Burrow your way into your customers' brains with a catchy tune
Advertising is high on the priority list of many business owners. Making sure consumers know your company and products exist is one of the first steps to success. Wisely doing so will see you making more sales.
In 2020, there's a whole host of media available to marketers and business owners. The options have never been more plentiful. Getting out there and getting known has never been easier. So, what's the problem? Advertising in the modern world should be easy, right? Well, not exactly, and this is why.
Standing out from the crowd means being loud
It's also true that advertising your business starts on a level playing field. The same options digital media offers your company are available to your rivals. Competition for customers — online, on TV, and on radio — can be fierce. While it's more convenient to create brand awareness in 2020, marketers face the same challenges they did a century ago. That's why it's so important to stand out. Being heard above the constant digital din means being bold. However, if you want to be remembered by consumers, you'll also need to be creative.
The need to put yourself in front of potential customers is a given. That's marketing 101. Yet, it's easy to forget that selling excellent products and services doesn't necessarily earn loyalty. Customers take excellence and convenience for granted in the modern world. Getting inside — and staying inside — the heads of buyers requires an altogether different approach.
Jingle all the way
In recent times, marketers have been exploiting one of the oldest advertising tricks in the business. We're currently living through a technological revolution. The transformation is rapid, ever-changing, and the advances come thick and fast. It can feel like we've come light years in just a few decades. Recent history can seem like it happened a very long time ago, and we live via screens and machines.
If you stop and take a breath, however, you'll notice that customers are still people, and where there are people, some things never change. That's why, in the battle to be remembered more than their competitors, many brands are turning back the clock and
returning to the jingle.
There's no disputing the power of music. It's a universal language that works perfectly for advertisers. Jingles harness that power by "earworming" their way into the heads and hearts of customers.
The wireless is dead, long live … erm, the wireless
Modern consumers take wireless internet for granted. However, back in the first half of the twentieth century, a different kind of wireless ruled the airwaves. This was the heyday of radio and marketers needed ways to appeal to the ears of potential customers. Jingles soon emerged as a sure-fire method for establishing brand identity and recall.
Readers over a certain age will no doubt recall many musical offerings for soap powder, soft drinks, and toothpaste. Ditties which once remembered, linger long in the mind. Those jingles really were the brands in the minds of many radio-age consumers. When TV arrived and replaced radio, nothing changed. Advertising executives simply paired catchy, brand-identifiable tunes with eye-grabbing imagery.
With the rise of internet advertising, you have the same opportunity to make audio a part of your brand identity. The present year is as good a year as any to harness the potential of the mighty jingle.
Using a freelancer to write your jingle
For many companies and brands, a full-blown advertising campaign can be daunting. Agency costs can be huge, and marketing budgets don't always allow that. The great news is that many music professionals work on a freelance basis. Prices are far lower and hiring a freelancer is easy. Using a freelancer also means working one-on-one and cuts out the red tape associated with large creative agencies.
You could
hire a freelancer expert in music production because of their skills and portfolio, but if you're not sure what you're looking for, the best way to get your jingle composed is to
post a contest where freelancers will create a jingle and you can listen to the entries to decide which you like best. To open a contest, just post a project and choose the contest option.
In this article, we're going to look at some of the things to consider when commissioning a jingle. We'll also examine how effective they are and look at why that is. So, if you think a jingle might work for your business, read on.
Telling it like it is
Of course, effective advertising isn't all about catchy tunes. Across all forms of media, marketing needs to be on message. There's no use in being remembered for the wrong things. So, what should a great jingle say about your business?
First and foremost, a jingle should work in a similar way to your logo and tagline. It should be unique and memorable, but it should also make a promise or guarantee, speak of quality and expertise.
Our multimedia environment is capable of diluting even the most concentrated advertising campaigns. It's tempting to complicate things by offering too much information. Jingles are a way of cutting through the clutter of modern-day media. They're geared for short attention spans, written to grab attention. Your freelancer will attempt to create a jingle that's a catchy, distilled representation of what makes your business great. Here's how you can help them do that.
History and values
When it comes to writing your jingle, speak to your freelancer about the values behind your business. Communicate how you got here, what got your company started. Did you arise from the need to solve a problem? Did your business begin small and grow? What drove you to work so hard for so many years? Why were you successful?
Blow your own trumpet
Your freelancer will look to include everything that is great about what you do. They'll try to convey your unique selling points and the reason you're better than your competitors. Tell your freelancer about the services and people you provide. Let them know if you're the cheapest option out there, or the best in the business. You know your company inside out, and it's essential to make sure your freelancer does too.
Tone it up, tone it down
The nature of your business will influence the way your freelancer writes your audio. Your jingle must fit what you do, and the people likely to use your services. However, you also need to make sure it's suitable for the circumstances. A jingle that's right for a children's party entertainer might not be right for an accountant. What works for a locksmith might not go down well for a funeral director.
Your freelancer will take account of where your clients are likely to be at when they enlist your help. Successful jingles play on emotions. Music can create excitement, happiness, fear, or even comfort in the minds of listeners.
Remember, be open to guidance when it comes to the tone of your jingle. Let your freelancer help you set an appropriate tone. Don't forget to return the favor and guide your freelancer. Let them know about any potential problems with tone. Provide a realistic breakdown of your business nature and customer base.
It would be helpful providing reference tracks and examples that may be close to what you want in terms of musical genre, tone, atmosphere and progression. This will give concrete examples for your freelancer to work from.
Keep it short and simple
Your freelancer will take all of the information you provide on board. Then, in order to produce something your potential customers will remember, they'll keep things simple. This is the time for you to trust in the talent of your freelancer. It's not a time for overcomplicating the message.
Some of the most effective and memorable jingles of all time got built on elementary musical principles, much like nursery rhymes. A powerful jingle conveys the right image. It's also effortless to recall over and over, instantly, whether the listener wants to or not. Once you've communicated any relevant information and core message to your freelancer, just sit back and admire their work.
Where to use your jingle
When it comes to airing your new jingle, it's essential to gauge exposure correctly. Successful campaigns use a jingle often enough to make sure listeners hear, remember and recognize it. However, you mustn't overuse your new composition. That can have undesired effects and annoy your target audience.
Some organizations roll their jingle out across all forms of media. When judged correctly, that can be a powerful marketing tool. It cements the music to existing brand identity, bringing in new customers, and providing fresh context for existing patrons. For newer businesses and products, jingles offer consumers an easy-to-remember, friendly introduction. Such campaigns employ TV ads, radio ads, and the internet.
It's possible to target online advertising campaigns accurately and to assess their results in great detail. The possibilities are almost endless when it comes to incorporating jingles into internet advertising, making the practice very cost-effective.
For companies operating within a small geographical area, radio advertising can prove very useful. Radio is still very relevant in 2020, and consumers listen to it a lot. At work, in the car, even around the house, there are times when audio is the only option. Far from being a relic of the past, the new digital radio remains an excellent medium for advertisers.
For organizations that want to maximize their radio advertising, adding a musical element can be a way to refresh campaigns. Jingles go one step further, giving potential customers something to associate with your brand. The vibe might be reassuring and authoritative, or fun and insanely melodic.
Whatever the tone of your radio jingle, consumers won't be able to help remembering you. It's a license to promote brand recall. A great jingle will do so much more for your business than that, though. Jingles build customer confidence because music is a very human way to reach out.
It's a good idea to ask your freelancer to produce different versions and arrangements of the same composition. For example, one short, one extended, one with a different end and one that can be looped; this will help to produce material for different types of release and use. This helps you avoid coming back months later to ask the freelancer to reopen the project.
The science bit
It's a fact that the internet gives us many choices. As advertisers, we're free to select from a wide range of formats when we deliver messages. However, that cuts both ways. Options are also plentiful for consumers. Internet users will quickly move on when faced with a wall of text. TV watchers will soon switch to another channel if things get boring, even for a few seconds. That limitless range of on-demand options has
shortened the attention spans of media watchers in 2020.
A jingle represents your chance to make your mark quickly. Whether consumers like it or not, jingles get stuck in the brain. Yet, that's not all they do. Music is also a great way to make words memorable, to make the boring more bearable.
Humans absorb information more efficiently and more quickly when the presentation is musical. Children use songs when learning how to count and how to read. What works in childhood
stays with us in our adult years. Marketers wishing to
improve brand recall need look no further than the jingle.