Think of the last time you went to a bank or a professional office and saw a community candy dish at the teller or receptionist’s station– you got a little excited, right? Candy dishes are, in a sense, a variation of personalized marketing. The person putting one out is making a conscious choice to say: “Hey, I want you to come near my area, and I’m attracting you here with this sweet bait.” That having been said, there’s nothing worse than when you glance in that dish only to discover a bunch of old, stale, butterscotch hard candy with no other options.

Consider your advertising strategy to be your company’s “candy dish.” If you put out the right treats in the right format, you’re sure to remain a popular entity among your client base. If your approach or product begins to get stale, dated and generic, the amount of traffic you attract will suffer. Here are some tips to make sure your advertising candy bowl is filled with the freshest, trendiest sweets in 2019.

Personalize your candy dish by using AI to determine what specific clients like most
Thanks to the advancement of AI (Artificial Intelligence), you have the ability to rapidly analyze customer data and convert that information into targeted, customized advertising that will hone in on specific client needs based on their activities. If you can’t visualize how this works, think about your Facebook feed in recent years; you’ve probably noticed that if you start researching travel, great Caribbean destinations, etc., then next time you log onto your profile you are greeted by a number of advertisements for cruise lines, airfare broad-liners, and other travel industry companies. This is neither magic nor coincidence. Facebook and other advertisers are taking advantage of AI to build direct marketing campaigns focused on what your browsing says about your upcoming needs. However, this technology is not unique or exclusive to Facebook or other large companies. Many smaller businesses are incorporating AI to design more productive advertising that delivers a greater return on investment and a shorter sales cycle.

Identify your majority consumer and put out sweets that appeal to them
Advertising is driven by the buying patterns of the per capita consumer. Whether you’re excited or terrified by this news, the majority of the buying power in the United States comes from Generation X, millennials and Generation Z. According to an Entrepreneur.com article, “Generation Z… will become the biggest single population group in the world in 2019.” Accordingly, it’s important that you recognize the truth of how these potent populations consume their advertising, and build your strategy accordingly.

So what are flavor do these generations prefer? Short and sweet is good to eat
In 2019 content is still king, but trends in the sort of content preferred by the average consumer are shifting. While blogs and articles still have their place, to really appeal to an increasingly large percentage of consumers it’s important to advertise in a more visual format. More specifically, videos are a better way to market to millennials and Gen Z than perhaps any other format. As Katherine Hays explains in the article cited earlier from Entrepreneur.com: “the average Gen Zer watches about 68 videos a day.” That’s a lot of minutes of content; to grow your brand, it’s important to get your material out there in this popular format. It also merits mention that more recent generations who grew up with technology also grew up over-inundated with ads, pop-ups, click bait, and other attention-grabbing techniques used by companies since the advent of the internet. As a result, these populations of consumers have a lower threshold of tolerance for long-winded marketing campaigns. If you want your brand to connect, try to produce content that’s short, interactive, and targeted. If you can produce ads that are brief and full of value, you’ll draw more looks from the modern buyer.