Ep. 13 - Time is on my side! Timely Marketing Strategies and Customer Engagement

Ep. 13 - Time is on my side! Timely Marketing Strategies and Customer Engagement 

In this episode of Giraffes Don't Eat Steak, hosts we dive into the importance of timeliness in marketing. This week, it is another music episode! It is the turn of The Rolling Stones - what can we learn about marketing from them? Listen on to find out!

From discussing the impact of delayed campaigns and understanding the psychology behind customer behavior to drawing parallels with the world of gaming, we provide valuable insights into the significance of time-sensitive marketing strategies. 

Join us as we explore real-life examples and share our thoughts on the critical role timing plays in maximising marketing efforts. 

Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation that will leave you with fresh perspectives and actionable ideas for your business.

00:00  "Time is on my side" by the Rolling Stones. 
03:34 timeliness in marketing.
09:13  Insurance search.
10:50 Focus on customer timing and spend optimization.
14:55 Gamification in time-sensitive marketing is crucial for visualising customer journeys.

marketing stories, business, marketers, Simon Sinek, marketing guru, Rolling Stones, Madonna, timeliness in marketing, mailing campaign, audience personas, buyer's journey, gamification, upsells, customer journey

Connect with the hosts:
Erica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erica-mackay/
Alex: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-bilney/

Get in touch with us at The Marketing Detective Agency - www.themarketingdetectiveagency.com

#MarketingStrategy #BusinessMarketing #TargetAudience #MarketingTips #OfficePolititcs #MarketingPodcast

Chapters

• 0:00 00:00 Madonna's comeback show and Time is on my side.

Transcript

0:00

This is the Giraffes Don't Eat Steak podcast, the show that brings you marketing stories, tips, hints, and much more. A treat for those who want to succeed in business or marketers who just want to learn. Good morning, Alex. How are you today? I'm good. Thank you. How are you doing? I'm alright. I need to start with an apology. This is good. On our last podcast, I rolled my eyes at your mention of a Simon Sinek video. Yeah. And For those listening, if you haven't listened to the podcast, it's 1 episode back, so go and have a listen. I it's not that I dislike Simon Sinek. I just need to put that out there. Some of the stuff he says is really great and awesome. I just Really struggle when someone watches 1 Simon Sinek video, and this is not Alex, by the way. Alex, not you. And then thinks they're a marketing guru. So that that is the only reason for the eye roll. Simon, if you're what listening to our podcast, this has nothing to do with you. Really think you're great. Some of the stuff you say is awesome. But, unfortunately, people do watch 1 Simon Sinek video and then think They know everything there is to be to do about marketing. So just wanted to get that out there. Well, I guess he's probably the most popular, Marketing Guru, one one of the most famous ones, I guess. So it just so happens when somebody listens to 1 marketing video and knows everything, The the the chances are it's a SimonSonic one. So but and it wasn't at you, Alex. I'm not saying that you watched 1 cybernetic video, and now you know everything about marketing. I've worked with you before you watched the cybernetic video, so it's okay. I've actually I've not really watched very many Simon Simon Sinek videos, actually, surprisingly. And you still know a lot about marketing. Yeah. Sometimes. I've I've learned it the hard way. The hard way. Yeah. Some of us have had to learn it the hard way. Anyway, that's I just wanted to put that out there in case anyone listened to that podcast and thought, Erica is such a hater, I'm not. And especially, Simon, if you're listening to this, I'm not Right. So today, I was actually being nostalgic, And I thought back to when we went to go and watch the Rolling Stones live, in Prague. That was, like, a really awesome Event for us, wasn't it, Alex? That was amazing, to be fair, and still very, very shocked at how they can perform at the The ripe old age that they are. Yeah, it was amazing. And the reason I was thinking about it, actually, is that I was reading some commentary about Madonna's comeback show. Right? Because she's also in her seventies now doing this comeback show. And just some of the commentary about why she seems to think she needs to have all these topless woman in her comeback show. But we can we can discuss Topless Woman on another episode. So so the song that I was thinking about was Time is on my side by the Rolling Stones. And 2 things. The 1 is, if you haven't seen the movie Fallen, This I and I'm not big on on horror movies as you know, Alex. Like, it's not my thing. But it's a thriller, and I am big on thrillers. There's the evil something, whether you say devil or bad guy, whatever, but he always singing this 1st line of the song. So that's been plaguing my head, which is really not a good thing. But the second is, just recently, I've been struggling With the impact of timeliness in marketing and and how I'm always interested that people You can't measure the impact of loss of time, of doing something later than you should, but there is definitely an impact. And, and so I've been struggling with that. So you're referring to maybe time sensitive Moments or or even just generally if you have a new campaign, new product, And you keep delaying and delaying and delaying and delaying, or or you're referring specifically to time sensitive? Well, both of those. Right? Time is important in marketing, the right time. And, you know, people can say, oh, it's only a day. It's only a week. It has an impact. Maybe only a 5% impact or a 10% impact, but every day that you're doing that you're Later has an impact. I mean, the classic example, you know this is at the start of COVID, I was working on a mailing campaign. Right? It was a Lots of research done. People were home. They were locked up. You know, they weren't free. They were getting inundated with thousands of emails, and so snail mail, seemed like a really good thing to test. Yeah. The the it was what you know, we thought it through. We checked all the stats. We did all the research. The campaign was held up for various reasons And only was approved to go out after the 2nd, lockdown ended. Mhmm. So when it was supposed to go out was in the 1st lockdown where people were still anxious and home and, you know, And and would appreciate getting post by only sending it when people were freed, allowed to go. You know, there was no more restrictions. You know, it was after the 2nd lockdown, so more used to it, and so the campaign failed. Unity. Yeah. Because it was the the timing was wrong. In fact, probably should not even have tried the the test at that stage Because it was a waste. Right? Yes. The the emotional connection that we'd researched about sending the mail at that first time Was completely lost by the time it was actually sent. Yeah. And and why do you why do you think that happens? I mean, from my experience, there's a lot of There's a lot of anxiety about publishing something. Like, don't get me wrong. Everything has to be correct and Yeah. Whatever. But it's hard to have something a 100% perfect. I think that we need to have an element of it's it's better to go than lose out. Yeah. Obviously, within within limits. Let's just take, like, a website launch, for example. It's never gonna launch if you keep on editing and editing and editing and editing, trying to get it to this perfect thing that you think it's gonna be. I think we just all need to accept that there's gonna be a phase 100 of the website. You're never gonna launch a website and then boom, that's So it it's done forever. You're not gonna touch it. That just that just does not exist. That's not that's not real, Principally because you need to learn. You're you're making these changes to try and make it perfect, but you don't know what is perfect. Perfect comes from testing and learning from your target audience, not you. Exactly. Because you're making all these changes based on your own thoughts, Not on feedback from the real client. Right? Yeah. It's really interesting. I mean, the other one is is Just simple things like events. You know? When do you send your thank you for coming email? Day after. You know, if you said it 2 weeks later okay. Fine. But when is the impact of it? Right? It's while everyone's still excited and happy. Yeah. Absolutely. You need to capitalize on on the moment. When do you send you know, if you have if you have a launch, when do you send the application form? Straight away Yeah. While people are still excited and in the buzz of the launch of the product. You know? Give them you should have it with you at The moment here is the app. And if you're not ready, give us give us your your indication that you're interested so you have details. And and your favorite thing in the world, time to call? Let's start even talk about time to call leads. Right? Oh, the The everlasting fight between sales and marketing. Yeah. If someone has clicked on your website and said, I'm interested, please call them straight away. You know, by the time you've called them in 3 weeks, number 1, they forgot they clicked. They really couldn't care anymore. Or they've If they'd had a real need, they've probably found a competitor and moved on? Exactly. And that again is all about moments. If we take Insurance. Someone who is who is who is actually searching for an insurance. They've probably taken a long time to get there, and they're really reluctant to do it, and they're not really enjoying it, but they put us they put aside, I don't know, an hour or so to do it finally after took months months months months months months, maybe even years of deliberation. Yeah. And then suddenly in that person's lifespan, you've got this that they've given you. And they're searching, searching, and they give you this massive hint, this huge clue, this big red flag and ringing the bells that this is their hour now because they've just left the lead. Call them. Contact them. They want to book you right now, but in the next hour, dinner's ready Or their friend just called them or their TV show started them. Ciao. That's it. You never see them again. Absolutely. There's so much data to support. The time to call is critical in In call centers, especially, if that's your job to just call, but any salesperson. Right? Why would you want a lead that's cold? Go for the hot lead. I'm lazy. I don't understand people who do the hard work. Just go for the hot one. The person who said pick me, I'm interested. Yes. Pick them. Yeah. Yeah. Take a low hanging fruit. Don't climb all the way to the top for the unripe fruit. So sorry, Rolling Stones. In this case, I disagree with your song. Time is not on your side. I think you need to think through the customer who's actually giving you that signal, Leaving that lead, what's in their psyche? What are they thinking at that moment? And therefore, what is the right timing for you to do the next action to optimize on all the effort and money you've put into that marketing moment. Right? Why waste your spend? Yeah. Why waste your spend? Yeah. And it all and it also comes back to the initial work that we do upfront for everything we do, and we're looking at our target audience and even our personas. And we're understanding the way they consume media, the way they, what their buying habits are, what their needs and fears and desires are. All of that helps us to under puts input into our buyer cycle, the the the the The buyer's journey. Right? Absolutely. With that, you can have an understanding of what are optimal, contact times, especially if you're doing and if you're setting up an email campaign, for example, how it under helps you understand how many times you contact them, If you want to where the follow ups are and it's all it's all about timing. Okay? Again, it's about learning, But Yep. It it all has a time structure. Everything has. So, yeah, time is not on your side, Rolling Stones, when it comes to marketing spend, if you want to optimize your marketing spend. And I wonder if someone's done a study. I'll have a look if someone's actually done a study to measure. It's difficult because everything's different. Because if I did 1 batch where I delayed and 1 batch where I did it now, it's still a different group of people. There's so many Different things said and fixed. I mean, we've we've seen our own we've seen research with businesses that we've worked with with large lead generation Companies who have their own internal research from the data that they have. And I know it's, again, specific to what they're doing, but it's It's still an indication of of of fact of the time that we're talking about. Yeah. No. And, I mean, Mikael, our our Sales guru friend, he's got tons of stats on time to call and impact. Exactly. Exactly. And, and that's why, you know, in his businesses, they won't work with teams that can't Guarantee time to call within 24 hours because they know that'll just be a waste of marketing spend. It is. It is. And and it and it's and they understand that, and that's very clever because because and to say no to businesses that resistant to that because it's just not gonna work for them. Gonna end up having a bad reputation for them because they know. I mean, it is difficult, I guess, to change change your mentality sometimes if you if you come from a legacy system. The other the other one is topical events. Right? Like, if there's an event happening and you want to tag on to that, You can't do it 3, 4 weeks later. It's out of I mean, you can. There's no con't. You can. But what a waste. Right? It's out of everyone's mind. No one's talking about it anymore. If you did it at the moment that everyone was topical, number 1, you look like you're on trend and that you actually know what's going on. But number 2, you're just being elevated by all the other noise around you so that, you know, you you're getting this uplift In in visibility, in reach, because there's all this other noise. When you're a lone soul late down the line with your little social media post, Everyone's forgotten. They've moved on to the next the next thing. Right? Yeah. I just did a quick Google about studies of time sensitive, Marketing studies. And it seems like there's a lot around gamification where it's a huge industry, where time sensitive Marketing and promotions is very, very important. And it's kinda like you it you're almost visually seeing them on in real time the, the journey that they're on through the game and when you're doing upsells in the game for adding to buying new, Whatever new diamonds or whatever it is in there, well, that's a really good example of a a way to visualize A customer's journey. Okay. Most in a lot of marketing, we don't do you don't literally get to see them on the game and the the levels they're going through, but that's exactly what's when someone is buying anything, shampoo, they're still on a journey because, you know, like, they're they're using their bottle of at home did a little bit. It gets to the point where they need to buy it. Doesn't matter what it is. They're all on that same journey going through level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Well, step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And you just need to understand those steps. Just like in the game, once they reach the big boss, you then offer them to give them x diamonds, to give them extra life, so whatever it is in case they get killed by the The new boss, and they can pay £5 to get those new diamonds. It's exactly the same. It's a quite nice way to visualize the importance of time sensitive marketing. I like that. I like that a lot. I think that's exactly how it is. I think Yeah. I think if people thought like games, then, you know, there'd be a lot more understanding Of getting things out on time rather than, oh, doesn't matter if we delay a day. Doesn't matter if we delay a week. Doesn't matter. It does matter. This has an impact. Yeah. Because they're gonna get killed by the big boss, and they're not gonna come back they've got no more lives to to purchase or use, and then you lost Absolutely. They're gonna play another game. Love it. Right. That makes me want to go and play a game now. Right. Thank you, Alex, and thank you, Rolling Stones, for a a great, great event in Prague and, a great song. And, we'll talk again soon. Talk again, and we'll see you soon, Rolling Stones. Yes. Hopefully. Goodbye. That wraps up this episode of giraffes don't eat steak. Thanks for joining us. I hope you found value in our discussion and got some new ideas to apply to your own business. Tune in next week for another round of marketing insights and Inspiration. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We appreciate you listening. Catch you next time on giraffes. Don't