Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [92]
Friday: Test Your Message
Apart from testing your website, it is important to test your message. Testing your message prior to building a product, a campaign, or a purpose can save hundreds of hours in developing a misguided campaign. And it can save you from a bad message that may create animosity, anger, or outright attacks on your company or brand. A wrong message can damage your reputation, it can offend your target market, and in terms of the Internet it will be there forever.
The Negative
An example of this happened with Motrin, a brand of pain reliever. Motrin went live with a television commercial that sparked an outrage within the very market it was targeting: new moms. The ad features a text-based flow of the remarks made by a young woman’s voice (Figure 8-13). The commercial targeted women wearing baby carriers, and the voice-over made statements about babies being worn as a fashion accessory, and that while being close to your baby, it causes pain. The mommy market exploded.
Figure 8-13: Offensive Motrin campaign targeting baby-sling wearing moms
Between YouTube and Twitter, thousands of angry women, most being new mothers, expressed outrage at being insulted by this commercial. Comments about the commercial ranged from the woman’s voice being that of a teenager’s view of babies, the immaturity of the message, that properly worn baby carriers do not cause pain, and that babies are not fashion statements. The consensus was that the commercial was not respectful of the love between a mother and her new baby—that, in fact, it was insulting. Women made videos of themselves speaking their minds to Motrin (Figure 8-14). Over a single weekend and into most of the following week, the Motrin commercial was at the top of Twitter messages. As women found out about the commercial and then watched it on YouTube (linked frequently in Twitter messages), the anger grew, and the infuriation deepened. A question that was asked frequently was, “Did they even test this message on new moms?”
Figure 8-14: Videos incorporated Twitter responses to the Motrin campaign.
Within days, the CEO of Motrin offered an apology for the commercial. The home page of the Motrin website was changed to display the letter of apology. The target market had spoken, and the message was received loud and clear. As with most social media–sparked outrage, it died quickly. Once the company apologized, the furor subsided, and people went about their normal lives. However, for a brief time, mothers were passionately outraged and took it upon themselves to make a company understand their anger. This is not the type of attention that companies, brand managers, or their lawyers enjoy.
This highlights the importance of closely identifying your audience and crafting a message based on their needs. It is possible to have an offering that meets people’s needs, but if the message is presented in a way that condescends or gives people the perception of arrogance or insult, then the message can hurt you. At best, a bad message is simply ignored or never noticed. Obviously, there is no connection made.
The Positive
In working with one of my consulting clients, I was impressed at the amazing amount of research and customer interaction that had been performed prior to developing a new marketing campaign and website. In their words, “What we have been doing is not working, so we need to do everything better.” They knew that their message was not effective and did not properly communicate clear benefits to their customers.
They developed a questionnaire to send to current and previous customers and, in doing so, found out valuable and unique information that challenged their conceptions of marketing their own product. They used the Net Promoter Score analysis of Loyalists, Passives, and Detractors to identify trends in usage, experiences, and perceptions of the company and the product. Net Promoter Score is based on the response of the question;