Small Business SMM

If you own a small business, it seems like everyone is trying to get you to use social media. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are pushing hard for small businesses to embrace social media marketing.

Digital marketing gurus are spending big money to try and get you to spend big money on their social media marketing services.

You’ve probably already dabbled with social media marketing. You might have a Facebook business page. But, in your gut, you also suspect that social media is a bit of a scam.

You’re wrong.

Social media marketing isn’t a bit of a scam. Social media marketing is a complete scam for most small and medium-sized businesses.

What Does Social Media Marketing Mean?

Social media marketing is built around the concept of creating free content to build an audience. This is a time-tested strategy. But, social media marketing breaks this otherwise effective approach.

First, when you build an audience on social media, you aren’t creating an asset for your business. You are creating an asset for the company who owns the platform. If the social media platform goes under next month, your audience goes down with it. Social media platforms can, and do, change policies on a whim. What’s free today is pay-to-play tomorrow. Facebook pulled the rug out from under businesses several years ago making it impossible to reach your fans without paying to boost your posts.

Second, social media isn’t a great vehicle for selling. Look at any think piece about how businesses should use social media, and you will find that you should do more than just share your own content. You should be seen as a trusted authority or source or entertainment. But, it’s hard to make money just by being social and leaving a good impression.

But, as a small business, you cannot effectively monetize any of those metrics.

Social media marketing won’t lead to more sales for your small business. It will suck up all of your available time and money, leaving your frustrated and ready to quit anything having to do with online marketing.

Social media marketing is about creating posts to try and drive likes, shares, comments, and follows. But, as a small business, you cannot effectively monetize any of those metrics.

Pay-per-click advertising on social media is an entirely different beast from social media marketing. Paid advertising can be effective, but paid or free content marketing on social media platforms is a horrible investment for small businesses.

How Big Consumer Brands use Social Media

Big brands like Arby’s, McDonald’s, Target, and Ford spend a lot of money on social media marketing. These are smart companies. Why would they invest in something that doesn’t work?

They don’t.

What big brands want and get out of social media is different from what you want and what you get as a small business.

One of the marketing strategies big businesses employ is investing in brand recognition. They want people to associate their brand with specific emotions, life stages, and decisions. Big consumer brands don’t care about generating sales from social media. They care about leaving an impression.

These brands can afford this strategy because of their size, the number of different markets they are in, and because they are mostly focused on consumers.

You’re Not a Big Brand

Your small or medium business is not a big brand. You don’t have the budget or timeline to slowly build a desire for your products and brand over several years. You can’t afford to invest in brand recognition because you will get squashed by the competition.

Your company isn’t a big brand. You shouldn’t waste money trying to use their marketing strategies.

You need to focus on marketing strategies and tactics that actually make a difference to your bottom line instead of focusing on metrics that flatter your ego.

Boost Profits by Making Sales Not by Leaving an Impression

How much is a like worth to your business? How about a share or a follow? Here are the results of some back of the envelope math:

Likes = $0

Followers= $0

Leaving a good impression doesn’t generate one penny of revenue. If you want to boost profits, you have to sell more stuff. That’s how small businesses stay in business. They sell enough goods or services to pay all their bills and generate a level of profit.

You don’t have VCs backing you. You aren’t going to cash out in an IPO. You are going to have to get your cash the old-fashioned way, selling stuff people need or want.

While this seems like common sense, most social media marketers forget this fact. Think about what would happen if you suddenly had 10,000 real Facebook fans tomorrow. How would that affect your business?

It wouldn’t

You would still have to try and sell to those followers. How are you going to reach them? You can write a bunch of posts, but you will have to pay to boost those posts to get more than 5% of your fans to see them.

If you make all of those posts sales posts, you’ll start losing fans.

You’re in a no-win situation with social media.

No matter how much time and money you spend on social media, you still have to do the work of making a sale.

Instead of wasting your time and money on social media marketing, you should invest in three different tactics instead:

1. Paid advertising on social media platforms

2. Long tail SEO

3. Direct response email marketing

The exact way you deploy these tactics will vary depending on the specifics of your business. Business to business companies have different sales funnels than consumer-focused companies.

But, these tactics will help you connect with people eager to buy from you, and not just people looking to fill their feed with interesting articles.

Paid Advertising on Social Media Channels is Different

The real social media gold for small and medium businesses is in paid advertising. Writing and boosts is a slow, expensive, and inefficient way to attract paying customers.

Paid advertising cuts right to the heart of the matter. You get to ask your ideal customer directly to do something. It might just be to click on a link, but, it gets them off of social media and onto your website where you control the terms of engagement.

The biggest advantage of social media advertising is you can micro-target. You want to appeal to a very narrow set of people. When you use micro-targeting, it’s easy to talk directly to their needs. The customer can feel that you speak their language. They are excited to see how you can deliver the one thing they most want or need.

Paid advertising should be used to send customers to a specific landing page, and not just your website. You want to send them to a place where they can buy a specific product or service, or you want to send them to a landing page where you can capture their email address in return for something of value.

Advertising leads to direct sales, or it allows you to build a list of contacts that you can continue to market to, through methods you control like physical mail or email.

Paid social media advertising is one of the best ways to rapidly drive sales. Most businesses can see significant results in spending as little as $5 a day in social media advertising. But, you will have to invest time and money into testing ads and audiences. Paid advertising isn’t a silver bullet, but unlike social media marketing, it does deliver real results and generates a measurable return on investment.

Using Long tail SEO

Paid advertising is excellent for driving traffic and generating fast sales in the short term. But, if you want to build your business for the long term, you need other tools.

Long-tail SEO can provide you with small, steady profits that gradually increase the longer you are in business.

The goal with long-tail SEO is that you are driving organic traffic from search engines to your product or service pages. People who are looking to buy what you’re selling will find you. Long-tail SEO isn’t sexy like social media marketing. It takes hard work and a lot of patience. But, it delivers.

Long-tail SEO is about creating thousands of sales pages on your website that each generates a little bit of money each month.

Advantages of Direct Response Email Marketing

Email marketing is the most cost-effective form of digital marketing. It costs almost nothing to send an email campaign. When done right, you can generate thousands or tens of thousands of dollars just by sending out an optimized sales sequence to your list.

But, for this tactic to work, you have to build a high-quality list of prospects and customers, and you need to master direct response marketing.

Direct response marketing means that you ask your prospect to take a specific, measurable action. It might be buying something. It might be signing up for a free webinar.

The goal is to persuade your prospect to take one action that brings them closer to making a purchase.

Direct response marketing is a multi-billion-dollar subspecialty of marketing. It works.

When you combine paid advertising, long-tail SEO, and direct response email marketing you turn your small or medium business into a selling powerhouse.

None of these steps are easy. But, they are all simple. You will see results with each one, even before you have mastered the tactic. Each of these tactics makes it easy for you to measure your results. You can easily calculate your return on investment.

This is critical because you need good data to run effective experiments.

You only have so much time as the owner of a business. Don’t waste a second of it on social media marketing.

Instead, focus on marketing that gets results you can measure. Focus on tactics that put money in your pocket through sales instead of tactics that give you a dopamine hit from likes and shares.

You can’t pay bills with dopamine.

Instagram Giveaway| Sunny Co Clothing

Clothing retail startup “Sunny Co Clothing,” founded by two college seniors at the University of Arizona, figured creating a swimsuit giveaway would be the best way to get the word out there about their new brand. 

By reposting their photo with a specific hashtag, social media users would be entitled to a “free” swimsuit in exchange for their post — in addition to the company donating $1 to the Alzheimer’s Foundation for each one.

Overnight, their Instagram following jumped from 7,000 to 784,000. More than 346,000 people took up their offer, forcing them to cap the promotion at 50,000 units.

Let’s do the math: 50,000 units x $12 = $600,000.

No, that’s not a typo. The campaign grossed over $600,000 in 24 hours.

It was so unexpectedly popular they had to issue almost $73,000 in refunds because they couldn’t meet demand.

This spawned a slew of articles calling the campaign a failure. One writer even thought that it belonged in the same category as the infamous Fyre Festival.

But if these publications had just paused to think, they might’ve realized they were missing the big picture.

Inventory issues aside, the real story was that two college students generated more revenue in one day than many businesses do in a year. And they did it with effectively $0 in ad spend.








They’re not losing any money — they’re making it

Of the thousands of people posting all over the internet about this matter — the majority of them failed to give the site a visit and realize you still had to pay handling charges, although the item itself is technically “free.” While this is certainly a gray area of marketing ethics, it’s nothing new.

The folks over at Loretti Watches have been running their entire business on this model for over a year. Pay a small shipping and handling fee, and get the product for “free.” In fact, many of the top clients we produce scroll-stopping creative and strategy for at VAXA Digital follow this same business model.

What most consumers don’t realize is that these products are manufactured so cheap they can be produced and shipped for less than the shipping “cost” they’re charged. This is especially true in the clothing industry, where items (such as bathing suits) can be easily manufactured overseas for nothing more than a few dollars. This absurdly high margin is then used to cover advertising, overhead, and wasted product at the end of a season/trend.

In this specific example, Sunny Co Clothing charged their customers a $13 shipping fee after applying their promo code to reduce their $70 bathing suit down to $0. From a marketing psychology perspective, the consumer feels as if they’ve gotten such a discount that this nominal charge is normal and worth it.

From that amount, subtract $5 to manufacturer and fulfill the item, $6 to actually ship it, $1 for the Alzheimer’s donation, and they’re left with $1–2 of net profit for every suit sold — which brings me to my next point: how many did they actually sell?








Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_24HOdjfzM/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Truth is, there’s a lot to learn from their campaign, so let’s mine some nuggets of wisdom.

In this article, I’m going to break down key lessons you can apply to your own marketing strategies. Then, I’ll provide a template you can use to recreate their success.

Nothing Sunny Co did was revolutionary — it was simply well executed. And if you follow the principles they used, you too can become an overnight sensation.

How Much Was Profit?

First, let’s take a closer look at the numbers.

Unless you manufacture your own goods, the only way you can promise a swimsuit for $12 is by buying in bulk to keep costs low.

In light of this, it’s likely Sunny Co sourced their product from an overseas supplier.

I did a quick search on Alibaba and found a similar swimsuit that costs $6.10/unit (when ordering over 100).

Let’s assume they were able to negotiate down to $3/unit, given they ordered 50,000 pieces.

In 2017, you could ship a seven-ounce package across the U.S. for about $3 via USPS First Class.

Factor in $0.50 for packaging/branding and $0.70 for payment processing fees and that brings total costs to $7.20.

Estimated profit = $12 - $7.20 = $4.80/unit.

We know they ended up issuing roughly $73,000 in refunds. But assuming they could tell the future and adequately planned their supply chain, they would’ve raked in over $240,000 in profit in 24 hours.

Wow.

Why It Worked

Three key factors:

1.“Free” turns heads

Want to command attention?

Offer something for free.

Caveat: as we saw above, Sunny Co used the word “free” fairly liberally. In any other context, $12 shipping for a single swimsuit is outrageous.

Nevertheless, it’s likely many customers realized this and still wanted in, especially when compared alongside a $64.99 retail price.

The real takeaway here is that people love the idea of “free,” even if it’s merely framed as such.

2. Urgency sells

If “free” grabs the audience’s attention, limited time offers give them no choice but to respond.

Sunny Co took advantage of this by restricting their campaign to 24 hours, which persuaded their audience to jump on board right away.

There’s nothing worse than missing out on a chance to grab something for free because you waited too long to act.

3. Relevant content converts

This campaign went viral for a reason.

Points 1 and 2 are critical, but they would’ve fallen flat if the Instagram image wasn’t appealing to their audience.

That wasn’t an issue for the Sunny Co team, because they chose an image that:
Looked like an Instagram post their target audience would typically make (not a spammy ad).
Incorporated their target audience’s interests (warm weather and swimming pools).
Used colors associated with excitement (ie. red).

These elements ensured their campaign got noticed.

Template: How to Make $600,000 in 24 Hours

Here’s how you can recreate Sunny Co’s success.

Step 1: Source a product on Alibaba.

Find a product you can:
White label and rebrand.
Charge the unit cost + shipping cost + desired profit as “shipping.”

To figure out the second part, first, determine your total costs.

For example, these blue light blocking glasses cost $1.80 per unit. You can ship them anywhere across the U.S. for roughly $3 via USPS First Class. That puts your total cost at $4.80.

Next, determine the maximum amount a customer would pay for shipping on the item.

If you sell the benefits properly (ie. blue light blocking glasses prevent headaches), I think you could persuade an audience to pay up to $8 for “shipping.”

That leaves you with $8-$4.80=$3.20 in profit.

Step 2: Order samples. Inspect for quality and reliability.

This step is a must and will save you from the terror of issuing mass refunds due to quality complaints down the road.

Pay attention to the supplier’s reviews regarding fulfillment times. Make sure they can handle large order volumes in a timely manner.

Step 3: Set up a Shopify store. Create an eye-catching image for social media.

As we discussed earlier, it’s important that your image doesn’t look like an ad and is relevant to your audience’s interests.

I strongly suggest including a human being in your image. After all, humans relate best to other humans.
Step 4: Set up a time-limited repost campaign. Ask everyone you know to post about it, or buy shout-outs from large themed accounts.

Your campaign should look something like this:

“For the next X hours, everyone who reposts this image on Instagram and tags us in the post will get a free [product]. Must be following us to be eligible.”

Sunny Co ran their campaign for 24 hours. You can run yours for however long you want.

Just keep in mind: shorter campaigns create more urgency, which yields better results.

If you have an existing following or an active social circle you can leverage, you may be able to pull this off with $0 ad spend.

If not, DM themed accounts on Instagram and buy at least $500 worth of ads.
Step 5: Go viral and profit.

There are a lot of variable components here, like how good your branding is, how appealing your product is, and how attractive your images are.

So it goes without saying your results will vary.

But as Sunny Co demonstrated, knowing your audience stacks the odds in your favor. Hit on all the right points with your branding and messaging and there’s no reason you can’t experience a similar level of success.



Understanding the Framework

At the end of the day, the key is understanding the power of the “free for a limited time” model.

In the brick and mortar days, companies used this method to get visitors to their store. Their goal was to get customers to also buy other items while they were there, which is how they made money.

In today’s global economy, however, it’s now possible to make money directly off the product you’re “giving away,” because many products can be sourced from overseas for pennies on the dollar.

The entire Internet just advertised for them — and still is

Most of us have heard the adage, “No publicity is bad publicity.” While there are some cases this certainly isn’t true (looking at you, United Airlines), that’s not the case with this situation.

Within 24 hours of starting the contest, thousands of major Instagram/Twitter influencers were posting about this — whether paid shout-outs or simply memes making fun of everyone else posting.

Before long, hundreds of major news accounts began covering the story, and hundreds of thousands of comments were being left about the giveaway — both good and bad. Regardless, this company was certainly now in the spotlight of both consumers and other massive brands (and maybe even the FTC), meaning ridiculous amounts of traffic were being sent their way.

Regarding the potential FTC attention, the one area Sunny Co Clothing poorly executed was delivering a clear and consistent set of terms and conditions for the contest, as some screenshots suggest they changed their terms multiple times during the giveaway process:

Take a look at Rule #3, stating “…we reserve the right to cap the promotion if deemed necessary.” Given this was not clearly stated at the beginning of the contest, this could certainly raise some questions from the feds, especially after the FTC’s recent announcement to crack down on unethical social media advertising practices.

Targeted demographic data and followers will be invaluable

Potential fines aside, it’s clear that the real win here for Sunny Co Clothing wasn’t in the relatively small amount of money they made, but rather the data they collected from a highly targeted niche of women interested in buying clothing online — specifically swimsuits.

Considering that the going rate in 2017 for targeted email lists is between $200–400 CPM (cost per mille, or thousand impressions), with even 50,000 email addresses collected they’re looking another $10,000 minimum for every business they sell those to. When dealing with large retail brands, such as Victoria’s Secret, this cost is something marketing teams are willing to pay at the drop of a hat.

Now, what about that massive Instagram following? While “shout outs” and influencer marketing promos have been around for a few years now, they’ve certainly become popular with massive brands more recently — raking in some massive cashflows for those in charge of these accounts.

Given that the going rate for an “influencer” page to create a post promoting someone else’s product or service is about $1 per 1,000 followers (based on my experience in the industry), the folks over at Sunny Co Clothing are looking at a minimum of $700 for EVERY single promoted post. Even if they only posted one a day, that could equate to over $250,000 a year.

Worst-case scenario, even if Sunny Co Clothing somehow goes under as a result of this stunt, there’s nothing stopping them from selling their Instagram account on the “black market” (given it’s against Instagram’s terms of service) for an outrageous amount of money. Knowing their engagement and number of active followers, they would easily be able to pull in anywhere from $30–50k for an account of that size.

In the end — was it a win?

While they’ve yet to stand the true test of time and begin fulfilling these orders, Sunny Co Clothing certainly has the potential to pull off a massive “W” as a result of this scenario. Even if they were to be hit with massive FTC fines and forced to close their “doors,” they’re set up now with a large number of cash-positive exit strategies resulting from their massive social media following.

The major takeaway here is that viral marketing and growth hacking social media is certainly not dead — you just need a bit of strategy and good luck. Even with major follower-building tools such as Instagress recently shut down, digital marketers are still left with plenty of opportunities to grow their brands’ followings.

With that said, don’t be surprised if you see a large number of strategy copycats popping up over the coming weeks, such as this towel company (who were smart enough to cap the number of giveaway items at least):

In the Wild Wild West of Instagram, it’s not surprising they even stole their photo:

As mentioned earlier, this marketing strategy is nothing new, and certainly presents opportunities for retailers with cheaply produced goods to creatively target new consumers. However, bear in mind that a good number of people will now realize that pair of “luxury” sunglasses you normally sell for $79 only costs you a few bucks to produce.

Seize the Awkward| Ad Council

https://seizetheawkward.org/

The term ‘woke-washing’ describes work that promises to improve the world but doesn’t take real action. Brands without a clear purpose who jump on the bandwagon are actually doing more damage than good.

Taking the luxury fashion sector as an example, we identified that personal relationships trigger positive commercial responses in consumers in four key ways:

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young adults in the U.S., but it’s still a subject many brands shy away from. The Ad Council’s latest campaign aims to remove some of the stigma around the topic, urging teens and young adults to speak openly with friends who may be suffering in silence.

An estimated 76% of young adults turn to a peer in a time of crisis for support, according to a survey conducted by the Jed Foundation. What’s more, research from the National Alliance of Mental Illness reveals:


50% of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14, and 75% start by age 24.

Using these insights to inform their creative campaign targeting 16-24 year-olds, the teams saw an opportunity to break down some barriers surrounding the issue at a fundamental time when many are at risk.

“It’s friends who are most likely to spot the signs that their friends are struggling with their mental health,” says Will Lowe, Creative Director at Droga5. “So we wanted to empower young people to reach out to those friends and help them talk about how they are feeling; something which is shown to really help.”

This campaign proves the power that lies in uncovering an insight unique to your audience that can actually drive change. Not only does it give the brand a key purpose, it proves its deep understanding of its target audience and the challenges they face in everyday life.


Marketing- How to Turn Data into Insight in Five Simple Steps


Today’s marketers have access to an endless stream of data sources, but being data-rich doesn’t mean you know what works.


The skill lies in turning this wealth of granular data into compelling consumer insights – transforming hard numbers into a concept that will resonate.

As previously outlined in our Smart Researcher’s Guide to Creating Consumer Insights, turning data into actionable insights is one of the most important skills for marketers today. Here’s how it’s done:

1. State a clear goal.

Ask yourself what your campaign is ultimately trying to achieve.


Knowing what you’re aiming for is the key to asking the right questions of the data.

In 2014, WeAreSocial devised a student campaign with HSBC. With the clear aim of appealing to new students just starting university, this goal led the team to the data that held the answers they needed.

The powerful campaign that inspired young people to build diverse connections at university was based on insights that revealed one of the biggest predictors of future success comes from the people you meet at university, not the degree you get.

The campaign won two awards at the Warc Prize for Social Strategy 2016.

2. Prioritize your data.

Which data sets are most pertinent to your goals?


Focus on the most interesting numbers and rank the data by relevance to avoid distraction.

Starting with the best ‘small’ data – or the more readily available information is often useful, such as sales figures, for example. This can then be enriched with additional behavioral, attitudinal and perceptions data.

As Ben Sharma, PR Executive at Engage by Bell Pottinger says, “I get my audience starting with demographics to find out who they are. Then I work my way through finding anything that’s insightful. The main one I rely on is their interests and attitudes – so if they’re massively over-indexing for something, that gives us a really good idea of what direction to take.”

3. Make it real.

Hard numbers can leave people cold.


To truly understand data and make it meaningful for your creative team, it needs to be brought to life.

Context is what matters here – A standalone figure highlighting the number of people using ad-blockers on their devices today is often meaningless without figures relating to previous months or years, illustrating how this market is changing and where the opportunities might lie.

In short, meaning is the key to transforming data into insight.

4. Map a day in the life.

Use the data you gather to map a typical day in the life of your target consumer.

This might rely on data relating to how, when and why these consumers purchase products or services, what their interests and perceptions are, as well as social data that sheds light on how these consumers spend their time online.

Digging into these seemingly mundane details can help you to put yourself in the shoes of your audience, identifying the ideal times, channels and mediums they would be most receptive to your message, or highlighting the common challenges they face to guide your content.


This is where your insights, or the fundamental truths about your audience that you can tap into, begin to take shape.

5. Take a bird’s eye view.

Don’t get bogged down in single data points or lose sight of your goals by going off at a tangent.

Instead, try to maintain a wider perspective: examine broad trends, and draw on comparable time frames to highlight the most important shifts and changes. This will help you to maintain focus on the insights that count.


To get to the heart of an insight also means analyzing data from at least two angles.

As Ben points out, some trends contradict one another, presenting a need to delve deeper. “In investments for example, that data shows that many consumers describe themselves as ‘risk-taking’ but don’t agree with borrowing money. So that’s two opposing stats that you need to link together and find out why that is.”

In a digital world, data is ubiquitous, but the power of this data lies in the creation of insights. As Jamie Robinson, Global Director of Research and Insights at WeAreSocial says, “If a campaign can tap into that insight, we believe it will work anywhere.”

Marketing- What Brand Purpose Really Means & Why it Matters


The aim of brand purpose is to change the world for the better (most of the time).

Through purpose, brands are becoming more than a quality mark or an abstract expression of self, they’re taking direct action.

And with the spotlight firmly on a number of sectors to be accountable for their actions, the challenge becomes finding the ‘right’ purpose; one that’s genuine, gets people on side, but also makes commercial sense.

Here, we cut through the noise surrounding the consumer-led phenomenon that is brand purpose, outlining how consumer insights help brands shape it, and maximize its impact.

Hear Sandy speaking about brand purpose on Dublin City FM [20:00]
The difference between brand purpose and CSR

The Business Roundtable recently dropped its ‘shareholder first’ doctrine, recognizing that major corporations have a responsibility to a wider group of stakeholders.

This move places new importance on the already established idea of brand purpose and guarantees board-level support.

On the surface, brand purpose may seem like just a new term for CSR, but the two are distinct in two key ways.

1. It doesn’t have to focus on social or environmental good (but it often does).

Although many brands today shout about their desire to ‘do good’, purpose is not exclusively about social or environmental initiatives, though they’re undoubtedly the most powerful and commonly seen examples.

It’s more about the fundamental essence of the business and where it’s heading.

Ben and Jerry’s, for example, split their purpose into three: product, social and environmental, and are transparent about the commercial goals of the business.

2. Purpose is baked into the branding.

CSR often runs in parallel to the business, has allocated budget and (in its worst form) exists only to offset a company’s negative impact. Purpose, however, doesn’t come from the marketing department alone, it’s visible in all elements of the business, from promotional material to operations.

Put simply, where CSR is a commercial objective, purpose is branding and culture objective.
Established brands need to find their purpose

Brand purpose has become a key talking point recently, so although CSR initiatives are becoming a top priority among established brands, building purpose into your business requires no small measure of strategic and analytical thinking.


It’s harder to add purpose to brands with established brands with legacy baggage, putting them at a disadvantage to younger brands.

Bill Bernbach, founder of Doyle Dane Bernbach, states “a principal isn’t a principle until it’s cost you money”.

But for young brands that structure their whole business models around strong principles, they turn what is a challenge for larger brands into an opportunity to drive consumer engagement and eventually sales.
The commercial benefit of purpose

There’s no hiding the fact that brand purpose has to make financial sense. But when the intent is genuine, and the impact positive, commercial gain follows – and our latest research tells us why.
Purpose drives engagement

We know consumers want more than a transactional relationship with the brands they buy from and interact with.


With the right purpose, consumers will not only engage with your brand, they’re more likely to spread the word. Personal recommendations remain one of the most powerful awareness drivers.
Tread carefully: woke-washing

But consumers are also acutely aware of false purpose, and we’ve seen from pulled campaigns by the likes of Pepsi and Gillette, that they’re quick to pick up on misguided purpose, even if the campaigns reflect popular, genuine sentiments.


With the pressure on to not only find a purpose, but the ‘right’ purpose, brands should first seek to identify the trends that matter most to the people they’re targeting.
Steps to identifying your brand purpose

Finding the right brand purpose comes from listening to consumers at different levels.

While purpose shouldn’t be driven by commercial gain, to ensure you get the best results as a business it’s important to look beyond purchase behaviors alone towards who your target consumers are and what they value as people

1. Get a local perspective.
Why?

Sentiments change dramatically across borders and even within countries.

Local data enables you to identify elements in consumers’ personal lives that trigger actions (both from a commercial and wider perspective) and tailor your messaging accordingly.
How?

Regional data from GlobalWebIndex allows you to segment, compare and analyze consumers in a specific area to see how their commercial and emotional responses relate to wider populations. There are four key psychographic indicators that should be highlighted in each region.
Attitudes, interests and self-perceptions
Lifestyle motivations
Perceptions on wider life
Brand advocacy

2. Cross-reference with global trends.
Why?

Knowing which trends carry the most momentum globally can help negate risks, as well as maximize the potential impact of your message, especially if speaking about potentially controversial topics.

Global trend analysis will also help predict where specific trends are heading to ensure you don’t follow one that will dissipate.
How?

With your local findings, compare them to wider, overarching trends to identify the most commonly shared sentiments among your target market.

Assess how the findings fit with your global trends to ensure scalability, continuity and longevity at a local level.

3. Explore sector-specific sentiments.
Why?

Having identified trends and patterns on a local and global level, now you should look look closely at consumers in your sector.

These consumers are the most valuable source of information on trends in the industry. And knowing them in granular data is pivotal to finding the purpose that resonates in your sector.
How?

Apply the psychographic indicators mentioned in point one to your specific market to find out how your consumers compare to the wider local and global populations.

4. Consult brand and competitor data.
Why?

Brand data enables you to see your own brand’s reputation, alongside your competitor’s.

Looking specifically at your own reception among your consumers and wider markets is the final layer to truly identify how to challenge perceptions, improve opinions and drive positive sentiment.
How?

Custom surveys get to the heart of what consumers think about your brand and others in the industry by letting you ask the most pertinent questions, tailored to your needs.

Uncover their opinions on specific brands and competitors, what they value about brands with a strong purpose, and analyze their attitudes to wider life.

5. Test your ideas and concepts.
Why?

When purpose is misguided, it can backfire. It’s important to ensure your message is one that people identify with, and is transparent in its intent.
How?

Testing consumer response to specific concepts or campaigns that encompass your brand’s purpose will help you shape and reshape before launch.
Lessons from Unilever: Taking purpose seriously

Despite not having the ‘purpose pedigree’ of smaller brands, big brands stand to benefit greatly from introducing fresh and considered ideologies into their brand’s message.

Unilever, a multinational company celebrating its 90th birthday, is one brand that proves purpose isn’t simply a luxury buzzword, but a guiding light for all decision-making.
Purpose starts at the top.

Here’s what Alan Jope, CEO, has to say on the role of purpose within the CPG sector:

“Purpose is one of the most exciting opportunities I’ve seen for this industry in my 35 years of marketing. Done properly, done responsibly, it will help us restore trust in our industry, unlock greater creativity in our work, and grow the brands we love.”
Brand purpose gets results.


“Brands taking action for people and the planet grew 69% faster than the rest of our business last year, explains Jope.

Now we’re committing that in the future, every Unilever brand will be a brand with purpose.

We’ll dispose of brands that don’t stand for something”
Woke-washing pollutes purpose.

Speaking at the Cannes Lions, Jope said woke-washing was undermining the credibility of the advertising industry and eroding trust in it.

“However, purposeful marketing is at an important crossroads. Woke-washing is beginning to infect our industry. It’s polluting purpose.

It’s putting in peril the very thing which offers us the opportunity to help tackle many of the world’s issues. What’s more, it threatens to further destroy trust in our industry, when it’s already in short supply.”
Purpose is a consumer-led phenomenon


Purpose is not just a box-ticking exercise – it should support global progress. It’s also a necessary part of a compelling brand story.

Brand purpose dictates which direction the brand story takes, gives the message momentum, and invites consumers to be part of the journey.

Consumers hold the key to identifying the ‘right’ purpose. One that balances the need to do good with commercial gain. After all, the two are not mutually exclusive.

With all brands under the microscope for their impact, a unique opportunity arises for those prepared to consider purpose deeply, look to understand what it is consumers want, and respond with a genuine, pragmatic approach.