Tribal Advertising, Part Two

A tribe is a group of people that share an identity marker. Every affinity group, every fan club, every self-selected group of insiders is a tribe.

Last week we talked about Business-to-Business advertising (B2B) and Niche Marketing with a long purchase cycle (Niche-L).

Today we talk about Niche Marketing with a short purchase cycle (Niche-S) and Business-to-Consumer advertising (B2C).

Let’s talk first about (Niche-S):

Niche Marketing with a Short purchase cycle will always be targeted to an affinity group. A Niche market is any self-selected group of insiders that has chosen to spend time, attention, and money on something that most people don’t care about.

Short-cycle Niche Marketing is mostly consumable products and services that are purchased on a regular basis by a self-selected group. Some examples of this would be bullets, fish hooks, tubes of oil paint, and those little cloth foot coverings worn by medical professionals in hospitals and air conditioning technicians in your home.

Niche Marketing with a Short purchase cycle is similar to B2B advertising: Features. Benefits. Price.

Now let’s talk about Business-to-Consumer advertising with a Short purchase cycle. (B2C-S)

Do you sell a small-ticket consumable product or service that a high percentage of the population will purchase regularly? You are selling Business-to-Consumer with a Short purchase cycle. Food, gasoline, and entertainment compose the majority of this category.

If you own a grocery store, a restaurant, a convenience store, a gas station, a hardware store, or an “everything” store that competes with Amazon and Wal-Mart, all you need is a high-visibility location, legendary signage, and a staff that delivers a positive customer experience. That’s it. That’s your advertising.

NOTE: If you want to drive immediate traffic, you will need

(1.) an irresistible offer

(2.) credible urgency

(3.) high-frequency repetition

If your ad doesn’t drive traffic,

(1.) your offer was weak

(2.) your urgency was not credible, or

(3.) you didn’t pound the drums loud enough

Now let’s talk about Business-to-Consumer advertising with a Long purchase cycle. (B2C-L)

If you sell a big-ticket product or service that a lot of Americans will buy “someday,” but only a fraction of one percent of the public is looking for it “today,” then you are in a B2C category with a Long purchase cycle.

This category requires patience, commitment, and mass media: primarily broadcast radio, broadcast television, or billboards.

You can use short-term-impact Transactional ads or long-term brand-building Relational ads.

The objective of a Transactional ad is to make the sale. You can measure the Return-On-Ad-Spend (ROAS) of short-term-impact Transactional ads because they offer no long-term benefits.

The objective of a long-term Relational ad is to create connection, relationship, and trust in your brand. Relational ads cannot be measured with ROAS because there is no moment when the benefits of relationship strengthening have been exhausted.

Business people are instinctively attracted to Transactional ads because Transactional ads are more easily measured. This feels good in the short term, but in the long term it leads to frustration as you ask, “Why aren’t we growing like we should?”

Now let’s talk about Business-to-Consumer advertising with a Mixed purchase cycle. (B2C-M)

Halfway between Transactional and Relational – is Sales Activation. These ads are what transform this category into a gold mine. Ads that trigger Sales Activation can only exist within a Relational ad campaign.

Sales Activation ads are NOT Transactional ads. If you inject Transactional ads into a Relational ad campaign you will create a confusing brand image.

Sales Activation ads feel relational, but they contain a soft and friendly call-to-action that includes a specific reason why right now might be a good time to buy. The reason might be seasonal, event-driven, or be an exciting feature item that is temporarily available.

To build a powerful brand that becomes a household word, 60 percent of your ads should be Relational (aimed at building a relationship) and 40 percent of your ads should be Sales Activation.

Transactional ads will outperform a 60/40 mix of Relational ads with Sales Activation for the first 5 or 6 months. But the longer you run Transactional ads, the less well they perform.

The longer you run Relational ads with Sales Activation, the better it performs.

The brand that is using a 60/40 combination of Relational ads with Sales Activation will have gained so much momentum by the end of the second year that their Transactional competitors will be watching in wide-eyed wonder and scratching their heads in amazement.

Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

Roy H. Williams

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