Haven’t heard of movement marketing? Maybe you have, but have no clue what makes this new trend different than traditional industry practices.
For you learn about movement marketing tactics you can start using, let’s jump into what this term means exactly and where it comes from.
Definition
Movement marketing is a concept created in 1999 by Strawberry Frog. The term was first coined back by Scott Goodson, who just so happens to be the founder of this agency. What this strategy allows a company to do is move their values and goals into alignment with current cultural movements. The end result is that a company gains a long term strategy that will help them dominate market share. It may also have the potential to change the world.
It’s not anything like the traditional marketing strategies that you have seen before. In fact, it almost completely removed from existing plans out there, even new social media led trends that pop up every year. It takes a different look at how to make your company stand out. Here is how it’s broken down by the creators:
- Tapping into cultural movements and groups of people. You need to focus on this rather than the individual.
- Not trying to change consumers. Understand and use what people already believe rather than trying to persuade them of something new.
- Engage! Don’t talk at the people and try and sell them a product. Rather, get to know your audience and sharing with them.
- Don’t talk about yourself. This is a very traditional way of selling a product. Rather than promoting yourself, join already existing conversations without bringing up your company or product.
Already from this breakdown, you can already see how different this strategy is different from the norm and how it has serious potential to change everything. The whole idea is basically focused on tracking people and cultural movements rather than trying to be a trend-setter.
To become a movement marketer, you need to engage with and understand these movements and use them to your advantage. The best part of all of this? This particular strategy means you can constantly be relevant in the market. If you adapt to and engage with already trending movements in culture, it is far easier to stay afloat on the market.
Action Plan
There’s a 4 point action plan that, with the help Strawberry Frog’s research, you can use to employ the movement marketing strategy. These steps are;
- Discover: You need to find out what your business is passionate about. You can then use this to align yourself with a cultural movement that matches that interest. This will give you the best chance of success. It’s how you find a cultural movement to connect with in an authentic way.
- Learn: Find out everything you can about a movement. Then figure out how you can provide additional value towards the movement’s goal/purpose. Find out how you can take it to the next level.
- Evolve: By ensuring that your company is in line with the movement before prompting it externally, you can stop trying to sell your product. Rather, you’ll be part of furthering the movement.
- Sustain: Keep up the movement internally and externally for your company by finding unique and interesting ways to add value to the movement you have aligned yourself with.
A good way to keep yourself on track is to dedicate a higher percentage of your time to adding value, and less time actually offering up your product or service. Make sure you keep that up, and this strategy can work wonders for you!