What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the term 3D? Unless you are a structural engineer, you are most likely to associate the term with movie watching experience, isn’t it?
I don’t blame you. If somebody had asked me about marketing in the third dimension a couple of years ago, I might have also confused it with 3D movies. But now that I have done my research on this marketing approach, I’ll be able to enlighten you on this topic.
The context of marketing in the third dimension
For obvious reasons, marketers never thought of exploring the third dimension for advertisements before the age of digital marketing. TV and newspapers offered very limited scope for ads to reach the viewers.
As you may have noticed, TV channels have a particular slot to run a video advertisement. In fact, they used to be 15-30 second long. Hence, marketers had to make the most of the given time slot.
Newspaper ads have their own challenges too. Since there is limited space in the newspapers, the marketers need to squeeze in the content in that small space. And that has been the case for newspaper ads since the time of James Augustus Hickey.
Primarily, marketers want two things: reach and frequency. If an advertisement reaches a good number of people but is not frequent enough to make a mark on the audience’s mind, it is not going to serve its purpose. This is why a couple of decades ago, marketers put emphasis on repeating the same message across time, location and channels.
While repeating the message over and over, it worked for the simple brands. The marketers did not really think about personalizing the messages for individual customers. With digital marketing, it is now possible to target specific customers with specific ads.
Moreover, digital marketing allows marketers to retarget customers with follow up messages that are unique for the users. In fact, now marketers do not need to repeat the same message over and over to get the attention of potential customers. Now, they can deliver different messages personalized for individual users over a period of time.
What’s the third dimension?
In today’s marketing, the third dimension is time. For an individual user, you can deliver marketing messages over time. Obviously, these messages need to be personalized.
As discussed, the frequency of a marketing message is crucial for the brand to make the audience remember its name. And the marketing in the third dimension is the best way to do that.
As you may realize, people do not buy things immediately after learning about it. If a person needs one thing, he/she will think twice before making the purchase. That’s why marketers need to convince the customers that their product is the best in the market over a period of time.
Interestingly, there are different ways of digital marketing to deliver marketing messages over time. Digital marketers can see what traditional marketers cannot see. Thanks to digital marketing, it is now possible to take consumers on a journey of marketing messages which follow the AIDA principle.
AIDA in marketing stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. As you may know, without grabbing the attention of the consumers, you cannot generate interest in your product or service. Without a proper interest in your product or service, you won’t be able to generate desire. And without desire, no one will be motivated to take any action, which means no sale.
Why is marketing in the third dimension important?
Imagine for a moment that there is no digital marketing. In such a condition, an ideal salesman does not try to sell a product or service to his prospect as soon as he meets him. He analyses the needs, interests, and fears of the customer at first. He then delivers the sales pitch to the potential customer.
This sales pitch is personalized to meet the specific needs of the customer. This is how the salesman connects the customer with the product’s offerings. Obviously, the salesman needs to explain all the features and benefits of the product over time. And with time, people get convinced.
As you may realize, every product comes with a sales cycle. For commoditized, simple products such as the food item, clothing, etc., the sales cycle is shorter. On the other hand, the sales cycle of complex products such as automobiles, laptops, television, etc. is longer. With digital marketing, you can automate the sales cycle.
In fact, you can achieve the results on a large scale with digital marketing. As you time the marketing messages in a proper sequence, you will be able to take your prospect to the journey from awareness to interest, to desire and ultimately to action. And this can happen without any human interference.
You need to understand that the emotions of the customers play a huge role in their purchase decisions. And emotions cannot be cultivated overnight. It requires time. And that is why you need to send marketing messages overtime to get the customer comfortable enough to buy your product or service.
How to deliver marketing messages over time?
While there are multiple ways to deliver marketing messages over time, Drip marketing happens to be the easiest in the lot. Also, marketers can use remarketing and sequential marketing to leverage the third dimension of marketing.
- Drip marketing
The drip marketing messages are generally conducted via email. Marketers often use SMS and push notifications to conduct this form of marketing. With this approach, it becomes quite easier to follow the AIDA principle.
- Attention
On the digital platform (i.e. the internet), it is easy to get the attention of a user. You can offer the users something of value that does not have a cost of replication for you. A free ebook, for instance, is a great way to attract leads. By offering free ebooks, you can ask the users to share their email ID.
- Interest
Deliver more value to the user by using content through email follow-up. It is recommended to provide the user with what was promised as soon as they share the email ID. You should follow up with email messages once in two days for the next 30 days. This helps generate interest in your product.
- Desire
Send more targeted messages to the customers to intensify their desire for your product or service. In this stage, you should communicate the features and benefits of the products clearly to the prospects.
- Action
One of the easiest ways to trigger action from the prospect’s end is by using scarcity. Telling prospects that you have only a limited number of products available in stock works most of the time. The sense of urgency and scarcity often pushes the prospects to buy.
If you do not give the prospect a reason to transact within a particular period of time, the prospect may postpone the decision further. Depending on the complexity of the product, you need to have a unique timeline. For instance, if a company wants the students to avail of paper help from its website, a period of three-four weeks can be more than enough to polarise the prospect as a buyer.
- Sequential advertising
Sequential advertising is also based on time. Unlike drip marketing, you do not rely on the contact details of the customer to make the sale. Instead, you capture their browser cookies that allow you to target the prospects. In this form of marketing, you need to install the Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel code on your blog.
This will allow you to set up sequential ads on the Google Ads Network and Facebook ads. Next, you need to set up targeted messages for the first four weeks. Sequential ads may not be as effective as drip marketing, but it does utilize the third dimension of marketing.
Conclusion
As a new age marketer, you need to rethink marketing from the grass-root level. If you still rely only on traditional marketing methods, you are never going to understand the potential digital marketing has. It is, after all, the only known area where you can leverage the third dimension for marketing.
Daniel Rogers
