Earlier this month at Princeton University, I had the honor of being invited to Filene Research Institute’s annual big.bright.minds meeting. It was an incredibly cerebral event and I found myself wondering what the week would entail as we took a deep dive into behavioral economics and the concept of scarcity – financial and bandwidth (time). What this means for us marketers is that EVERYONE is stretched beyond his or her capacity in one form or another.
Earlier this month at Princeton University, I had the honor of being invited to Filene Research Institute’s annual big.bright.minds meeting. It was an incredibly cerebral event and I found myself wondering what the week would entail as we took a deep dive into behavioral economics and the concept of scarcity – financial and bandwidth (time). What this means for us marketers is that EVERYONE is stretched beyond his or her capacity in one form or another.
The economy has affected everyone to varying degrees. People have gotten more creative about their financial lives from how they take vacations to doing without certain things because of budgetary constraints. Financial woes take a drastic toll on the amount of attention that can be focused on other things because it is instead focused on making ends meet.
Lack of time – or bandwidth, as it was referred to – is also something everyone (your customers and members included) struggles with. And statistics show that there is only so much to go around – you can’t just increase your personal bandwidth by multitasking or getting less sleep or concentrating more. We only have a limited supply of bandwidth. Enter…the White Rabbit.
It isn’t so much the choices we present to our audiences in the form of messaging, products, or services, it is the WAY in which we deliver those choices that truly matters.
While we are trying to figure out how to get out of the office on time so we can go take our kids to practice and then somehow get food on the table for our families, we just have no room to listen to or see important things we would ordinarily consider.
Take your financial institution’s messages for example. You may have the best new loan product, but getting that message across to your customer or member will be next to impossible unless you specifically design the message around the direct value to your target market. What problem are you going to solve for them? How will having this product or service make their life easier? How will it save them time? How will it help them be a better mom or help them better reach their goals for their lives and families?
And forget spelling everything out to them in a way that you think will appeal to anyone. You have a specific person in mind for your message. Tell THEM what you have to say in words that will appeal to THEM specifically. Don’t use 25 words when 10 will do.
When you try to come up with the perfect message that appeals to everyone, you are saying way too much and you aren’t specifically appealing to anyone.
For your next campaign, put on your own behavioral economics hat and think about how strapped for time you are in your own life. Think about how your financial institution’s new product would make your own life easier, shape the messaging around that value in a succinct way, and you’ll have a much greater ROI for your marketing efforts.
Amanda
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