[bctt tweet=”You’re going to have to get your customers attention one way or the other, just don’t interrupt them” via=”no”]
I’ll make this one very quick. Here’s a simple fact, people do not like ‘marketing interruptions’.
Take these two scenarios. You’re listening to a radio station but a jingle comes up, so you tuned out. You’re watching your favourite show and there’s a commercial break, so you pick up your phone to check your Twitter TL. If this sounds familiar to you, then you know what I’m talking about.
This is the age of ad blockers where people are paying a significant sum to avoid advertising. So you can imagine how irritating it can be for these people when brands/businesses somehow manage to break through and interrupt what they are doing.
As a business you have to be deliberate about not annoying your (prospective) customers and quite frankly, things like;
- Incessant generic and ill-targeted advertising
- Nonstop unsolicited emails
- Bombarding a customer (after they’ve made a purchase) with marketing offers and updates
can be quite exasperating.
The right way to interrupt customers
The thing is you need your customers to notice you. However, if you’re going to interrupt your customers at all, you want to make sure that it is more for their gain than yours.
As you navigate this tricky landscape, you must ask yourself these three key questions:
- Is what I’m offering/doing/saying/sharing relevant?
- Are the message and the overall experience contextual?
- Is the journey enjoyable — or at least not unenjoyable?
At the end of the day, in one way or the other, you’d have to interrupt your (prospective) customer in other to be heard. The key is to try to find a balance between interrupting and creating relevant interesting brand experiences that they’d want to participate in.
Cheers!