🚨 Trigger Warning ⚠️
How to leverage triggers to encourage customer buying and advocacy
All brands, regardless of size, industry or business model, share a common goal - to have products, services and experiences that their customers can’t stop talking about. To make your customer journey more positive, memorable and shareable, companies need to do one thing: make an impact.
One way of doing this is to use ‘triggers’. A brand wanting to increase market share should focus on being top of mind and tip of tongue. Triggers are reminders (objects, ideas or phrases) that cause people to think about your product, service or brand, even when it’s not physically there.
You probably don’t even realise that everyday life is full of triggers. Seemingly innocent things that punctuate your inner dialogue. Think about your morning routine, you generally go through the same motions day in, day out. When you brush your teeth you might think about the dentist - are you due a check-up? - what was that toothpaste she recommended? You make coffee and you make a note to top up on your favourite beans or oat milk - your friends recommended a brand that will “literally change your life.” You might be thinking, well those sounds like a bunch of random thoughts a millennial would have. But they’re not.
A trigger evokes the five senses. It’s something you can see, smell, hear, taste and touch that reminds you of something else.
Triggers increase adoption and advocacy. If you want customers to buy and discuss your brand, you want people to be reminded of your brand as much as possible. There’s a whole marketing style devoted to this - ever heard of subliminal marketing? Essentially, it’s a form of advertising that uses hidden or suggestive messaging to influence people's behaviour without them even realizing it.
Triggers make that happen by creating links in people’s minds. After seeing a trigger regularly associated with something, you automatically begin to associate the thing with that trigger. Let’s apply this to a practical example; when you think about your hoover, you’re talking about the appliance aka the vacuum, but the brand ‘Hoover’ is now synonymous with the thing. Or, if you think about autumn (or fall for my American subscribers), your mind probably thinks about Starbucks and its pumpkin-spiced lattes. That’s no coincidence. Starbucks has spent almost 20 years and millions of dollars creating this trigger between the sugary beverage and the season. In fact, commodity products and services such as coffee lend themselves well to triggers and they can actually generate more buzz than flashier brands.
Take Gillette, the razor brand generates 10x more engagement than Armani, even though they have a similar number of followers. Why? Armani is a more exciting and refined brand. But when we think about Gillette, a specific product comes to mind - razors. Armani on the other hand has a very wide product line and the links are less obvious and less accessible. While both brands have a similar aim - to make their customers look good - Gillette products are used much more often and therefore much more top of mind.
As a brand, you want to own the ‘who’, ‘when’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ of triggers.
🔍 Who
First, you want to figure out your customer segment. Who is the set of people you are trying to reach with your product or service? TIP: Make sure to select a customer segment that’s large enough.
Triggers aren’t created overnight, you’ll need to be consistent and create links over time to make triggers stick in people’s minds. To maximise ROI, make sure to target a sizable segment.
Take KitKat for example, they were trying to grow their audience. Now you might think one segment could be teachers wanting to give out a treat after a test or another segment could be people who give out candy on Halloween. These segments are probably too narrow. What they realised was that their core use case was ‘a snack in between meetings’, which widened their audience.
🕰️ When
Once you’ve determined the ‘who’, next focus on the ‘when’. When do you want your customer segment to be triggered? This is key and possibly the most important part. As a brand, when do you want people to think about you? What is the right time to come to mind to drive action?
KitKat used a clever campaign over Zoom breaks by perfectly summing up lockdown life. (For instance, lockdown triggers these meme’s for me)
Back to KitKat, to reach their target segment of busy working professionals, the chocolate brand designed a campaign that leveraged one moment during the workday, the break between Zoom meetings. An even better strategy would have been to time the trigger after the last meeting of the day to signal the reward system in the Brin and further reinforce KitKat’s position as a ‘well-earned break’.
As a litmus test, you know you’ve selected an appropriate ‘one moment’ if people need your product or service at the moment they see the trigger and they have the ability to go purchase your product or service right then and there.
Finish this sentence: Netflix & …..
Most of you probably thought ‘Chill’ automatically. It’s a great trigger in terms of the ‘one moment’. What does Netflix & Chill mean to you? It might trigger F-boy interactions you’d rather forget(🚩), or it could signal you’re in the mood to relax. Regardless of what it means to you, the Netflix & Chill trend consistently appeared on social platforms, prompting word-of-mouth advertising that Netflix never expected. “Netflix & Chill” skyrocketed brand recognition and boosted their subscription for years to come.
🌇 What
Once you’ve determined the ‘when’, think about the ‘what’ - the actual trigger. It could be an object like a Maltese beach for Cisk, a feeling like CocaCola and happiness, a phrase like Zoom’s “Can you hear me now?”, an idea like fireworks and celebrations or a complement like peanut butter and jelly.
To identify a trigger think about what can be found in a person’s environment during the specific trigger moment. Think about objects, phrases or ideas that are already present. For KitKat, they needed to think about something busy professionals saw every day for their breaks. so they thought let’s create a workday calendar that shows Zoom meetings and use an object people look at every day - their meetings - to encourage people to think about KitKat at the right time.
🚀 How
The last step involves determining ‘how’ you create the trigger between your brand and object, phrase or idea. This is typically addressed through marketing. Your product and its trigger weren’t designed to be together so you have to make sure you link yourselves to that thing in the environment. We have to use marketing communications repeatedly showing our products and services next to that queue in the environment.
In KitKat’s case, for example, they used marketing assets showing an image of a KitKat filling an empty space in your day in between Zoom meetings, encouraging people to think about those Zoom meetings as a trigger for KitKat and be more likely to eat them.
What’s the most effective way to reach an audience? How is this group of people best reached? What are their preferred communication channels? Keeping your segment top of mind will increase the chances of your customers keeping your brand top of mind.
For KitKat bus stop ads effectively reached the ‘working professionals who commute’ segment. Since ads were placed in busy downtown areas, these customers could easily buy a KitKat then and there.
There are 3 key takeaways when thinking about triggers:
Triggers are a challenging but important component. Social Currency is easy to apply so thinking about how to use it is key.
Accessible thoughts and ideas drive action. If you want customers to buy and talk about your product and service, it needs to be top of mind, which is more likely to be tip of tongue and more likely to be purchased.
Create the right trigger with these four questions: Who do I want to be triggered? When do I want them to think about me? What is around them at the time of the trigger? How do I create a link?
Now, you can use triggers in your strategy to drive action. And next time your friend orders a corona, try not to think about the pandemic.
Thank you for tuning in to my newsletter! Tomorrow we’ll look at a case study that puts the hump in ‘hump day’.
Have a contentful day 🌞
Emma