What is Multimedia Marketing?

In our fast-paced world, multimedia marketing, or the use of media to market brands and brand messages to a target audience, is do or die.

All the aspects of your brand that you can see and/or hear, like podcasts, daily videos & vlogs, aesthetically pleasing Instagram feeds, 5 p.m. weekly live streams, etc., fall under the umbrella of multimedia marketing.

Before we get too far into how you can utilize media to get your audience to engage, let’s dive a little deeper into how and why people engage with your content.

The Human Response

Engagement is always based on the way people respond to social media efforts.

Think about yourself as you scroll through your Instagram feed. Some posts you double-tap without thinking twice about them. Others you scroll right past.

But every so often, you come across a post that makes you laugh out loud, forcing you to get up off of the couch where you’ve been scrolling for an unwarranted hour just to show your significant other (who is definitely tired of you showing them TikToks) a video you hope will make them laugh.

You took action. Now you’re attempting to inspire action in others. You didn’t have those intentions when you first started scrolling, but now you’re here, having been moved by something you saw online.

There is no reason a good marketing campaign can’t warrant the same action in people. Advertising a product or service doesn’t have to be boring or schemey. But it does need to come off as human.

To think outside of the box of multimedia marketing, you have to stop putting your audience in a box.

Content marketing doesn’t have to be so informative that it’s boring, especially when there are so many ways to be creative. A lot of the media we consume online is for entertainment purposes. That same energy can and should be used as a digital marketing tool as well.

The Digital Senses

Our physical senses are bound to our bodies, but our digital senses transcend the barrier that is technology. There is some overlap, but when thinking about engagement, our digital senses consist of:

• Desire (your digital smell and taste)
• Reactiveness (movement)
• Emotion (connection)
• Sound
• Sight

How to Appeal to the Digital Senses: D.R.E.S.S. to Impress

Desire. We can’t smell or taste through our computer screens yet (but with as many cooking shows as we watch, we hope that option comes sooner rather than later.)

However, taste and smell are some of the strongest drivers of desire. Desire is a sense you always want to appeal to when creating a social media marketing strategy because longing is what lingers.

When multimedia marketing, think about the visuals that stick with people (pretty and pretty ugly). Think about what you can do to get inside someone’s head. Think about what kind of information will make for good conversation later. Always give people something worth talking about.

Reactiveness. What will make someone comment? What will make someone double tap? What will make someone raise their eyebrows or shake their head? This is where the physical world and the digital world meet. Reaction becomes interaction, and interaction turns into engagement. You want posts that encourage a movement or facial expression. Shock, humor, pure outrageousness. What will make someone move?

Emotion. Paying attention to the feeling your brand puts off is an integral part of creating a connection without physicality. Emotion is built on visuals as well as messages. As the digital age grows, our emotional intelligence is continuing to grow as well.  Your campaign needs to appeal to the side of customers attentive to how they’re spending their time and money.

Sound. Think about all of the sounds you love. The things you could hear for hours and never get tired of. Keyboard clicks. Fire crackling. The man from the Allstate commercials’ voice. These things appeal to our sense of sound and just kind of make us go “ahh” (welcome to my ASMR channel).

Sound is a massive influencer of our emotions. Think about soundtracks and how they intensify or assert emotion into movie scenes. Sounds trigger our bodies.

Think about your brand and what it would sound like if it were a person. If you built an environment for your brand, what would that sound like? What sounds remind you of what you offer?

Consider building a soundtrack for your brand. Use this when you’re creating images or writing posts for your brand. Music can change your mindset.

Sight. Think pretty pictures and videos that keep you on the edge of your seat. You want to make sure you are giving people something they want to look at. Your graphics don’t have to be busy to garner attention; they just need to be aesthetically pleasing and attention-grabbing.

Multimedia Content Creation

The biggest part of any marketing strategy is the story you tell.

Videos. The first few seconds of your video are the most critical. Pay attention to the thumbnail, and what those first few seconds hold. If you can’t get their attention, you can’t keep their attention.

If your ad looks like you’re trying to peddle a product, your audience will keep scrolling. Don’t approach your audience as a salesperson. Approach your audience as someone who has a solution to their problem. Help them understand that you have their best interest at heart. Create a narrative beyond “here is my product.”

Vlogs, Facebook live, IGTv, along with posting videos on your feed are super-additions to your marketing strategy. They play a large part in breaking down social barriers.

Pictures. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it really only needs to say 3: “GIVE ME ATTENTION!”

When using photos in a multimedia marketing strategy, you have to make sure they can steal the attention away from everything else in the feed. Don’t settle for generic content. Generic content doesn’t stand out.

Think about how you can showcase your business and the things that are unique to it through your photographs.

Podcasts. Podcasts have boomed in popularity over the past few years. They are an excellent way of creating bonds with your audience because you’re able to share with your audience in a setting that feels more friendly and helpful than an attempt to get attention.

Stories. Stories are one of the easiest ways to engage with your audience. Think about creating stories that inspire your audience to take on-screen action. Questions and polls accompanied by fun visuals can captivate your audience and encourage them to interact with you.

Reels/TikTok. Bite-size video content is always a wonderful addition, especially if you can make it entertaining. This is where we encourage you to look at intense emotions to gauge attention. Humor is usually the easiest route to go, but intrigue and satisfaction are also huge motivators of reaction.

Website. When considering the multimedia marketing strategy in your web design, don’t overcomplicate it. Add graphics that add to the overall experience of your website. Don’t flood your website with over-intricate graphics and videos. The multimedia strategy you use for your website should complement the services you offer.

Why Multimedia Marketing is Essential to Your Business

Our existence within a digital space makes the need for multimedia marketing essential. Having noteworthy visuals encourages a strong brand recognition, a more powerful impact on your audience, and contributes to the investment of your business.

Multimedia marketing is where you bridge the gap between IRL and digital. It helps potential customers better understand the personality and “the why” behind what you do.

On top of that, it makes your brand look complete. Multimedia allows you to further the appearance and cohesiveness of your brand.

The Post-COVID Advantage of Multimedia Marketing

With COVID, barriers seem like the normal. Multimedia marketing opens up peeks into your business that may have seemed unfathomable merely months ago at the start of the pandemic. The addition of media aids you in opening your digital door to customers and shows them what you’re all about while fostering a sense of community. A good multimedia marketing strategy will create a lively environment within your brand that keeps the energy up and the movement steady.

Now is the time to dive head-first into a digital space. If you merely exist online, you aren’t doing enough.

At Gravity Junction, we assess every part of your business to make sure our marketing strategies align with your business’s goals. If you’re only utilizing the bare essentials of social media marketing, then you’re missing out on endless opportunities. Allow Atlanta’s top marketing agency to help you lift-off and take your brand to the next level.