Whilst we all might wish to be able to deliver that great elevator sales pitch to every potential client, we often do not get the time or the opportunity. Having each potential client captive in an elevator for 60 seconds, allowing you to explain the nature, benefits, and solutions your product offers would be priceless. Since we are rarely given the opportunity for that level of intimacy with our customers, how else can we target and engage with our captive audiences?
Where to find captive audiences?
In today’s fast paced world, is there such a thing as a captive audience? Imagine sitting on a long bus, train or plane journey and having an advert play in a loop in front of you whilst you are strapped to your chair. Whilst that sounds like torture, that would be the definition of a captive audience. A person held in a place unable to leave, being forced to listen to what is being said.
In that situation, a person might react negatively to the messages that they are receiving and actively block them.
If the audience is comfortably captive, they are more receptive
In a cinema the audience is captive, staring at the screen and receiving marketing messages from companies that can afford the expensive marketing medium of cinema adverts.
In a train, bus, or plane, whilst the passenger can stand up and walk around, it is rare that people do. TV Adverts are aimed at a captive audience, unable to get up from the sofa for short breaks in between television shows.
Social media flash adverts in our faces with every click of the mouse, every scroll of the page. Whilst we are not captive to the channel, we remain captive to social media.
Banner adverts follow target audiences across the internet, based on the users likes, regularly visited pages and user patterns. We are captively attached to the internet and our browser history.
Customers on hold must listen to the messages that the phone delivers directly into the handset of the awaiting customer is a captive audience that a lot of companies could do more with.
Where are the captive audiences for your business?
You might have a website, a social media account and send SMS and email communications. Only customers that want to pay attention to these mediums do so, and often without much concentration.
If your business has a physical presence do your vehicles display messages that people captive in traffic jams or driving behind you on motorways might focus on?
The telephone is still the most common form of communication between businesses and customers.
Can you incentivise captivity?
- Watch to the end for amazing discounts.
- Answer these quick questions on what you have seen or heard for cash back.
- Listen out for our key phrase in these messages. When you hear it, press Hash!
- If you say the following phrase to the representative, you will automatically be given 10% off your order.
Yes, captive audiences can be incentivized and engaged. I am sure that you have unknowingly been incentivized to remain captive during a hold process for a business.
Even something as simple as “You are number 2 in the queue” is a simple incentive to stay on the phone. You do not want to miss your place. How can that be maximized and used to your advantage?
Are you maximizing the captive audience waiting to speak to you?
Over 60% of consumers surveyed have contacted a business by phone in the last month compared to just 22% who contacted through social media.
The telephone remains that most popular communication channel of choice for people over the age of 40. Online chat is gaining popularity, especially among the 18- to 39-year-old demographic.
Live chat and telephone services have one important thing in common, they can give messages to a captive audience waiting at the other end of the line.
You can promote your offers, push your next marketing campaign, advertise your next product, or give information about your business. You do not have to just play Beethoven’s 5th Symphony!
Comfortably Captive Customers Queue
People don’t like being on hold, but they listen to the hold messages. If your hold messages are also adverts, people will listen. If your hold messages are also games, quizzes, or offers, customers will interact.
Offering a discount to customers who can answer 5 simple questions whilst on hold means that customers will pay attention.
They are captive by choice, they are offered an incentive to remain captive and they are interacting in captivity with your company, in a fun comfortable way.
Comfortably captive audiences might even be happy to be on hold, to listen out for that elusive discount, or to be able to play games with the person answering the phone when they reach the front of the queue.
This article comes courtesy of Mark Trowbridge at ConXhub
ConXhub offers the simplest & most convenient connectivity of all time. No equipment, no cables, no engineers and definitely no troubleshooting VoIP connectivity issues! You just need an active smartphone and you can communicate from wherever you desire, even on the move.