Guest post by Emma Williams.
Cats rule the internet—so much so that the topic has its own Wikipedia page. Even with millions of cat photos and videos online, any content that features a cute or funny cat still has a good chance of going viral.
And cats aren’t just superstars in pet-centric niches. Felines have made their way into marketing campaigns from companies like GoDaddy, Ikea, and many others. Even Mercedes Benz has pawed its way on board the cat marketing trend.
So should your marketing include cats? Here are seven reasons to consider leveraging the feline advantage.
1. Cats Grab Our Attention.
B2B marketing can be tough, especially when so many campaigns look the same. People skim past buzzword-laden content, maybe glancing at the occasional well-turned phrase, but rarely engaging or responding.
Since you’re after more than a mere semi-interested glance at what you have to offer, consider adding cats to your marketing materials. Cats are curiously captivating creatures with the ability to display a wide range of emotions; perhaps that’s one reason why most of us are naturally drawn to content that features whimsical felines.
2. Cats Add Emotional Appeal.
As a marketing professional, you know how important it is to infuse your content with emotion. Even in B2B, buyers are actual humans with feelings. But what if your product is something that just doesn’t really grab potential customers by the heartstrings?
Good news: Cats can help tip the emotional scales in your favor. Simply including images that include funny, adorable, or charismatic cats can help you begin to build an emotional base when you don’t have much else to work with. And in the event that your materials are fairly enticing on their own, including cats in your marketing campaign will stir up viewers’ emotions even more.
3. Cats Can Help You Build Engagement.
Getting your audience’s attention is only part of the battle. Add cats to your content and suddenly, you’re getting warm responses—maybe because cats are just so relatable, and probably because fresh, funny content isn’t bland and boring, so people are far more likely to appreciate it. This gives you the opportunity to engage in return, built rapport, and watch those numbers increase.
4. Cat Memes and Videos Go Viral.
If you’re using social media as part of your B2B or account-based marketing strategy (and who isn’t these days?), then you’re going to love what cat memes and videos do for you. For some reason, people can’t seem to get enough of hilarious cats, adorable poses, silly hijinks, and adorable but grouchy faces.
If you want your message to travel around the web, use cats as your mascots. Case in point? Grumpy Cat (may she rest in peace). People all around the world recognize her little scowl, share her image, and purchase products that feature her unamused face.
5. Using Cats Gives Your B2B Marketing More Authenticity.
Buzzwords and jargon used to work well when carefully targeted and before marketers started to use them just for the sake of using them! Today, marketing communicators need more than the latest lingo to capture and keep attention. People (even B2B buyers) crave authenticity and newness. They love originality and they applaud content that shows personality.
Cats can help you gain authenticity, so long as you come up with creative new approaches to using their images! Don’t be that marketer who makes the mistake of using the same cat meme that everybody has already seen and shared.
Instead, come up with your own ironic, silly, or whimsically appealing content, (or use user-generated content), that somehow relates to the line of products you have on offer.
6. Cats Appeal to People in Different Age Groups.
With a few exceptions, just about everyone pauses what they’re doing to take a look at the latest hilarious cat meme or video. Consider your target audience, i.e. millennials who enjoy pop culture references or middle-aged decision makers who tend to appreciate sophisticated humor, and you’ll be well on your way to beating the competition.
7. Cats are Memorable.
Online and off, the world is absolutely flooded with content that shouts about how to achieve a better bottom line, grow sales, or increase efficiency. We all know what happens when we’ve heard the same message a million times: We have a tendency to skim, skip, and daydream.
Add an original cat video or cat meme to your marketing materials and sprinkle your content with a liberal dose of humor, and you’ll be making great strides toward improving your current marketing strategy—all thanks to furry felines.
History has proven time and again that adding cats to a marketing campaign can make your content more popular as well as more lucrative. Cat images, memes, and videos are among the web’s top-performing content across the international marketplace.
When you use cats in your B2B marketing campaigns, you prove that you’re of a similar mindset to your audience, you earn their trust, and you have a greater chance to show that your objectives are in line with theirs. Cats encourage people like you more, and they’re the furthest you can get from annoying clickbait.
So, figure out what’s most important to your prospects, sprinkle in a liberal dose of feline humor, and keep it coming. Over time, those prospects will come to look forward to your messaging—and they’ll be more likely to wind up on your list of clients.
Emma Williams is a digital marketing guru and also a cat fanatic! She pours her free time into writing for the blog All About Cats, and sharing her knowledge of pet-health, pet behavior, and pet training.