Relevance Bulls Eye [Infographic]

by Mark Smiciklas · August 2, 201122 comments

Relevant marketing communication offers your community value.

Optimal communication takes place when when a marketer can deliver the a relevant message to a relevant audience in a relevant location at a relevant time.

How can you become more relevant? The comments are yours.

Relevance Bulls Eye

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About Mark Smiciklas

Mark Smiciklas

Mark Smiciklas is a Digital Strategist, author and President of Intersection Consulting; a Vancouver based digital marketing agency that teaches organizations how to leverage the dynamics of the web to achieve business goals. Mark is an established marketing and social media practitioner recognized for his visual thinking and practical strategic approach. You can follow Mark on Twitter at Intersection1 or connect with him on Google+.

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Tagged as: digital marketing, Information graphics, relevant marketing communication, Social Media

Comments & Reactions

Comments Policy

Comments on Social Media Explorer are open to anyone. However, I will remove any comment that is disrespectful and not in the spirit of intelligent discourse. You are welcome to leave links to content relevant to the conversation, but I reserve the right to remove it if I don't see the relevancy. Be nice, have fun. Fair?

  • http://trafficcoleman.com/blog/official-black-seo-guy/ Black Seo Guy

    I always say stick to a subject and role with it..mines is seo and all I talk d about at times is seo.

    “Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”

  • http://rayvellest.com Ray Vellest

    I’ve seen it a million times! Include a pretty graphic with high potential of being shared to attract traffic to your website, right? C’mon, what about actually talking about something? I’ve got your point — and even agree with it — but I’m marketing professional, blogger and internet addict. 

    What about the hundreds of business owners visiting the blog, with now marketing degree to back them up? Simplifying marketing and communication activities to this level will induce people to think this is a recipe for success. On a matter of opinion, this is a recipe for disaster!

    • http://socialmediaexplorer.com JasonFalls

      Wow, Ray. Didn’t think a simple idea would cause so much angst.

      We share ideas here. Some are simple. Some are complex. Some need dissertation. Others don’t.

      The graphic and the simple text wrapped around it (I actually asked Mark to put this together for me for something else, but so that we could also share the idea on the blog) is there to prove a point to those small business owners you refer to:

      The most successful communications you’ll see as a business owner is when you can intersect the relevant audience at the relevant time and place with the relevant message. Sure, there’s a lot more to know about marketing, but the core idea here is strong and universal.

      Sorry this post didn’t meet your expectations. I’m sure it will for many others. But thanks for your feedback.

      • http://rayvellest.com Ray Vellest

        I think it’s a bit naive to think that some ideas don’t need dissertation. Unless, off course, every single human being on the planet has the same level of understanding of all the things of the world. I’m sure that all ideas are worthy of explanation.

        My pickle with this article is that is leaving out essential explanation for the understanding of the graphic itself. How can you be sure that all of your audience knows what “relevant” means from the marketing point-of-view?

        While “relevant location” seems pretty obvious, a local New York coffee shop would hardly get any result marketing itself in Los Angeles, the term “relevant message” deserves a bit more attention. Don’t you think?

        Many small business owners are specialists in their field, but have no marketing skills whatsoever. How are they going to interpreter what is “relevant” without additional dissertation? I hope that helps to clarify my point-of-view. Oh, and by-the-way, thanks for replying so fast! :)

        • http://socialmediaexplorer.com JasonFalls

          Not naive. Just a creative entry in a larger discussion. And if we shot it all out in explanation, we wouldn’t leave room for people to ask questions. ;-)

          Can’t tell you how many posts like this … short, pithy, leaving the “point finding” up to the audience, have led to great open discussions, further posts, inspired other posts on other sites, etc. I don’t see our job as encyclopedia writers all the time. Sometimes we just offer an idea and let people chew on it. Sometimes we dive in. Others, we just like to make people think and let them think on their own.

          Fair?

    • http://twitter.com/intersection1 Mark Smiciklas

      Thanks for the feedback Ray. Sorry to have to break the news to you that there is no evil SEO plot here :)

      It’s an ongoing challenge to present ideas to an an audience with varied levels of knowledge and experience. We all learn differently and, as a visual thinker, I prefer to try to explain concepts in a simple, straightforward manner through the use of infographics.

      Sometimes my visuals are accompanied by more detailed explanations that ‘talk about stuff’ while other times they are not. By and large, it seems that people appreciate this approach and extract some learning from the process – hopefully future posts will offer you some value as well.

      Again, sorry that this post may have felt a little light to you. I hope my future content lives up to what you expect from SME. 

      • http://rayvellest.com Ray Vellest

        Mark, I’m happy to learn the SEO evil plot is out of the equation! :) By-the-way, after the latest Google update — read Panda — SEO plots are also meaningless. 

        To be completely honest, I loved your graphic. But I was a bit disappointed with the lack of explanation about it. Please read my reply to Mark to understand what I think is missing. 

        Other than that, I’m happy you and Jason are catching up in the comment area. Thanks!

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  • http://www.therelevantmarketer.com Liz Lynch

    I’ve always seen relevance as the right message to the right person at the right time, so I like the addition of the right location in this graphic. I think it takes into account the new prominence of mobile (both phones and tablets)

  • http://twitter.com/neicolec Neicole Crepeau

    Well, getting back to the subject, I think the hardest part here is the “relevant time” portion. Especially when it comes to content marketing (versus advertising) to online audiences.

    We have been able to identify the audience pretty effectively for a while. Crafting the right message can be done with skill and if you have the other information in the circle. Location information is now much more available, so that it can be leveraged when it’s an important factor. But, we often don’t have all of the info we need to figure out the right time. Thinking specifically of the sales process, different pieces of information are held by different businesses/technologies. If you’re doing online advertising and using some of the latest technology available, you can often get a pretty good idea of where a user is in the sales cycle based on their search history and/or visits to your website and the pages the user has viewed. But as content marketers/social media marketers, we don’t have that kind of information about our customers’ sales journeys, so we can’t tell where they are in the sales process in order to give them the right content.

    Of course, there are things you can do to help, such as having communities or content locations that are only relevant or likely to be used at certain stages, or building relationships with people and monitoring the conversations and changes your customers go through. But there aren’t a lot of good automated, holistic ways to get the time portion. 

    My thinking…

    • http://twitter.com/intersection1 Mark Smiciklas

      Thanks for dropping by Neicole – great insight into relevant time as it pertains to the sales cycle.

      It’s difficult to gauge the where a customer is in their journey with a brand/service without maintaining a good level of communication, whether that’s digitally or face-to-face. Your comment about content locations is bang on. Today, consumers are more self guided in their product or service research and subsequent decision making. Organizations need to understand the importance of information architecture – laying out content in a way that’s easy for prospects with different problems, or at different stages in the buying process, to access the information they need.

    • http://twitter.com/intersection1 Mark Smiciklas

      Thanks for dropping by Neicole – great insight into relevant time as it pertains to the sales cycle.

      It’s difficult to gauge the where a customer is in their journey with a brand/service without maintaining a good level of communication, whether that’s digitally or face-to-face. Your comment about content locations is bang on. Today, consumers are more self guided in their product or service research and subsequent decision making. Organizations need to understand the importance of information architecture – laying out content in a way that’s easy for prospects with different problems, or at different stages in the buying process, to access the information they need.

  • http://www.online-business-virtual-assistant.com/ Virtual Business Assistant

    Understanding how and when customers are engaging with your brand is critical for establishing more meaningful connections with them. Keeping an eye on what information is being passed around the most let’s you know what consumers are looking for, so you can better tailor your messaging strategy.

  • http://twitter.com/gividend gividend

    Whew, hot one here.

    Thank you for the simplicity.  As Jason alluded too, simple posts and info-graphics spark thought about a subject.  Especially for the quick twit clickers (like me in the last hour).

    Time is a difficult metric to shoot at as it rarely stands still.  My past thoughts about relevant communication involve oscillating waves of each qualifier.  When the waves match, the message resonates. 

    Thanks for the post, Mark.

    • http://twitter.com/intersection1 Mark Smiciklas

      Thanks for the comment. I love the “oscillating waves” analogy – marketers really need to understand the different waves or frequencies for each audience group and channel in order to be able to time their communications. I believe testing is the key here. Whether it’s bricks and mortar or digital, organizations need to constantly be testing to see when/how their audiences are consuming content.

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