Room 101: Marketing Edition

In the true spirit of Christmas, we thought we’d vent about the things in the world of marketing that really pee us off, and banish them for all eternity to Room 101: Marketing Edition.

Don’t agree with the points raised, or think we’ve missed something from Room 101: Marketing Edition? Let us know by tweeting us @kanukadigital.

Intrusive cookie consent pop-ups

Since the introduction of GDPR in 2018, almost every website you visit has an array of pop-ups, notifications and prompts to gain user content related to cookies.

Whilst the intentions behind GDPR were good – giving users better control over how their data is used by websites and how their online behaviour is tracked – the actual implementation is seemingly flawed.

Anecdotally, most of us click that ‘OK’ button and provide consent without paying much attention to the privacy policy.

For users, this represents a toss up between exchanging their data in return for accessing a website’s material. This is because most of these pop-ups and notifications conceal the actual content.

For website owners this approach can’t possibly be the best way. They spend ages making websites user-friendly, responsive and quick only for a giant pop-up to ruin your site’s first impression.

It would be better for webmasters to consider the UX of these consent pop-ups so that webmasters get the consent they need, only for the data they require, and that users can get a better on-site experience without being bombarded or turned away.

However, if it’s almost a given that consent will be provided without considering the terms of the privacy notice then what’s the point in the whole process? Should users just set their opt-in/out preferences at browser level and the websites comply?

To further confuse matters, when the ePrivacy Directive came into effect, webmasters had to ensure they’re jumping hoops again to comply.

Chris Munroe, Digital Account Manager

Bad remarketing

Remarketing is one of the best ways to close sales that didn’t happen. Yet we see so many bad examples of remarketing ads on a daily basis.

Some poor examples of remarketing campaigns are from advertisers who don’t put an impression cap on their ads. This means that the ad could show endlessly. Even if you keep ignoring it by not clicking on it, this can be very frustrating. It can be particularly frustrating if the ads are brand-led generic messages that are only targeted to you because you’ve visited the site once.

A AdEspresso study shows that the more an ad is shown, the less likely you are to click on it. Luckily there are features in Google and Facebook where you can set rules to stop the ads showing after a certain number of times. This means that you can bypass the risk of ad fatigue.

Another example of bad remarketing campaigns are the ones that go on forever, even post-conversion. It’s very easy to add a field to your remarketing campaign that excludes customers who have made a purchase, so there is no excuse for this shoddy marketing behaviour! Why not try post-conversion remarketing? It’s a great opportunity to upsell, cross-sell etc.

Good remarketing campaigns target users at a specific point in their customer journey, such as viewing a product page. So, instead of targeting every website visitor in the last 30 days, advertisers should use specific URLs to narrow down audiences that are more likely to convert.

Amy Lyle, Digital Account Executive

Impersonal marketing

What I’d really like to see is a continued push towards making marketing more personal. You may have already heard of if the term ‘Conversational Marketing’ – which essentially means to start real-time conversations with buyers/customers.

It’s an antidote to a fundamental problem in today’s marketing; the way we’ve been taught to market and sell no longer matches how buyers buy things.

If we look at a typical B2B buying process, it’s cold, impersonal and more laborious for than necessary. This graphic sums it up nicely.

If you think about where most of our conversations happen when not talking to someone face-to-face, it’s via instant messaging services like WhatsApp, Messenger or SMS. That’s because it’s fast, easy, and actually feels like a conversation.

This is backed up by a survey which showed that 90% of consumers want to use messaging to communicate with businesses (many prefer it over email). Before you start thinking “great, I can start pushing out all my marketing campaigns” remember that it’s a two-way street; people want to be able to reply and engage in a conversation.

It’s time for businesses to stop forcing people to jump through endless hoops before a helpful conversation can take place. Instead of forcing people to go through lead capture forms and wait days for a response, we should start seeing more conversational marketing tools like targeted messaging and intelligent chatbots to engage with people when they’re on a company website.

Making it easier for people to engage with businesses will help convert more of the right leads faster. Which means happier customers and a happier company.

Yes, Conversational Marketing maybe another buzzword but the sentiment behind it is bang on. Let’s make business feel personal again.

Joe Turner, Digital Marketing Manager

‘Fast’ SEO results

Most of the impact on a website generated by search engine optimisation can be slow to fruition. This isn’t days or weeks that I’m talking about, but months and even years.

Fast SEO results aren’t good, and good SEO results aren’t fast. Period.

This can lead to frustration from clients too as they want to see sharp rises in their traffic, keyword ranking positions or revenue over such a short period of time.

The reality is SEO is slow.

Some of our long term clients do understand this and can see that positive results over time are slow and gradual.

Lee Bagley-Bramwell, SEO Specialist

Fake CSR initiatives

Greenwashing, also called “green sheen,” is a form of marketing spin in which green PR, green values or green marketing is deceptively used to persuade the public an organisation’s products, aims or policies are environmentally friendly.

CSR is not about doing projects that allow a business to look and feel good for the sake of coverage. This handiwork, theorised by poor marketers, is simply overused by businesses determined to deodorise the social misbehaviour of their companies through high-profile campaigns.

For years, Volkswagen claimed that its diesel engines emitted less pollution and greenhouse gasses, and burned “cleaner” than petrol vehicles. The german manufacturer promoted its supposedly “clean” cars through a high-profile marketing campaign that included Super Bowl ads, online social media campaigns, and print advertising, targeting “environmentally-conscious” consumers. Until it was leaked that vehicles were built with “defeat devices” so that the cars would mask the true emissions output and pass vehicle emission tests. Naughty.

CSR should not be an afterthought of a business, but built into the very core of its values. You see, consumers can smell fake CSR efforts from a mile off. They seem forced. Shoddy. The connection, loose.

Kiyoteru Tsutsui, a sociologist from the University of Michigan said:

Companies in the developed world may respond to civil society and investors’ pressure to take social responsibility more seriously by adopting CSR frameworks, but only to appease their critics and without any attention to actual changes in their practices.

In short, corporations use poor CSR efforts to ‘keep up appearances’.

Consumers demand authenticity and look at traditional CSR communications skeptically. What was once an asset to the corporation is quickly becoming a casualty of an uncertain and complex world.

I’m throwing fake CSR initiatives into Room 101 to force brands and businesses to make genuine efforts to support causes that actually mean something to them, their employees and their customers. Who’s with me?

Oh, and FYI, the idea that corporations should refrain from things like dumping toxic chemicals into the environment or forcing children to work in sweatshops is NOT good CSR, but basic business ethics.

*mic drop*

Callie O’Grady, Digital Account Executive

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