Making Rice Krispie treats is a favored activity in my kitchen and well enjoyed by my family. If you’ve ever tried it, you’ll remember how sticky your hands get; how nothing seems to easily work to remove these treat pieces from your hands, your countertop, or your utensils as you work. Pieces of them are everywhere they touch.
Does your marketing have the same sticky factor? Is it something that is memorable and sticks in the minds of your readers? It can be. It should be.
Qualities of Sticky Marketing
Sticky marketing is personable, believable, and gives the reader a relaxed-no-pressure comfortable kick-your-shoes-off kind of feel. If you’re marketing is sticky it:
- Remains in people’s minds – it’s memorable.
- Remains at the top of the search engine results – it often touches on trending topics.
- Aids your site in building rank – search engines acknowledge the clout and give the site better positioning to help others find you and your information.
- Holds meaning to your specific target audience – when it comes to sticky marketing you must stand out in your own field and what your business brings to your customers. No copying others on this one. Knowing your audience is the key to defining what you do and how you give that information to others.
Aiming for Sticky, Not Stinky
You’ve probably received your fair share of stinky marketing and would never rank your marketing as stinky, right? So let’s review what makes marketing stinky and use it as a checklist against repelling. Stinky marketing is:
- Confusing. After reading the marketing piece it’s unclear what the next step should be or which action to take. Don’t make your visitors guess what you’d like them to do next. Tell them. Give them buttons to click, links to share, or a phone number to call. Use verbal or visual cues.
- Boring. Lackluster marketing leaves you feeling bleh. There’s no defining taste or personality to the marketing. There’s nothing that makes anyone scratch their head or want to continue further. They end up moving on rather than feeling motivated to take action.
- In your face with tons of my company, me, I, or we statements. If the marketing message were printed out and you highlighted in orange each company name, me, I, or we, how would it compare to highlighting in neon yellow how many times the messages talks about you, your interests, the benefits to you, the results you crave, etc.? Let’s hope you’d see more neon yellow than orange.
- Cluttered with sales pitches. Refrain from bombarding your audience with pitch after pitch. I promise they will tune out faster than you can sneeze. You do want to give them enough information to make an informed decision.
Sticky is Better than Tacky
Measuring the effectiveness of your online marketing is done by looking at the amount of time (average minutes) someone spends on a website or even a specific web page. Additionally, pay attention to your page views and see if that number rises or falls. Varying your page headlines and tweaking your copy can pinpoint which verbiage is working and which is glossed over by your visitors. How many inbound links are connecting to your web page or blog? Knowing the share numbers is golden when it comes to social media.
Tracking stand-alone marketing pieces should include a coupon code or tracking word that readers are asked to mention or submit. Staggering your marketing across various mediums with unique trackers for each piece will quickly identify which marketing medium is best in reaching your audience and which mediums can be passed by the wayside as ineffective for your target audience.
How does your marketing rank on the stickiness scale?
Keep the conversation going in the Comments and let us know what’s working, what’s not, and where you intend to make improvements. We’d really like to know.
As always, thanks for reading, and please share this post by clicking on the share buttons below!
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Ruth Martin is the owner of Maplewood Virtual Assistance (MaplewoodVA), Maplewood Virtual Assistance, an online business support services firm specializing in online business and project management, marketing and writing services, and executive level business support. For more of Ruth’s writings visit her blog, The Naked VA.
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