Five marketing must-haves that will continue to power your brand in 2024

This post is sponsored by SPH Media.

With the business landscape constantly evolving amid changes in technology and consumer behaviour, marketers must constantly refresh their strategies to deliver effective campaigns. Here are five areas to explore to continue powering your brand and resonate with your target audience.

1. Earn consumer loyalty through experiential marketing

Offline events are back with a bang post the COVID recovery. Take your marketing strategy offline with meaningful experiences or activations that directly engage your target audience. Not only will you obtain real-time, valuable insights, into your customers’ needs and wants, but this will also allow you to establish a better connection with them.

An EventTrack research report showed that after participating in a brand experience or interaction, 40% of consumers felt more loyal to the brand, while in a HubSpot study, 91% responded they would be more likely to purchase the product or service.

Instead of resourcing for your own events, leveraging existing ones could give you more bang for your buck while still reaching your desired audience.

Large-scale events – for example, SPH Media’s record-breaking The Car Expo, which allowed attendees to experience and buy the latest inventory offered by car dealerships and auto accessory companies, or the beloved Shin Min Getai Zichar Night, which immersed your marketing messages in a unique environment to engage a target audience – can be effective ways to help build brand affinity and drive direct conversions.

2. Be authentic to reach young audiences effectively

Build authentic connections with young audiences by leveraging digital platforms that speak their language and understand their values and aspirations. While there are a plethora of options out there, it is also important to rely on trusted platforms that value brand safety and align with your goals of excellence and trust.

A few good examples are platforms and channels that are primarily driven by producers who include Gen-Z and the Millennials. These include The Business Times’ Thrive, a platform about career, money, and life targeted at young adults; and ST HeadSTart, which includes a newsletter that gives workplace hacks from young business journalists at The Straits Times; or community-focused channels such as HeyKaki for Chinese-speaking youths, Berita Harian’s OMG! (Orang Muda Gitew), and Tamil Murasu’s Kopi Kadai podcast.

3. Drive engagement through content marketing

In an age when audiences devour content relentlessly, content marketing continues to be one of the key pieces of ammo a marketer can have in the war chest due to its ability to communicate brand messages to the target audience in a way that resonates with them.

Check out how Singlife won minds and international accolades with this hyperlocal content marketing campaign that achieved over 150% KPIs for its video views and page views.

The fundamentals remain the same – know your audience first, before developing a strategy to be authentic and memorable. Take a leaf from Phin Wong – SPH Media’s head of content marketing and lifestyle media – on how to create engaging content to capture your audience for a start!

4. Leverage omni-channel marketing for cohesive campaigns

Consider integrated omni-channel marketing solutions that will enable you to meet your communication needs. Customise your approach by selecting the most effective channels and formats to ensure that you not only create a cohesive message and story for your business, but that this story is scaled for maximum impact through a network that can effectively reach your audiences in the platforms they use.

Take, for instance, the government feedback unit REACH’s campaign on digitalisation and online safety that spanned radio, print, online, and dialogues, which allowed it to communicate its message to its target audience directly and consistently in the platform/s it preferred.

5. Command attention with audio marketing

Audio offers marketers a different, and perhaps even more intimate, way of connecting with audiences. It also translates beyond the traditional radio medium – into podcasts, where brand messages can be more enduring; and vodcasts, which further engages your audience. Apps such as Awedio combine music and podcasts, which have increasingly become a staple in people’s daily routines.

When Workforce Singapore wanted to drive awareness and adoption of its key programmes during the pandemic, it launched a 40-episode radio edutainment drama series with Chinese radio station 96.3好FM. The innovative solution and amplification across radio, print and digital paid off, reaching 90% of listeners and readers in the Chinese community.

Marketing in this day and age, despite all the tips, tools, and platforms at our disposal, still remains challenging. Explore the strategies here with SPH Media to propel your brand in 2024, and beyond.

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