Blogs
Let’s have a conversation – in rain or shine
There’s no doubt that the weather plays a huge part in our everyday lives. I know personally, when the sun is shining it is a lot easier to turn off the alarm to get ready for the day ahead.
The sun has got his hat on this week and so do I – but are marketers taking this bright opportunity to target their prospects with real-time dialogue?
Companies are constantly pushing the boundaries to deliver relevant marketing conversations with their customers, whether that’s based on the time of day or location-specific data.
However, Lindsay Wiles, Strategic Director at The Weather Channel, recently highlighted at Marketing Week Live that marketers can also use a simple thing like the weather forecast to engage with their audiences in the right way at the right time.
In this instance, Lindsay suggested the weather can change a person’s purchase method and their product choice. This can actually go beyond the obvious, such as ice-cream selling well in the summer months and umbrellas proving popular in the rainy weather.
She expressed the need for marketers to adopt an ‘in the moment vision’, to understand how their customers are feeling and what they are doing. Pantene have done this with their ‘Haircast’ campaign, for example, while Vauxhall Corsa brought weather triggered digital ads to the UK.
For us B2B marketers, a recent Pure360 report showcased that in fact, B2B campaign effectiveness almost doubled when the sun was out – and campaigns that promoted business-related services and products increased from 15% (when raining) to 27%.
Yet, when the weather is not at its greatest, these customers are more likely to be considering higher financial risk purchases, and are subsequently willing to spend more for a positive moments during the worsened weather.
As we move into the new digital age, where it’s normal to get the ‘Hi so-and-so, we’ve seen that you’ve been looking at X, Y and Z’ (even though you were only on the website for five minutes), marketers now have the power to target a specific audience, at a specific time, under increasingly specific conditions.
Sometimes our strategies to meet overall objectives can become so extensive that we forget to consider whether the sun will come out tomorrow…
