Back to the basics: Health Care Marketing Revisited

 

How do you get noticed?

When it comes to advertising, getting attention is easy. You can shock the audience. Surprise them. Astonish or amaze them. Employ an emotional hook. Appeal to their curiosity.

Make no mistake, getting noticed is the first step in communicating with your audience. If you fail to take that step, none of the steps that follow will matter.

Still, while getting noticed is easy, it can cause more harm than good.

To paraphrase David Ogilvy, one of advertising’s all-time legends from the dim and distant past (whose principles remain relevant), you can attract attention by breaking wind at a formal dinner. Everyone will notice. Everyone will remember. But, is that how you want to be thought of, or remembered? Certainly, rude behavior get attention—but not the kind of attention you want.

The same holds true with your advertising. No matter what attention-getting technique you employ, whether shock or surprise or something else, make sure it is engaging and appropriate, rather than off-putting to the people you are taking to.

Another legendary advertising man, Bill Bernbach, said that you can attract attention by something as simple as a picture of a man standing on his head. But unless your product keeps things from falling out of pockets, that attention is wasted.

In other words, the attention-getting device must be relevant. To the product or service, and to the audience. So, while things like babies and puppies may attract attention through sheer cuteness, unless they’re relevant to what you’re selling it won’t matter. In fact, they can even be insulting to your audience once they realize—and they will—that you have tricked them.

So, by all means, find a way to attract attention, to get noticed, with your messages. But in order for that attention to translate into interest and engagement, make sure the surprise is appropriate and applicable.

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Next time: How do you engage?