach at Power Coaching and Consulting, a rapidly growing global executive coaching and training firm in Washington, D.C. My second bestselling book, The Entrepreneurship Book of Actions, was published by McGraw-Hill and is in bookstores now.
But according to our data findings, not for the reasons you think.
What do men want when it comes to grooming products? What everyone else wants — products that speak to them and their needs in an authentic, reputable way. “Most guys, really what I found is that they’re looking for a brand that speaks to them,” said Patrick Boateng II, founder of Ceylon, a skincare brand created for men of colour. “They’re looking for themselves in the brand.”
The secret is there is no secret: men and women are largely drawn to beauty products for the same reasons. A recent survey conducted by HYPEBEAST found that 58 percent of men count self-care as a motivation to purchase grooming products, with 56 percent of men surveyed counting improving their appearance. Similarly, 57 percent of women respondents marked self-care and 56 percent improving their appearance as motivations to purchase grooming products. And yet, taboos for men to participate in rituals of beauty or skincare remain pervasive.
“Most guys, really what I found is that they’re looking for a brand that speaks to them. They’re looking for themselves in the brand.”
The quarantine measures implemented as a result of the global coronavirus crisis haven’t upended those taboos, even while they may have irrevocably altered many other aspects of daily life. But what this new way of life has offered are more chances for brands to speak to their consumers — or potential consumers — than ever before. More consumers are online (where else are they going these days?) than ever, giving brands more chances to get their products under the eyes of the elusive male beauty consumer. They should be cautious in how they approach those chances though — the more online consumers are, the more savvy they are as well.
As such, brands that dive into marketing their grooming products to the male consumer without further interrogation of who that consumer is aren’t likely to find a willing audience. Men, as a group, are not a monolith after all. And treating them as such often leads to a bland product targeted to a default, heteronormative, white male consumer devoid of discerning taste.
Looking into the black mirror day in and day out hasn’t altered how men see themselves (not yet anyway). But it has opened up a rare opportunity for beauty brands to talk to them, provided they can do so authentically.
Let me be your motivation
As our survey found, self-care is the overwhelming motivator for all respondents to purchase product, with 53 percent of respondents indicating it as a motivating factor in purchasing grooming products — just slightly ekking out improving one’s appearance (51 percent), and far outweighing brand loyalty (11 percent) and influencer endorsements (6 percent).
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But those first two motivations aren’t entirely separate. According to Umar ElBably and Fenton Jagdeo, they can work in tandem, particularly for male consumers first entering into the beauty sphere. The two launched the men’s beauty brand Faculty this month with a nail polish, inspired by ElBably’s own journey with using manicures to curb his nail-biting addiction. “It kind of started with self care, as I was saying, and turned into more of like, an element of expression for me and aesthetic,” he explained. Men who experiment with beauty might find that they not only like how it makes them feel but how it looks too, or even experiment with wider practices of self-care.
“It’s this entry point to wellness. I think this idea of like this practice, right?” Boateng said. “I think for skincare, once you’ve gotten it down, it becomes this thing where you’re like, ‘Okay this is just me, this is what I do.’”
But while men and women are largely motivated by similar factors, there is one point where they differ: brand loyalty. When broken down by gender, 17 percent of women respondents marked brand loyalty as a motivator to buy grooming products, compared to just 11 percent of men.
There is room then for beauty brands to bridge that gap to speak to men, but strategies on how to do so vary. EVENPRIME founder Koh Kim pivoted her own brand from speaking to men specifically to a gaming community more broadly after seeing that her consumers under 25 didn’t particularly respond to gendered products. “I noticed that there wasn’t a lot of gender association involved. Like they weren’t actually looking for products that were for men, just looking for good products,” she said. “Strategically, it was better to focus in on this group, because they’re talking about ingredients and how they’re evaluating products, just like any other sophisticated consumer in the skincare space was doing. But no one was recognizing that.”
Evenprime
By speaking to a gaming or otaku audience directly — the kind who appreciates a Fortnite or Cowboy Bebop reference with their skincare — EVENPRIME can talk about beauty in a way that finds commonalities with gaming culture. “There’s actually a culture of what I call multiple personalities. I mean synonymous identity, so people creating a gamer tag or an ID, they create a persona right?” she said. “A core gaming consumer, someone who’s really engaged, it’s not surprising that they’re willing to explore different ways to express themselves, because they’re already doing that online to begin with.”
EVENPRIME started with a two-part skincare set as a base and has since added on new products, the way a gaming title might offer in-game purchases as players level up in the game. “It’s kind of like a game too, like you have that base experience and then you leave it up to the player, and in our case our community member customer, to customize the experience that they want,” Koh explained. Merging gaming strategies with beauty speaks to the changing demographics of the contemporary gaming community, which as Koh notes is about evenly split between men and women and made up of players who are on average in their early thirties.
“It’s not surprising that they’re willing to explore different ways to express themselves, because they’re already doing that online to begin with.”
Faculty takes a different approach — their products can be used by anyone of any gender of course, but they want to address masculinity more directly in order to speak to that (likely straight, cisgendered) consumer who still needs permission to experiment. Doing so does not mean flattening the differences between men and their different modes of gender expression but in fact embracing and acknowledging them. “That’s where we actually enter a world where masculinity is authentic,” ElBably said.
“They take these very like conservative looks and brand identities, and if we think about it, there’s like a hypothesis that okay, maybe that’s going to help us get the most number of customers,” ElBably said of certain previous brand attempts to launch a men’s makeup line. “But the problem there, it’s actually the same issue that they run into if you were to launch like a gender agnostic line. It’s basically when you do that, you actually make the problem even worse because you’re providing guys this product, but it doesn’t really get them outside of their comfort zone.”
Ceylon built their brand on the intersection of two demographics often ignored in the beauty industry: men and people of colour. “I remember shopping being like, okay, I have to look out for the words, ‘whitening,’ you know, or ‘lightning,’ and make sure I don’t buy that,” Boateng said of his own shopping experience with many skincare brands. “There’s so many guys who could become customers — who literally have been like, ‘Oh, I didn’t use anything because I was convinced that everything was going to bleach my skin.’”
Whatever strategy a brand takes, they need to be specific in reaching their consumer base, lest they fall into the pitfall Faculty mentions. In doing so, one may as well create the male beauty equivalent of Bic pens for her — an unnecessary product filling a void no one was inhabiting to begin with.
How men are logging on
Since the onset of stay-at-home measures as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, one thing has been clear: people are on their screens, for better or for worse.
According to our survey, 45 percent of respondents are spending their video time on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, a far greater percentage than those spending time on virtual work meetings (27 percent) or virtual social hangouts (27 percent) or gaming platforms like Twitch (14 percent). Social media usage is largely similar for both men and women, but the gap widens for work meetings (with 31 percent of male respondents, compared to 24 percent of female respondents) and gaming (14 percent for men, and just 10 percent of women).
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And those who are online are also potentially more engaged than ever. “In terms of engagement, what’s interesting is that there was a lot more content consumption. This is just for Pinterest specifically, but we’ve seen similar numbers across the board, the amount of content the EP consumer engaged with increased like 10X the week that the U.S. shutdown is in March,” Koh Kim said. “And then what was interesting is we haven’t really seen it levelled off or go back to pre-COVID. It’s just more people came online, right? There’s a whole new set of people who were online shopping that have never shopped online before,” Kim said.
“Quarantine and COVID actually was a boon for us in some weird way,” she said. “Because, we’re just so rooted in that kind of gaming culture itself, because we use that for a lot of our marketing, visual branding.”
But even while more consumers are potentially online, Boateng is hesitant to expand to platforms his brand isn’t on already. “There’s a desire for every company out there to go and try to be on every new social media, new place, new audience, new channel, that pops up,” he said. “We have to learn what is the way to for us to present ourselves authentically that gives people something meaningful to this platform,” he said.
“There’s a whole new set of people who were online shopping that have never shopped online before.”
Faculty also recognizes that now is a sensitive time to launch a brand and connect with a new consumer base. “Personally, I don’t want to be known as the company that basically capitalized on a pandemic. Like I want my first 10,000 customers to be the people who buy our products because they love Faculty,” ElBably said.
And brands’ online presence may be more scrutinized than ever, as a result of the recent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. If they weren’t already ahead of the game on progressive issues, or are pretending to have been, customers will notice. “I think, especially with a lot of the social and political issues going on behind Black Lives Matters and Pride Month, because they have the time, they get to see if a brand who says that they’re inclusive, is actually showing the actions to begin with.”
Brands who weren’t engaging with customers online prior to the pandemic might be at a disadvantage in trying to reach new customers now — but that doesn’t mean they can’t attempt to engage, rather that they need to come armed with reliable information.
Talk is cheap
Spread across a wide array of demographics and platforms, the online beauty community is both highly profitable and highly contentious. But above all, it’s knowledgeable. Perhaps no platform better encapsulates the breadth and depth of the online beauty knowledge base better than r/SkincareAddiction, the subreddit forum dedicated to all things skincare.
“We were noticing a lot of men were going to Reddit for skincare advice, and I think the biggest thing is like, Reddit already kind of attached itself as a culture of no BS,” says Kim.
A quick perusal through the platform will reveal users discussing new launches like Fenty Skincare, in-depth discussions on ingredients like Vitamin C and retinol and personal chats on skincare as a source of personal transformation amid worldwide chaos. And those users are well ahead of the curve in terms of gender inclusivity in beauty, with threads dedicated to welcoming male users and acknowledging the diversity in gender across the platform.
“Expert-driven formulation or more reviews are definitely becoming I think much more higher converting than the usual, look at this cool influencer clout, right? I think people are definitely seeking more expert-driven advice,” Kim says.
Ceylon
Looking at products from a scientific perspective also reveals holes in the market. “The medical field, like the science of dermatology, is built on white men,” says Boateng. “People of colour are overdiagnosed with eczema, hyperpigmentation. They are more often represented in the sort of patients who have scarring.”
Boateng wanted formula to be at the forefront at his brand, and consequently developed Ceylon with Dr. Lynn McKinley-Grant, president of the Skin of Colour Society and professor of dermatology at Howard. “I think that there’s this idea that ingredients are the most important. And ingredients are super important, but if I tell you that something has this particular ingredient that doesn’t actually tell me whether or not it’s going to be effective, but we’ve somehow been convinced that it’s going to be,” he said. “It’s about formulation structure. It’s about molecule sizes. It’s about the way in which different ingredients are actually put together to help work with one another to achieve certain things.”
With such an emphasis on scientific expertise, it’s not surprising that influencer endorsements rank so low in terms of motivation to purchase product, with just 3 percent of male respondents selecting it as a potential motivation (women slightly preferred it, with 5 percent of female respondents, but the percentage goes up to 36 percent for non-binary and gendequeer respondents). “The best brands out there, they don’t need influencers,” Boateng said.
“The best brands out there, they don’t need influencers.”
Kim notes that the gaming-centric community her brand caters to approaches buying many products in the same way they buy their game — with ample research. “They’re already savvy online shoppers to begin with, because that’s how they grew up.”
Quarantine measures can offer a chance for men to experiment, but also, thanks to such a bevy of resources, educate themselves. As such, brands must be equally knowledgeable.
What’s left on the table
Increased time alone may have given many more chances to experiment with new hobbies or activities. But has it pushed men outside of their comfort zone? Not particularly. According to our survey, only 4 percent of men purchased cosmetic products like concealer or eyebrow pencil for the first time since quarantine measures began, and 53 percent said they haven’t experimented with products in the skincare, fragrance, nail polish or cosmetics categories for the first time in the past few months. That said, 37 percent did indicate they had experimented with skincare products for the first time.
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And men aren’t applying makeup to appear on video, even if they may be spending more time on screen. Only 2 percent of male respondents said they applied makeup to improve their appearance for a video interaction, compared to 40 percent of women and 54 percent of non-binary or genderqueer respondents. And it’s not as though men don’t do anything to improve their appearance to appear on screen; 54 percent of men reported that they change their clothing, 37 percent style their hair and 30 percent adjust their background.
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Koh, whose EVENPRIME brand relies on a community-driven beta testing program to develop new products, notes as well that her audience isn’t asking for other products associated with the coronavirus crisis. “Surprisingly, we haven’t seen as high of an interest I think in the personal hygiene categories, I would say, like hand sanitizer, or hand cream. Most of the focus has definitely been on just more advanced products.”
The Faculty co-founders did initially want to launch their brand with a concealer, which may have appealed to that narrow slice of male consumers who are dabbling in makeup for their Zoom chats. “Our first product was supposed to be a concealer, which would have made a lot of sense for like Zoom. What we keep continually hearing is guys are actually buying concealer now because they’re looking at their faces all day,” ElBably said.
But concealer is a capital-heavy product to develop they say, as it requires formulating a wide variety of shades to launch. The financial impact of the coronavirus crisis meant they had to switch gears and decided instead to debut their brand with a nail polish.
Faculty/Some Days
“We’re looking at the people who we believe pushed menswear online. Whether it’s Luka Sabbat, or Virgil Abloh, or even figures like Post Malone, A$AP Rocky, all these individuals are all wearing nail polish,” ElBably said. “And we were sitting there thinking, you know if anyone’s going to learn how to know how to use nail polish, now is probably a better time than ever, because you have so much time to sit at home.”
To appeal to their target audience the duo are following the streetwear playbook: the limited-edition, shorty supply drop model, starting with Drop: 01, Moss, which will be followed by further exclusive nail varnish colors released in small quantities in coming months. “Like, who has ever thought of dropping an exclusive nail polish?” ElBably asked. “It would just wouldn’t be as cool if we just had like a bunch of different colors, and you could get as many as you want.”
Their use of such a model isn’t totally unheard of in makeup, however. When Pat McGrath launched her brand in 2015, she did so with a single product: Gold 001, which sold out in mere minutes. MAC, which has long since released limited-edition, quick selling collections, is also wading into the drop model to a select loyalty group.
“If anyone’s going to learn how to know how to use nail polish, now is probably a better time than ever, because you have so much time to sit at home.”
Going with a nail polish first is something of a risk; only 4 percent of respondents to our survey reported they had experimented with nail polish for the first time in recent months.
But perhaps that’s what makes it the perfect category to experiment with. Whether men aren’t dipping their toenail into the word of nail polish because they just aren’t interested, or because there isn’t a product that speaks to them remains to be seen. Gold pigment wasn’t exactly the most needed product when Pat McGrath launched her line either, but it set the groundwork for a $1 billion USD brand.
Farrow & Ball’s sales have grown “exponentially” this year thanks to a home improvement boom. The Drum catches up with the 75-year-old posh paint purveyor’s chief exec to find out how it has been fine-tuning its digital capabilities and baking luxury into its online experiences as it looks to appeal to DIYers and professionals alike.
Paint and wallpaper company Farrow & Ball is famous for its muted colour charts, on which you‘ll find shades with names such as ‘Downpipe’, ‘Elephant’s Breath‘ and ‘Hague Blue’. Its intensely pigmented paints have earned it a reputation among interior designers and influencers alike, with the aspirational brand selling not only distinctive tins but a lifestyle that goes with them.
This year, the business has seen the best financial results in its 75-year history, powered by a lockdown decorating boom that has pushed digital sales through the roof as people seek to reinvent the spaces they are spending more time in. In the year to August, sales were up 4.1% for the British brand, reaching £87m. Online sales were up 14% over the same period, representing over 10% of group sales versus 9% in the prior year.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in our digital demand,” explains chief executive officer Anthony Davey, the ex-P&G marketer who also sat in the top spot at GHD. “At one stage, our demand had gone up 15-fold online,” he explains, saying that “almost overnight” the business went from selling 90% of its stock through third parties to a 50:50 split between retail and direct-to-consumer (DTC).
This shift was aided by the brand’s small-batch production methods, which see all of its manufacturing based out of Dorset. “It’s quasi-handcrafted, we go through the process twice to ensure that the quality and consistency of our paint is exceptionally strong. So we were able to ‘pick and pack’ for individual customers. Lots of [bigger] companies that are highly scaled with a mass manufacturing approach weren’t able to offer that individual ordering service.”
Its marketing strategy has shifted too. Farrow & Ball has upped its investment in PPC and Google Shopping to capture the demand from buyers. For people who are in the discovery and exploration stage, the company is investing in social media content for its 2 million followers across the “obvious” channels like Instagram and Pinterest.
Its commitment to quality has been evident not only in the assembly of its products, but also in the way it has shifted the services it offers to customers online.
Bringing the Farrow & Ball experience online
When showrooms shut at the start of March, the paint company brought a live-chat function to its website. It has also started allowing customers to book virtual appointments with its specialist colour consultants – seasoned interior specialists who help people pick out the perfect swatches and themes for their homes.
“In lockdown, we brought our designers into our social media channels to give customers a ‘daily dose of colour’, which in the past is something we haven’t done much of.
“We want to make sure we‘ve got sufficiently engaging and relevant content, and people want to see us as a source of inspiration and advice. That‘s very much a strategy of the whole business. If you were to go into our showrooms or on to any of our channels, you‘ll find people who‘ve got many years’ experience in interior design or fabrics or all different aspects of design. They‘re much more than just someone managing a store. They have passion for the industry and passion for the category.”
Having recently appointed BMB as its lead creative agency, the company isn’t just focusing on digital – in fact, it has just invested in its first series of TV ads, which gently poke fun at Farrow & Ball’s serious image.
Featuring a cast of neurotic decorators doing everything they can to keep their paint pristine and protect their freshly decorated walls and woodwork from the threats of muddy dogs, messy children and careless wine drinkers, the self-aware ‘Modern Emulsion’ campaign will be stacked against a variety of KPIs.
Davey points to two kinds of metrics – growth and brand awareness, but also engagement and attribution on the digital and VOD side.
He says his firm wasn’t inspired to make its TV debut owing to Covid-19. “It is more just about continuing the evolution of the brand.”
Feature Image Credit: Paint and paper company Farrow & Ball is perhaps best known for its muted colour charts
OK, perhaps that’s over-egging the pudding but it’s certainly true that increasing numbers of us are having to get used to the sight of our pixelated faces staring back at us from laptop and tablet screens as we communicate with peers, talk to our bosses and pitch to clients via video conferencing tools.
And the rise of the Zoom/Teams/Skype meeting has come as something of a culture shock. Once upon a time, you either connected face-to-face or on the phone. Ahead of face-to-face situations you probably took time to prepare, if only by dressing for the occasion. On the phone, dress didn’t matter so much, if at all. You could talk to the CEO of a multinational corporation and potential customer while dressed only in jeans, t-shirt, and your favourite baseball cap. Only you would know. This is why, of course, employees in call-centres aren’t always noted for their sartorial elegance.
And here’s the thing. When video conferencing began to pick up traction at the beginning of the pandemic, it was essentially replacing meetings that would otherwise have taken place in person. Now – in some cases at least – it’s becoming a default. For instance, until fairly recently when I arranged to interview an entrepreneur, it was usually done on the phone. Today, more than 50 percent of my interviews are done via Zoom or Teams. Consequently, I get to see my interlocutors. I see how they are dressed, what their offices look like, and whether they look relaxed and confident when answering questions. As such, maybe I’m getting a better sense of their personal brand – and, worryingly, they of mine.
Upsides and Downsides
If you happen to run an entrepreneurial business, there are upsides and downsides to this new visibility. If your staff come across well, a video conference – say, with a customer – can enhance the brand of the business. If on the other hand, members of your team look uncomfortable, haven’t dressed for the meeting and are shrouded in shadow due to poor lighting, an audio/visual encounter can have a negative impact.
The same is true on social media. If you use Facebook, Linkedin or Instagram to interact with stakeholders, then a lot depends on the perception that you and your team create. Get it right and social media pays dividends. Get it wrong and you, potentially at least, have problems.
So maybe it’s time for relatively small businesses to pay attention to personal brands. Certainly, that’s the view of Carlene Jackson, founder of Cloud9 Insight, a cloud CRM provider based in Brighton, England. Although the company is relatively small – around 35 staff – Jackson is encouraging everyone, regardless of role, to develop their own, visible, personal brands.
As Jackson explains it all started with an assessment of her own role as company CEO. “A lot of organizations are headed by guru brands – people like Richard Branson and Elon Musk. I realized that as a business owner, I needed a personal brand.”
Everyone Has a Brand
A lot of company owners probably feel the same way. As leaders, they are the faces of their businesses, attending networking events, talking to major customers, and perhaps also doing some public speaking.
But owners and founders are by no means the only people who represent their companies. Sales staff certainly interact with customers on a daily basis, but even in the so-called back-office departments, individuals have a profile. “My lightbulb moment was that everyone has their own personal brand,” says Jackson.
What does that mean in practice? As Jackson sees it, the brand of employees is manifest in their networks, their presentation and how well (or badly) they are thought of by those who interact with them. Often, however, an individual’s brand has quite a limited reach – maybe only colleagues are aware of it and, to be honest, they probably don’t think of it as a brand.
But this is the age of social media. There is scope to build the brand of the company by leveraging the personal profiles of employees. “I thought it would be amazing if everyone had a voice. If they could tell stories,” says Jackson.
So Cloud9 Insight brought in consultants to teach staff how to develop their personal brands. Teams have been coached in using social media, how to present themselves on video, and how to dress. Equally important, they are encouraged to share stories. For instance, employees make videos. These are passed onto the marketing team, who in turn create blogs around them.
Social media is an important element – not just the usual suspects of Twitter and LinkedIn but also Instagram and personal Facebook accounts.
The latter is potentially tricky. We all have work and play personas. How we present ourselves to colleagues and stakeholders in a work situation is often fundamentally different from how we talk to friends about hobbies and(ahem) wild nights out. So isn’t there a risk that that work version of a personal brand will be at odds with the image an individual presents in a non-professional situation?
Jackson says some staff members could create separate Facebook accounts for work and play – but more generally she argues that anything posted on social media should be informed by the knowledge that future employers may well look at it and make hiring decisions accordingly. Thus, she says, there should be no inconsistency between the work and play brands. That’s possibly true but it has to be said that it could make Facebook a very dull place.
Why Invest?
Personal branding coaches are familiar figures in big companies, but perhaps not so much in small organizations. Jackson says, there are good commercial reasons for investing in training.
“People buy from people,” she says. “On the delivery side of the business, people will always look up your employees, so it’s important that they have accurate profiles on LinkedIn. At the same time, there are opportunities to share thought leadership.” This creates opportunities to boost sales. Since June, the business – which serves more than 600 customers – has grown 70 percent, with referrals playing a major role in driving new business.
“It has also been fantastic in HR,” Jackson adds. “On the recruitment side of things, candidates are coming directly to HR.”
All of this begs a question. What is a good personal brand?. “It should be authentic and shouldn’t come across as too scripted. And the brand should be relatable” says Jackson. On the technical side photography (on social media) should be high quality as should the cameras and lighting used for video conferencing.
Jackson acknowledges that some employees were nervous at first and the training sessions (which have included a private Facebook group) have involved out of hours “homework.” With coaching, however, confidence has grown. And as Jackson sees it, marketing has become more crucial than ever during the lockdown. personal branding plays an important role.
Feature Image Credit: Carlene Jackson, 2019 ANDREW HASSON
Avon is honing in on its ability to transform women’s lives, with a global campaign asking people to reconsider the 135-year-old beauty business. Its chief brand and beauty officer explain why now is the right time to “blow the dust off.”
When you think of Avon, you most likely conjure up images a of handbag-sized catalogue filled with scented pages and pictures of Senses bubble bath and Skin So Soft spritz. And possibly a neighbour armed with a bag full of miniature lipsticks and nail polishes who would regularly ding the doorbell.
However, over the past 12 months the brand has been looking to carve out its own place in the global $532bn beauty and personal care market, heavily investing in digital tools for its army of direct sellers. It now allows its five million representatives in 50 markets to run a business from their phone, create and share marketing content and personalise recommendations for regular customers.
Since the pandemic kicked off, the beauty brand has seen a 200% uptick to digital transactions. In the first half of this year, the number of Avon reps has also grown twofold as social selling becomes more relevant to people looking to embrace a more remote and flexible way of working.
Avon sells three lipsticks every second, seven bottles of fragrance every second (which it claims is more than any other brand) and two bottles of its Anew skincare products every second.
In a world of Glossiers, Beauty Pies and Drunk Elephants, however, Avon has an image problem. It’s failing to keep up with these ‘cool-girl’ brands and engage a younger generation of women. Even its chief brand and beauty officer, James Thompson, concedes that over the past few years Avon has been “underestimated” from a brand perspective.
As a result, its launching ’Watch Me Now’ a significant global campaign that will run in more than 70 markets globally calling on people to reconsider their views of the company.
The premise behind the push is that Avon has been transforming women’s lives by “doing beauty differently” for 135 years. The ads – which will run across OOH, digital and press – nod at Avon’s heritage as a purpose-driven business that gave women the power to make an independent income in the US before they even had the right to vote.
‘Watch Me Now’ underscores the power of beauty to create opportunities for people to earn on their own terms, and highlight’s Avon’s own support for causes including domestic abuse and breast cancer – with the business fundraising £20m for charities relating to the latter cause and teaming up with Coppafeel to encourage women to check their breasts regularly.
The hero ad celebrates the success of the underdog and highlights the unexpected and underestimated aspects of the Avon brand, its people, activism, and products – for which Avon has been granted more than 750 patents and 300 awards.
For Thompson, it’s less a campaign and more a “fundamental repositioning”.
“There’s a parallel with how Avon as a brand has been underestimated over the past few years,” he says pointing to the fact that the brand has 98% awareness but a “much lower” consideration among customers.
“We need to blow the dust off and reinvent ourselves for another generation.”
‘Watch Me Now’ was created in collaboration with Wunderman Thompson but restrictions from the pandemic mean the work itself was produced in-house. The ads are also being supported by an extensive identity refresh.
Avon’s network of reps will also be central to spreading the message. Influencers in their own right, Thompson says the brand’s sellers are its “first media channel”.
“We’ve equipped them with much better technology,” he explains, pointing to the Avon On app which allows them to do everything from invoice customers to built assets for Facebook or Instagram from their phone.
“In the first months of this campaign we’ll be sending them content on a regular basis that they’ll be encouraged to share with customers. Over time, we’ll be giving them tools and education on how to make their own content too within the framework of this campaign. It’s effectively the world’s most democratic marketing programme ever.”
All that said, the brand isn’t planning to ‘do an Argos’ any time soon and ditch its hallmark physical brochure.
“It’s still a really important part of our business. It’ll be updated to reflect our new positioning and we’ll be improving the quality but we’re an omni-channel business – we have stores in some countries, we’re online elsewhere. We need to be where our customers can find us.”
When you think food advertising can’t get any better than it is now, someone finds a way to one-up the competition. It does raise the question of whether there is a point in advertising a thing we can’t live without, but I digress.
McDonald’s has come out with an advert—a street billboard—in the streets of Paris that has been drawing people’s attention lately with its unconventional public ad design.
Have you ever gotten so hungry that you’ve had the idea to take a bite out of a billboard?
So, McDonald’s—you know, that ginormous fast-food chain whose food people can’t help but crave every once in a while and effectively don’t need to be persuaded to want to eat it—has come out with an ingenious billboard design that has people captivated.
McDonald’s has placed 3 lit street billboards around the city of Paris, France with pictures of two kinds of their signature hamburgers and a carton of french fries. Except they aren’t regular rectangular billboards that many of us are used to, but rather rectangles that someone has taken a literal bite out of.
An ad agency recently took that concept and made it into a McDonnald’s billboard that is literally bitten off
The entire design does have a silly vibe to it because the bite mark is just comically out there—who would try to take an over-sized bite out of a billboard picturing food? But, at the same time, it’s very on-point and the strangeness of it all manages to draw the eyes of passersby—exactly what an ad should be doing.
People with a keen eye will also notice that the billboards lack any branding. Besides the carton of french fries being packaged in the obvious red and yellow packaging that McDonald’s offers, there is no mention of it being McDonald’s. For all intents and purposes, this could be an ad for any other fast-food restaurant.
3 “bitten-off” billboards were placed in Paris, France that feature McD’s juicy pics of burgers and fries
But a supplementary video showcasing these same billboards clarifies that it is indeed McDonald’s—the classic golden arches appear right after the cartoony frames of the two burgers and french fry logos at the end of the video.
The people behind the billboards are TBWAParis, an advertising agency headquartered in New York City but with a presence all around the world, including Paris. It aims to bring a culture of innovation and to put companies’ brands at the heart of pop culture.
TBWA Paris is the team behind the billboards and they’ve been working with McDonald’s since 1985
The agency has been working together with McDonald’s in Paris for a while now—since 1985, actually. Their projects with McD’s include ad campaigns for the Sharing Box, “Being A Good Father,” and “American Summer,” among many others.
Now, this isn’t the first time someone has taken a bite out of a tasty food ad as Ben and Jerry’s also realized the same concept for an ad some time ago. The ad for B&J’s Pint Slices has been seen bitten off in Auckland, New Zealand. The Phantom Labs team are the people behind this one.
Interestingly enough, none of these ads feature any of McDonald’s branding, save for its colors with the fries
Social-media stocks are getting a boost from Deutsche Bank analyst Lloyd Walmsley, who raised his rating on Twitterand lifted his price targets on Facebook,Alphabet, Snap,and Pinterest.
For Twitter (ticker: TWTR), he went to Buy from Hold, with a price target of $56, up from $36. The call is part of a broader bullish report on the social-media stocks, which he thinks are positioned to benefit from a coming rebound in online advertising demand.
The analyst lifted his price targets on Facebook (FB), to $325 from $305; Alphabet,Google’s parent (GOOGL), to $2,020 from $1,975; Pinterest (PINS), to $55 from $43; and Snap (SNAP), to $32 from $28. He repeated Buy ratings on all of them.
“We are bullish on the ad names into Q3 results given a continued ad recovery through Q3 and a strong outlook for Q4 based on our industry conversations,” he said. “We are bullish on the space into 2021, where a continued cyclical recovery and easy comps will drive accelerating growth and margin recovery, with potential for more share gains across online advertising.”
He cited the large-cap companies in the group—Google and Facebook—as having a better balance of risks and potential rewards, given that investors are less enthusiastic about their prospects than they are for the midcap firms in the group: Snap and Pinterest. Walmsley said he is positive about Snap and Pinterest’s fundamentals, but noted “positive sentiment” about those stocks.
Twitter, he said, can continue to rally, driven by improving growth in the second half. and “a compelling bull case for 2021.”
“In our view, Twitter is well positioned to benefit from a big event landscape in 2021, expansion into more performance advertising on the back of its ad server rebuild and new MAP [mobile app promotion] product, and an eventual high-margin subscription product,” he wrote.
“We have been excited about the medium-term prospects for Twitter but unable to get more bullish given weak advertising channel feedback. We are now starting to hear more positive feedback in the ad channel and would take advantage of the opportunity to build a position now before a stronger ad recovery takes hold and we get into the period of 2021 excitement.”
Monday morning, Twitter was up 4.5% to $47.99, Facebook rose 3.1% to $272.67, and Alphabet gained 2.7%, to $1,550.94. Snap rose 0.7% to $27.18, while Pinterest rallied 2.9% to $44.65.
Check out these tips to help drive your Instagram marketing strategy toward better engagement and higher ROI.
If you’re looking for a way to grow your business, you may want to consider Instagram marketing. Instagram is an essential part of many business owners’ social media marketing strategies. This guide covers the benefits of using Instagram for business and top Instagram marketing tips to follow.
Business benefits of using Instagram
Instagram is a smart marketing tool if your business has products and services that can be presented visually and your audience is active on the channel. If your business checks those boxes and you carefully plan and execute your Instagram social media marketing strategy, this social media channel can have these big benefits:
Increased brand awareness
Followers’ trust
Brand loyalty
A boost in website traffic
New leads
New customers
Repeat business
Instagram marketing tips and best practices
Instagram marketing strategies vary from business to business. Although the following Instagram marketing tips have been effective for select brands, you should cater each tip to your unique audience and sales offerings.
Know your audience.
If you don’t know your audience, you are essentially creating content blindly. Many small businesses think their audience is everyone, which is almost never the case.
To help pinpoint your target audience, HubSpot suggests creating buyer personas. A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. You can have more than one buyer persona, but limit them to five to ensure they are manageable. Include important details about your target audience, such as their demographics and how they think and act. For example, consider the following characteristics:
Age range (keep it within 10 years)
Specific location (city and state)
Job title
Gender
What motivates them at their job
What motivates them at home
Three main problems they have
Where they go for information (e.g., business.com, Facebook or a local radio station)
Any additional information you can identify (e.g., if they have pets and/or children, their salary range, their hobbies)
When developing buyer personas, make them as clear and as detailed as possible. The more specific your buyer personas are, the better you’ll succeed in creating content that appeals to your audience. If you’re unsure where to get this information, start by surveying your current customers. Email them a survey, letting them know how long it will take to fill out. Keep your questions brief, and offer multiple-choice and open-ended options.
To further entice your current customer base to take your survey, you could offer a promo code to be applied to their next purchase, and you might even get some extra business from it. If your business is brand-new and you really don’t have any idea where to begin with surveying your customers, reach out to your personal social media networks for assistance. There has to be an audience you had in mind when you started your company. Find those people, even if you have to go through your personal Facebook friends list and phone contacts.
Another option is to use a paid digital tool to survey a group of people. If you choose this route, start with an audience of 100 or fewer people, and increase it as needed. Sometimes, a small sample is helpful and saves you money.
Optimize your bio.
Your bio is an important part of your Instagram page, and it needs to be optimized. Include the following elements:
A clear and engaging Instagram profile picture that’s sized appropriately
A bio that tells a story of what your brand or Instagram influencer page is about
A link that visitors can access for more information
Hashtags (when applicable)
Your bio is an important part of your Instagram page, and it needs to be optimized. Include the following elements:
A clear and engaging Instagram profile picture that’s sized appropriately
A bio that tells a story of what your brand or Instagram influencer page is about
A link that visitors can access for more information
Hashtags (when applicable)
Example: Just for fun – micro-influencer Instagram bio Zoey the Maltichon
Source: Image courtesy of Zoey the Maltichon
Incorporate relevant hashtags.
Hashtags, including those that are trending, can help people find your page on Instagram and Twitter and are essential to grow your audience and sales. Josh Stutt, founder of ABCD E-Commerce, said to make sure to research hashtags before you start using them. If you’re not a widely known brand or celebrity, using generic hashtags won’t get you anywhere. For example, if you’re a new vintage T-shirt brand, don’t waste your time with broad hashtags such as #fashion or #tshirt.
“You need to find hashtags that are typically on point [and] have a good following but aren’t being used by everyone else in your space,” Stutt said. “By using the Instagram search function, you can see the popularity of any given tag (#tshirt has 38.5M posts, but #vintagetees only has 388K). Dig around and find 50 or so tags that are applicable to you.”
Once you’ve done this, use about 15 hashtags in various combinations on your posts, and keep track of where you use each one, Stutt suggested. After that, he said, review the results, looking at which posts resonated, which hashtags brought people in and what people talked about in your posts.
“As you learn which ones work for you, use them continuously while slowly adding in other ones and trying to scale up as you gain popularity,” Stutt said. “Once you start connecting on certain tags, that’s when you can hit the Discover section, and that’s how you get Instagram working for you instead of the other way around.”
Interact with other users in your target audience.
Building relationships is an age-old sales tactic that is effective in social media as well. It is also the best organic way to increase your audience and get new business. The key to building relationships is to be genuine. Here are a few ways to build relationships on Instagram:
Follow people in your target audience who interest you.
Like and comment on their posts.
Sometimes, share their posts to your stories.
It can take time to build these relationships, but doing so can generate some of the hottest leads.
Team up with other brands to host giveaways.
Jenna Labiak, owner of The Silk Labs, said hosting giveaways with other small businesses that have the same values, location and target audience has been beneficial to her business on Instagram.
“This way, we can have a mutually beneficial relationship within this giveaway and share both of our audiences with one another,” she said. “On average, I would say for each giveaway with another small business, The Silk Labs gains 200 new customers.”
Source: Image courtesy of The Silk Labs
Use a link tool to drive traffic to your website and other important links.
There are quite a few link tools available, but one of the most effective and widely used is Linktree. When you set up and add Linktree to your Instagram profile, users who click the link are directed to the Linktree page that shows all of the links you have added. You can customize the Linktree page with a profile image, such as your company logo, and edit the links at any time. The Linktree tool has a “forever free” plan that is ideal for small businesses. Additional plans start at $6 per month.
Capitalize on affordable influencer marketing.
You may know that partnering with Instagram influencers, or people with large followings for a particular interest or category, can be an effective marketing strategy. However, it often comes with a hefty price tag.
As a more affordable alternative, “Strike a win-win deal with other companies that have affiliations with influencers, and do a collaboration,” said Amy McWaters, CEO of The Hamper Emporium.
As an example, McWaters’ Australia-based company collaborated with Ponting Wines, which is promoted by Ricky Ponting, a cricket legend. As part of the collaboration, her team created stories featuring him and, in return, he promoted his wines in The Hamper Emporium’s e-commerce store.
McWaters said her company received a lot of direct messages asking about the products, and the campaign resulted in an overall sales increase of 43% that quarter.
Humanize your brand.
This is a strategy that works well across all social media channels. Think about the content that resonates with you on the pages you follow. Most likely, it’s the stuff that you can connect with personally, not corporate business posts. That’s why it’s so important to show your human side.
For example, payment processing company Priority Payments Local created a “Meet the Team” series and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, got its team together to convey the message “We’re all in this together.” The photo of the company’s business development manager, Vincent Napoli, shows him in a different light than his clients are used to seeing him in: with his son.
Source: Image courtesy of Priority Payments Local
Leverage Instagram analytics (also called Instagram Insights).
Instagram Insights, Instagram’s analytics tool, is available to use for free on the Instagram app and is available on business accounts and contributor accounts (sometimes called influencer accounts). The tool provides the following metrics:
The number of accounts reached (with increase or decrease percentages)
Content interactions (with increase or decrease percentages)
Total followers (with increase or decrease percentages)
Content your page shared
Instagram story content
IGTV video content
Promoted post data
This information is available for the previous seven-day period. Unfortunately, unlike Facebook’s analytics tool, it does not show the best times to post different types of content. If you have a Facebook business page, experiment with the best posting times (as determined by when your audience is online).
Post awesome content.
You and your audience may not have the same idea of what constitutes impressive content. Research what types of content get the most engagement on your competitors’ pages.
Fill your followers’ Instagram feeds with engaging content. Note the type of content that gets the most engagement, so you can keep giving your audience what it wants. For example, some brands do better with Instagram Live posts than they do with Instagram Stories. Ultimately, you can define “awesome content” by how well it performs. Your posts should be carefully planned, crafted and distributed.
Grow your page and your business with Instagram advertising.
Instagram advertising can be beneficial for expanding your brand’s reach across the social media platform, thereby growing your following and increasing sales. Depending on your industry, for Instagram to be effective, you may need to run your ads through a sales funnel, like Credit Repair Kings did. The company’s strategy was to target consumers within a specific age group in the local area who had an interest in the credit services and financial categories. When someone clicked on the ad, Credit Repair Kings used ClickFunnels to capture the lead to schedule a call with them using Calendly.
Source: Image courtesy of CreditRepairKings.com
Source: Image courtesy of CreditRepairKings.com
Source: Image courtesy of CreditRepairKings.com
Test and try again.
The social media landscape is always changing, so it’s important to test new tactics. Don’t be afraid to create Instagram content that gets zero or little engagement. Learn something from every post, and keep trying. With time and practice, you could find yourself with a flood of new sales straight from Instagram.
Find out what’s in store for design in the next 12 months.
After experiencing all the year has thrown at us so far, we can’t be the only ones looking forward to 2021 (it hasn’t been cancelled yet, has it?). Perfect for creatives who want to get a jumpstart on life beyond Christmas, this infographic sets out seven key graphic design trends expected to blow up next year.
Full of useful information, this infographic from Ryan McCready might be one of the best we’ve seen (check our list of best infographics for more). It intelligently explains why certain trends are on the way – relating them to current consumer needs in relation to the rollercoaster that has been 2020 (muted colour palettes instead of bold, brash colours, for example – because they feel safe and secure). Click the picture below to see it in its full glory.
(Image credit: Ryan McCready on venngage.com)
According to the graphic, the general design arc will be to favour simplicity and practicality. This means that flat icons and illustrations are making a comeback, classic serif fonts will take centre-stage and text-heavy videos are here to stay as a necessity (because of the limitations the pandemic has put on shooting production-heavy footage).
You can also look forward to seeing (and creating) simple data visualisations, an abundance of geometric shapes and social media slide decks to communicate longer messages (things are probably going to remain pretty complicated, after all).
When people think of rewards programs, they often think of points, such as frequent-flyer miles, or punching in a phone number at a pharmacy or grocery chain. Those experiences can feel a bit empty because there is no instant gratification; it’s as if there were value there but you’re not sure exactly when it will pay off.
With that said, those rewards programs work. They motivate consumers to achieve a benefit from spending their money with a brand. There’s a psychological pull that most consumers do not — and sometimes cannot — resist.
From leading a cash back rewards company, I’ve seen first-hand the impact such incentives can have on customer loyalty. We just surveyed 19,000 of our users about their shopping behaviour, and 82% said they prioritize special promotions, discounts or cash back when choosing where they’ll shop. That’s a powerful loyalty stat.
Rewards Reactions
People react to rewards in various ways. According to global consultancy McKinsey’s research, these reactions entail context, habit, friendly influence, incentives, emotions, congruence, salience and other factors. It’s a sure-fire way to engage someone’s emotions, and in turn, gain or lose their loyalty.
When it comes to spending, neural studies have shown that consumers have unpleasant emotions when contemplating the monetary cost of making purchases. As a matter of impulse, people simply do not want to part ways with the cash they’ve worked hard to earn.
Making customers feel positive about their purchase is crucial to not only the customer experience but also brand loyalty. It’s why 79% of consumers look for deals in loyalty rewards programs before buying an item.
Reshaping ‘Value’
More generally, the psychology of rewards and this pandemic should have companies rethinking “value” and how it pertains to their marketing budgets. In previous years, “value” meant consumers attaining something meaningful for what they give to a business. In the current public health crisis, consumer needs have shifted dramatically, and “value” should now play out with brands and financial institutions helping customers achieve their budgetary goals.
Even when things return to normal, brands and financial institutions will need to think much differently about how they provide value to customers. Marketers should consider factors like easing consumer stress, communicating availability, offering more options for convenience and putting money back into consumers’ wallets when they need it most. Appealing to consumer sensibility during Covid-19 has never been so impactful, and, more than any other reward, it’s cash back that ensures a strong finish to the customer experience. For financial institutions, it’s identifying ways to add value that don’t demand their customers to jump through hoops for the benefit.
The New Reward King: Cash
With consumer budget worries in mind, rewards are on the rise as more brands turn to “surprise and delight” experiences with cold hard cash at the forefront. Financial institutions, neobanks and digital payment platforms are flocking to embed engaging cash back rewards into their user experiences. Whether it be attached to a specific card product or generally available to their customers, cash now speaks volumes when it comes to creating value and remaining top of wallet.
For example, financial membership platform MoneyLion knew these things to be true as early as two years ago when it started giving customers $1 cash back each day for opening the financial membership brand’s mobile app. And in February, Level, a challenger bank app, began giving customers 1% cash back on debit card purchases, which its customers have surely been appreciating since then due to pandemic-driven economic anxiety. Such brands understand that their customers not only have always been hard-wired toward cash back and rewards, but they are especially now during these hard economic times.
Rewards such as cash back also drive sales. For instance, more brands see increased revenue via rewards (36%) compared to discounts (28%). More specifically, my company Dosh — in a research partnership with The Centre for Generational Kinetics — found that brands that offer millennial and Gen Z consumers at least 5% instant cash back will see even greater sales impact now and in the months ahead.
Cash back’s momentum is clear. And with miles racking up and nowhere to go, consumers are questioning their miles cards. Credit card companies are starting to recognize this reality with 80% of card members redeeming cash back rewards during the pandemic.
What Fintechs Need To Know
The best way for fintechs, neobanks and other financial services companies to implement cash back into their offering is to make the customer experience as frictionless as possible. Don’t make the CX more than one step. When customers sign up for your loyalty/rewards program, the savings that follow should be automatic: Cash back should be built-in, not opt-in. Once customers experience the ease and delight of automatic cash back notifications, yours will be their payment method of choice.
Every financial services company wants to be top-of-wallet and have their customers highly engaged. Providing a vast array of merchants that provide 5% to 10% cash back automatically to a customer is already proving that customers will use that payment instrument more times than others. The fintech winners will be those that provide the right offer, to the right person at the right time, and find the right way to celebrate savings with their cardholders.
What’s Next For Rewards
Even before this pandemic, my company’s survey found that 82% of Americans will shop more frequently with retailers that send cash back notifications. And McKinsey has revealed in a study that immediate gratification, like cash back, results in positive customer experience and creates brand loyalty. Once again, rewards are all about psychology, and cash back entails the greatest positivity in shopping and the best outcome for both consumers, brands and financial services companies alike.
The psychology of rewards is powerful. Brands have the opportunity to make such rewards even more memorable for customers, when the rewards look more like something they need and can use immediately, like cash back.
