Happy Monday morning!
Today’s Curio includes:
🧠 Stop picking marketing channels like your granddad. [Consumer Insight]
🚀 Operating model for building resilient teams. [Leadership]
🤖 What you need to know about Hyperautomation. [Digital Trend]
And new 👩🔬 market research and 💡 case studies I liked.
🧠 Everything on the internet is a billboard.
Or at least, that’s what we’ve been taught.
Your grandpa used to buy ad space along the highways, and you can do the same on Facebook.
Different media. Same outcome: eyeballs.
Our latest obsession is the metaverse, NFTs, and the blockchain.
It was social selling, influencer marketing, inbound, or personalisation not too long ago.
And now everything that came before is finding its place in a world with the metaverse.
The way we interact with the digital world is constantly moving away from something we’re subjected to and towards something we can influence.
Since the dawn of advertising (even with the internet), we’ve had little control over what ads we see.
Not until you started using ad-blockers and stopped giving marketing consent.
Technology is driven by our desire to shape the world and not just be shaped by it.
And adapting to this human nature is how you will succeed with omnichannel marketing.
But first, we need to stop picking media as our granddads did.
Metrics like Reach and Impression do matter.
But they only matter to you - the marketer.
People use media channels for very different purposes.
Some might scroll TikTok for information, others for entertainment or self-reassurance.
When picking a new channel, the right question isn’t what do people do on TikTok?
It’s: What does Tikok do for people?
And this is where Uses and Gratification Theory comes on.
UGT is an approach to understanding why and how people actively seek specific media to satisfy specific needs.
Let’s start with the specific needs.
There are four primary ones:
Diversion (e.g. Escapism, enjoyment, or to overcome boredom.)
Personal Relationships (e.g. Building or substituting social interactions.)
Personal Identity (e.g. Gaining self-awareness or reinforcing personal values.)
Surveillance (e.g. Discovering what’s new and trending in the world.)
And the same channels may be used by different people for different reasons.
As this research excerpt from Wikipedia explains:
Compared to social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, Snapchat is used more to fulfill private media needs.
For example, […] Snapchat interactions were similar to interactions found in close interpersonal relationships. The application has been used to attain emotional support from others, look for advice on important decisions, and seek help to solve problems, satisfying the need to socialize, vent negative feelings, and connect with others.
And the differences in use and the sense of gratification are influenced by social factors.
For example, a study on potential gender differences in the use of SMS found that:
Women scored the UG of accessibility/mobility, relaxation and escape, and coordination higher than the men did. These results may imply social and societal expectations for females around independence but connected to family and friends and/or a tendency for women to rely more on detailed conversation in text messaging than men.
Cardboard profiles aren’t your real customers.
Instead of mapping your audience on Facebook or LinkedIn, get out there and talk to your customers.
Start by understanding what types of content or media they use for each functional need. And only then map the content to channels where they’re more likely to find and engage with it.
Do they seek escape at work due to unengaging tasks or stress?
Do they prefer a certain type of content to unwind?
Do they prefer some channels over others for staying in touch with their close friends and family?
Do they find some types of content inappropriate on their favourite apps?
Do they care about curating a polished online persona? Or do they place more value on being themselves?
Following UGT will make every single interaction with your audience meaningful to them.
🚀 Finding your purpose is badass.
Rains fall, plants grow, and creatures thrive.
It’s easy to forget that in between the periods of tranquillity on Earth, there were mega-tsunamis, massive volcanic eruptions, and giant meteors that put life on the brink of extinction.
And yet, here I am complaining about all the snow I need to shovel these days.
All sound systems are driven by a purpose.
And although the rain and the storms are easier to see, these processes alone don’t make the system resilient.
The strength of a system comes from its purpose.
Take the Climate Crisis. Dry places are getting drier, cold places are getting colder, and there are violent and sudden changes in the environment.
But a well-designed system doesn’t create chaos for its own sake.
The same purpose drives this chaos: to keep the planet alive and thriving.
The new state might look different, but it will deliver on this purpose.
Like this pandemic.
Since the start, we’ve been obsessed with the ‘new normal’.
And whether it’s delivery services or focus on personal well being, those with a clear sense of purpose have fared better than others.
But people pay little attention to the purpose of anything.
And why should we when it’s so much easier to see the processes at play and so much more rewarding to tweak them?
Without a sense of purpose, we risk optimising the chaos.
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.
Lewis Carrol
But remembering your purpose when you can’t see past the end of the week isn’t easy.
And it doesn’t get any easier no matter how many times I write that quote on post-its and stick them to my monitor.
So, I came up with a method that works for people: a process for sticking to your purpose.
Hopefully, it will help you too.
My Purpose-Driven Operating Model
Here’s how it goes:
Break your Purpose down into a clear and specific hierarchy of goals. Hierarchies will help you prioritise in uncertain times.
Commit resources and money to get your most important work done. A discussion isn’t a decision unless you commit resources to it.
Make it possible for people to do the most important work by removing non-essential work from their tables or automating it.
Performance management is a leadership responsibility. Don’t stop at setting targets. Create opportunities for people to learn and experiment as well.
Innovation needs to be purposeful. Regularly bring people together to solve important problems and innovate.
Amazing things happen when we work together. And the only way to perform better is by setting bigger, better, and more challenging goals on an organisational level.
🤖 What is hyperautomation? (In 100 words or less)
According to Gartner:
By 2024, diffuse hyperautomation spending will drive up the total cost of ownership 40-fold, making adaptive governance a differentiating factor in corporate performance.
Hyperautomation is a deliberate approach to identifying, selecting and automating as many business processes as possible.
For example, you can run multiple business functions such as document processing, supplier management, and customer deliveries simultaneously through automation.
But these automated workflows are often built by combining multiple technologies and platforms.
So, before talking to your boss or client about hyperautomation, think about the benefits in terms of quality, agility, and new opportunities.
Make your business case in terms of the potential that you can't unlock unless you first free up resources through automation and without compromising critical business functions.
Learn more:
In case you missed…
👩🔬 Market research I recommend:
What might cause you to lose your customer’s loyalty? /Marketing Charts
10 subscription business benchmarks. /Marketing Charts
Has Facebook reached its growth limit? /Statista
What non-click actions do B2B buyers take more often. /Forrester
B2B companies are struggling with these lead scoring aspects. /Marketing Charts
💡 Case studies I liked:
How competitive pricing can increase revenue. /PMA
The brand playbook for growing beyond a cult product. /Glossy
4 steps to future-proof your programmatic strategy. /Think with Google
Turning AI into your CX ally. /MIT Technology Review
Brands are getting creative with their OOH ads. /Modern Retail
Stay curious,
Aliyar