Gone are the Mad Men days of consumers dutifully eating up marketing messages served to them on a silver platter. Today’s consumer is in the driver’s seat. But the real challenge for marketers is how to navigate consumers in the right direction and willingly engage with their brand.
This is especially difficult when the road is littered with distractions that, ironically, we created? In Don Draper’s day, the average consumer saw 500 ads a day. Today, that number is as high as 5,000 with no shortage of boilerplate info-graphics, whitepapers, blogs, videos and microsites vying for consumers’ attention. Couple that with a serious case of device ADD and complex B2B messages – it’s no wonder that today’s marketer has trouble making connections that translate into real business value.
So how do you get consumers to focus in your direction?
The answer lies in creating interactive marketing communications so irresistible that you become the distraction. It’s an approach we call Addictive ExperienceSM (AXSM) and it’s all about immersing your audience in an adventure so entertaining, so motivating, and so rewarding, that they want to spend exponentially more time with it. When executed properly, AX results in a more memorable connection with your brand that translates into real business results. A few examples from our recent AX work:
- 12x more time spent on site
- 650% more conversions
- 740% more free trials
- Sold-out customer events worldwide
- 860% higher click rates
“OK great, so what’s the template for creating addictive experiences?”
This is where we burst your marketing best-practice bubble. There is no singular template. But that’s a good thing. Here’s why: the primary goal of AX is to create a real, emotional connection between an individual and your brand. And when today’s consumer has more control than ever, their emotions are not going to fit snugly into a box. And if the second goal of AX is to create a unique experience that excites your audience, then we’d just be creating more noise if everyone were to use the same template.
Fortunately, there does exist a clear strategy for Addictive Experience – it’s a unique and powerful blend of psychology, game mechanics, and active learning methodologies.
1. Get to know thy audience
Building an Addictive Experience always starts with the foundation behind any good marketing plan: a true understanding of what keeps someone up at night and, just as important, what gets them going in the morning. Because when we can create an emotional rush of dopamine, our audience is more likely to see the value in their decisions – whether it’s the short-term decision to stick around to see what we have to say or the long-term decision to trust our brand.
2. Offer roadside attractions
It’s human nature: we’re more willing to do something when there’s a reward. But a whitepaper at the end of a lengthy form completion isn’t enough. Addictive Experience keeps your audience continually satisfied by delivering recurring value – from entertaining copy, to interaction-based sounds, to informative content.
3. Relinquish control
As humans, we learn better by doing. So go ahead and give your audience the freedom to learn, to figure out, to fail, and to win. But “what if they go in the wrong direction,” you ask? With AX, there is no wrong direction. That’s because it also pulls from the principles of User Experience (UX). Where traditional advertising sends consumers down a single linear path, UX and AX take into consideration the diversity of paths that users – or even any one individual user – might take. And while their paths may be different, AX ensures that everyone arrives at the same place: with a deep, emotional connection to your brand that won’t be forgotten when they close their browser window.
Did we pique your interest? Check out our portfolio to experience AX for yourself – we’re developing lots of it for our clients now. Then contact us to learn how AX can transform your approach to marketing.
