On the rather wet and cold morning of 13th February, we were lucky enough to be invited along to Vested coffee morning to have not only a nice warm breakfast but listened to an incredible discussion on the trends you need to know for the new decade.
Their expert panel was made up of three of Vested favorite ‘Change Agents’: behavioural psychologist Simon Moore, futurist William Higham and strategic forecaster, Paul Flatters. They each gave such an interesting insight in the way a customer thinks and even though they are all from slightly different industries they seemed to return to the same points, which only reinforced their relevance.
For us the major takeaways for us had to be as follows.
Vested Coffee Morning
Personalisation
Know your audience.
This was the first of the Vested team’s suggestions. Make sure your content is not only on the right level for them but that you tailor the content to the different aspects of your target audience. For example if you were sending out a marketing email you should be creating different segments, such as investors, past and potential clients, and then tailor the content and offers that you’re including to ensure that it’s appealing for them.
Vested panelist Paul even used the advice that waitresses and waiters use when they first start at TGIFridays. They are advised to get onto your guests level, quite literally.
“The first thing they teach you is not to ask about their day, instead it’s to crouch down by the side of their table. Which is a physical presentation of getting onto the same level as your audience, being able to look them in the eye rather than looking down on them.”
Want to learn more about what we do?
Click below to set up a meeting with one of the team
to chat about how we can help!
Lets talkAttention span
“The underlying message for marketing and communications professionals? When it comes to our audiences, we’re competing for headspace”
Fun fact: Did you know that according to a number of studies in 2019, humans actually have a shorter attention span than goldfish?
We aren’t sure how true this really is but even if it’s not totally right, it still hammers home the fact that human attention can be fleeting and as business we have to fight to keep it for as long as we can. One of the key ways of doing this is ensuring that your site loads and runs quickly and allows a visitor to find the information they need almost instantly. Which is a great tip from Vested.
Building trust
This also ties in with the idea of keeping it all personal, if it’s personalised people are more likely to see the human side of your business and therefore more likely to trust and build a relationship with you.
All three of the Vested panelists commented on the shift in influencers and the power they hold. There has been a move away from larger influencers. People don’t trust them, for example the hundreds of influencers that you see everyday on instagram selling products that range from clothes to hair and skin products that will apparently ‘change your life’. There is a move away from this, people know they are being paid for these reviews and they want to see a more personal, more human side not only to their influencers but the businesses they buy from.
Thank you so much to the team at Vested for inviting us along to their wonderful event, we learnt so much and can’t wait to attend more like it in the future! If you fancy learning more about these three main areas, we will be returning to them and give some of our own top tips in later blogs, so be sure to keep an eye out for new content!