Customer experience does not start when the prospect clicks through to your website or walks through your door. The experience begins when they first become aware of your ads. I use the word “aware” intentionally. Nothing is experienced until we are consciously aware of it or the feeling it evokes within us.
If you have an online marketing campaign you know that there are various ways of measuring the eyeballs that view your content. These metrics are often confused with awareness. As an example, in another business (www.LeaderBridge.net) my partner and I post business growth insights several times a week on our business Facebook page. We see the number of people who were exposed to it. What this really means is that we see the number of people who may have seen it in their newsfeed, but we have no idea how many people actually read any portion or all of the post.
Does that mean we should ignore the numbers?
Not necessarily. This is why I used the term “aware” in my opening paragraph.
We see thousands of advertisements, logos and other marketing content daily and most of it is never raised to the level of our consciousness. There is a part of our brain, the reticular activation system (RAS), that determines whether something is allowed to reach our conscious awareness or not. The RAS is programmed primarily to keep us out of danger. But it also alerts us to possible rewards in our environment. This is why the RAS plays a critical role in whether the marketing content that companies produce actually ever gets noticed.
Over time ads that eventually make it to our conscious awareness begin to wane in their effectiveness. They are no longer important enough for the RAS to distract us from where our attention is currently focused. As a result, the ads effectiveness declines and the customer no longer has an experience of the branding or the ad.
One organization experienced this process and took action to re-engage their customers in a way that attracted much needed attention and eventually caused the ads to go viral. Even I was so moved by it on my first viewing (at least that I am aware of) that I was inspired to write this blog post and share the link.
Rather than spoil the effect, I will let you read the article and watch the video at this animal shelter link.
If you have an online marketing campaign you know that there are various ways of measuring the eyeballs that view your content. These metrics are often confused with awareness. As an example, in another business (www.LeaderBridge.net) my partner and I post business growth insights several times a week on our business Facebook page. We see the number of people who were exposed to it. What this really means is that we see the number of people who may have seen it in their newsfeed, but we have no idea how many people actually read any portion or all of the post.
Does that mean we should ignore the numbers?
Not necessarily. This is why I used the term “aware” in my opening paragraph.
We see thousands of advertisements, logos and other marketing content daily and most of it is never raised to the level of our consciousness. There is a part of our brain, the reticular activation system (RAS), that determines whether something is allowed to reach our conscious awareness or not. The RAS is programmed primarily to keep us out of danger. But it also alerts us to possible rewards in our environment. This is why the RAS plays a critical role in whether the marketing content that companies produce actually ever gets noticed.
Over time ads that eventually make it to our conscious awareness begin to wane in their effectiveness. They are no longer important enough for the RAS to distract us from where our attention is currently focused. As a result, the ads effectiveness declines and the customer no longer has an experience of the branding or the ad.
One organization experienced this process and took action to re-engage their customers in a way that attracted much needed attention and eventually caused the ads to go viral. Even I was so moved by it on my first viewing (at least that I am aware of) that I was inspired to write this blog post and share the link.
Rather than spoil the effect, I will let you read the article and watch the video at this animal shelter link.