Blue C and Rhythm joined forces to host a brand development event, Interception Point, where we discussed how to win new customers in our ever-evolving marketing atmosphere. During this interactive event, we shared how to increase market share by elevating the customer journey, and in doing so, take away business from the competition. Blue C and Rhythm firmly believe that a successful brand has to tell its story, develop itself on a strategic level, and hone in on an engaging digital voice in order to best capture consumers.

Here’s what we’ve learned:

Media Has Changed

The landscape of marketing is changing, calling for extraordinary work that is presented on a strategic level. In order to drive engagement, we have to ask ourselves who our greatest competitors are and how we’ll stand out from the crowd and tackle our reach. We need to focus on what tactics will promote the greatest assets and how, along this journey, we will build emotion into our campaigns and the lifestyles of our brands.

This Is the Age of Acceleration

It is easier now than ever, in our digital world, to measure campaign results and effectively reach our key buyers in the way best suited for them. We need to know our audience and understand how they’re searching and how they’re buying in order to map out the best plan of attack. Marketing starts at the research, the pre-campaign dig. This is when your target markets are discovered and brought to the surface. Once we know our markets, we can target competitor-branded keywords and your brand can intercept the consumer via paid and organic content that diverts the attention away from the competitor.

We Need to Fuel the Customer Journey

Consumer navigation is changing. The modern journey seeks to build awareness that influences purchase and our job is to make sure the destination is met. How can we do that? By connecting with our audience, by building a lifestyle for our brands, and by creating an image for companies that boasts authenticity and problem solving benefits.

Where to Focus Our Energy

The way people become engaged today is more intricate and more involved than ever before. There are so many channels to grab the attention of potential consumers, whether it be via social channels, the digital world, paid search, organic search, SEO, etc. But when it comes down it to it, it’s the interception of all of these avenues that creates the greatest impact. We want to build emotion and loyalty in a buyer, and we do that by being consistent with content, brand voice, and overall appearance. As Mark Ortiz of Acura stated, we need to stand out from the competition by knowing our audience: their intent, their interest, and their needs. We need to do the research, gather the analytics, and understand our failures. Alter your strategy, study your results, and shift where need be. And while shifting, Ortiz recommends we be humble, seek value, and fail fast.

Event Panel Practitioners

Introducing the event was Craig Cooke, CEO of Rhythm who handed the mic over to Eric Morley, Principal of Blue C Advertising. Morley spoke on content creation and where marketing stands in our world today. He noted that in order to intercept customers, we must focus on our target audience and talk directly to the people. He related this to how direct mail influenced consumers twenty years ago. Now, digital and video content is driving decision making and inspiring new opportunities to intercept and reach customers.

Ortiz provided an educational talk on what matters most in marketing today. “WTF,” Ortiz Said. It means “What To Focus On.” Head of Digital Marketing and a Digital Stratagy Architect, Ortiz boasts that it’s not about the technology or the data, it’s about how we understand it that matters. He emphasized that the customer journey is the new marketing funnel and that in order to impact an audience, we must be marketing practitioners, not just marketing professionals.

Next up was Peter Bohenek, President of Rhythm who brought all the ideas together and kicked off a Q&A including Cooke, Morley, Ortiz, and Hannes Meyer, Chief Creative Officer of Rhythm. Great questions were asked and valuable answers were heard.

Key Panel Takeaways

• Marketing is a heating and cooling business with heating being the emotional component and cooling being the illumination or informational factor. We need both in order to best reach decision makers.

• We need to focus on marketing to humans, not numbers. We must connect emotion with logic (Think: heart & mind).

• The impact of Influencer Strategy: The key is aligning an influencer’s followers with your brand or service. Look for their followers and how they communicate. Authenticity here is key.