THE HIGHLIGHTS
The ‘moment of prediction’: Why brands need to anticipate consumers’ needs
Brands need to find consumers in short windows of attention and then offer them totally seamless experiences, delegates heard at the Festival of Marketing.
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Brands must fight for consumer attention by developing context-driven creative content, predict what people want to buy and ensure the online process from ad to checkout is seamless.
Speaking during the Festival of Marketing, three of Facebook’s connection planners - Zehra Chatoo, Peter Buckley and Andy Childs - said consumers are too easily distracted online. This means marketers must work harder to communicate with them in the most valuable moments.
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Find out more about how brands predict what their consumers want and need. Watch Facebook’s session, ‘2021: The Journey’s End’, at the Festival of Marketing on demand now.
The panel also outlined how brands must anticipate what consumers want rather than trying to meet their needs. Chatoo said the shift to mobile and away from physical interactions means consumers can access information all the time and on their terms, which can be a challenge for marketers.
“When consumers have infinite choice, they have smaller windows of attention, and this affects what they see and how they see it,” she said. “We do not have the patience, so
the context should now shape how all brands communicate. We have seen decades’ worth of behaviour change in months.”
She cited the example of digital music streaming service Spotify’s ‘Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus’ research as an example of context affecting content. The study revealed that songs do better on Spotify if the intros are shorter and the chorus is heard early.
Chatoo said marketers must take advantage of what Facebook calls the ‘moment of prediction’. “Brands must be mindful of these short windows of attention and produce content worthy of them. You have to anticipate what people want before they even know they want it,” she said. “Brands need to go out and find consumers.” The panel explained that this also means embracing 'discovery commerce' and using machine learning to drive demand based on online behaviour. Buckley had three top tips for marketers:
Use machine learning to discover new customers
Machine learning lets you find customers where they are and not where you expect them to be, so do not ignore a broad audience. This will be crucial to boost online sales during the Christmas period in particular.
Let your creative find the audience
Start with a range of messaging but do not target individual market segments. Instead let the creative find the audience and optimise to consumer behaviour using machine learning. Facebook claims 89% of campaigns that take this route generate sales from new audiences.
Five taps or less
With 84% of mobile shopping baskets in the UK abandoned, according to Facebook, brands should put their own site to the test to see where there is friction. Every tap a consumer needs to make risks losing a sale, said Buckley.
Childs pointed to research by Kantar and Facebook IQ claiming that 46% of people abandon their shopping basket online because of friction in the purchasing process.
He said the launch of Facebook Shops is specifically designed to help brands large and small improve the online shopping experience across the platform and on Instagram. The service includes help with online shop design, cataloguing and customer service.
“The traditional purchase funnel and customer journey have collapsed so brands need to give consumers a place to experience the joy of shopping without the chore of buying,” said Childs.
He added that brands also need to make more use of content creators, including influencers, because 82% of marketers struggle to understand the return on investment they can generate.
“They are trusted voices, editors and masters of the content medium. They help us discover the latest things that align with our passions and interests,” he said. “We are now seeing content creators collaborating on longer-term programmes and not just tactical campaigns.” ■
To access more data-driven insights please sign up for Facebook’s monthly live webinar series, Facebook Insights Live. Upcoming episodes include a session on how businesses can capitalise on sporting events to maximise brand growth, as well as a special edition episode on planning for 2021 with special guest speaker Benedict Evans. Sign up here.
THE HIGHLIGHTS