Humor works, no matter where you are, and your business stands a lot to gain from injecting a lot of it whenever it is appropriate.
A worldwide survey carried out by Nielsen showed that incorporating humor into advertising themes always performed well compared to other themes such as pets, family, and sex. And this is true all over the world.
And this is not at all surprising, because people love to laugh. Some of the most viral content and most watched videos all over the world are humorous content and videos.
Injecting some humor into your brand is one of the best tactics you can employ to grab the attention of your audience and create a long-lasting impression.
But you would have to be careful: what is funny for you may cause someone else to roll their eyes or, even worse, take offence. Humor is subjective, so you’ve got to be very intentional and careful when using humor in your advertisements.
Here are a few tips to help you do that without falling flat on your face or embarrassing yourself and chasing your audience away:
Know Your Audience
Every comedian worth their salt would be able to tell you this. You’ve got to know your audience in order to recognize what they consider funny and relatable.
As a marketer, one way to go about doing this involves creating buyer personas. By understanding the demographics and particularities of your audience you would be able to get a better handle on what they consider funny, and what they would consider offensive.
Know Their Pain Points
Find out what the pain points of your audience are, and then find a way to make light humor out of it. This shows your audience that you understand what their issues and needs are, and also acts a great entryway into showing how your business or brand can solve said problems.
Give It a Test Run
Not even professional comedians would dare use untested content. You don’t want to discover your humor is ineffective during an active campaign—that would be a quick way to lose customers and credibility forever.
So, run your funny content by others. Preferably they should be members of the target audience rather than co-workers who are emotionally invested. If your punch line fails to deliver the required reaction, you would know you still have some tweaking to do.
Keep It Light and Unserious
Keeping the tone of your conversation after your ad light and humorous will go a long way to keep members of the target audience engaged. You want to prolong the impact of your funny content.
Leave a Strong Impression
Sometimes all you need to do to make a strong and long-lasting impression is to go around digging and sharing little known or interesting facts about the product you want to share. And then serve it up to your audience in a way that is humorous.
Don’t Forget Memes
When in doubt, go with memes. The internet is awash with them, and that is because everybody likes them. You could simply hijack trending memes that have spread across major social media platforms and piggy back your way towards popularity that way. This is one of the fastest ways to get the attention of the more social media savvy section of your audience.
Conclusion
You don’t have to go full pro as a comedian to inject humor into your content and start reaping the benefits. With a little creativity and artistic flair, you would be surprised how humorous and impactful your content can become.
