How To Use Paid Advertising To Reach Lazy Customers

Admit it: basically all of us go through times where we’re lacking motivation, low on energy, and feeling downright lazy. This means whatever your usual target market is, a not-insignificant portion of that market will, at any time, be lazy – which in turn means a harder slog to get their attention and convert them into customers. But connecting with these customers doesn’t have to be as difficult as it seems. Here are our best practice tips to reach customers all across the wide spectrum of laziness.

1) focus your message on one single point

We know, we know, it’s easy to get caught up in how amazingly awesome your brand is and want to tell the world about all the cool features you’ve got in your product line. But to get the message across clearly to the laziest of lazy customers, narrow the focus of your video down to just one main goal. Whether it’s ‘use our product because it will benefit the blah de blah in your life’ or ‘use our brand because our values are doopy doop’ (replacing the blah de blahs and doopy doops with your own blahs and doops).

2) make your call to action as effortless and rewarding as possible

What people want, lazy or not, is a good effort-to-reward ratio. I mean, who wants to work hard for little to no reward? As 2012 would say, ain’t nobody got time for that. On the flip side, putting in a tiny effort for a big benefit? I got a little time.

The place to really showcase this in paid video advertising is during your call to action. Having drawn in your viewers this far, the clincher is offering them a next step that’s both easy to transition into, and worthwhile doing. Keep your CTA as simple as possible – anything more than one step is going to get put in the ‘too hard’ basket. Click this link. Go to our website. Sign up now. When paired with an incentive, the simple CTA becomes an effort-to-reward powerhouse. Click this link to download our free app. Go to our website for our full menu. Sign up now for 15% off. An old school example of this technique being used successfully is in Dropbox’s classic 2009 viral explainer video, which introduced the product by encouraging viewers to simply download it now. No hoops to jump through. But IF users wanted more storage space for free, they could share a referral link by email or social media. Thus, a simple and self-perpetuating referral machine was born.

3) remove all hurdles between the customer and the brand

As much as we’d like to think we have our customers mesmerized once they take up the call to action in a video advertisement, the painful truth is that lazy customers can be lost in an instant due to a simple hurdle.

These hurdles can be out of our control: something urgent pops up in the viewer’s life that distracts them away from the video forever. Some hurdles can be mitigated: like ensuring your video content gives a clear message both visually AND aurally, so the relative loudness / brightness / smallness / distractive-ness of the viewer’s environment doesn’t affect their understanding. Other hurdles, most unfortunately, are due to carelessness on the side of the business. The amount of times I’ve immediately stopped looking into something due to a broken link, confusing webpage design, or a barely functioning website are too many to count. Take the time to test out the pathway from viewing to purchase. Note any hurdles that come up or could come up and work on removing, mitigating, and/or addressing them to make your product as easy to get as possible.

4) celebrate a ‘work smarter, not harder’ mentality

For a brand to truly connect with their customers, your values need to align with your brand image and actions. So how can a go-getting brand land with a comfort-minded client base? By focussing on, and celebrating, what you both have in common. Lazy and productive people alike are precious with their time, and hate the idea of spending unnecessary effort where it’s not needed. The productive term is ‘efficiency’, while the lazy term is ‘taking the easy way out’ – but both are one in the same. Acknowledging this ‘work smarter, not harder’ mentality within your brand and within your video advertising content makes it clear that you understand your audience’s values both in word and in practice.

5) find your customers and be where they already are

“If you build it, they will come” does not apply here. Don’t expect your lazy customers to break out of their laziness and seek your advertising out when they’re in need of something. Find where your target market already hangs out and who in society they’re inclined to listen to. Then get your videos in front of their eyeballs.

6) be easy to reach when needed

Catering to your customer base also means considering the wider context outside your paid video advertising. For reaching lazy customers, this means being quick and easy to contact, and being open about accepting questions, concerns, and feedback. In other words, make it clear your brand is accessible.

This may range from having a quick response time on social media DMs, to promoting the existence of your tech support email, to setting up a call-back customer service team who are fluent in your products and common queries that may arise. Whatever your customers’ preferred mode of communication, it’s important to emphasise their welcomeness to use it. Nobody wants to wait in a call queue for 45 minutes to speak to a call centre operator who doesn’t know the product, doesn’t understand you, and doesn’t want to speak to you – least of all the laziest of us.

7) set realistic expectations

When looking ahead to your customer reach goals, don’t expect sudden backflips of attention from a naturally lazy market. Brand adoption takes time, and the lazy among us – the Late Majority and Laggards in the innovation adoption curve – will be the last to give you their time. Use patience when working with lazy customers, and focus on the long-lasting quality of your conversions rather than the speed.

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