The Power of Humor in Marketing

Humor in Marketing

By Miriam Fuller

Building your brand’s marketing strategy around fast sales or even a click of a button is not uncommon, but is this the best way to boost engagement and clientele long-term? How do you build long-term connections to keep customers past their first sale? While many possible marketing options exist to create lasting bonds with customers, humor is the easiest way to boost customer loyalty and engagement. Marketing Choices understands the power of humor within marketing and is here to help you see how it can aid you in meeting your marketing objectives.

Humor’s Ability to Build Connections

Almost all connections begin with an emotional interaction. Utilizing these emotional interactions in your marketing plan can help you boost your brand. The best and often quickest form of emotional interaction is laughter within humor. Using humor in marketing allows you to build customer connections and make your brand memorable and accessible to your clientele. How many times have you felt comforted by a humorous comment or felt confident in returning somewhere because someone made you laugh? A quick silly quip or photo can make your brand feel relatable and tangible, building customer loyalty. Humor is often the element in conversations and interactions that connect large audiences, creating a common ground that becomes a foundation for a future relationship. It is this connecting power of humor, when applied in marketing, that boosts businesses’ clientele and engagement. Lasting connections with your target audience should be the goal in all marketing strategies, and harnessing humor can be the most effective way to form these vital connections. 

6 Types of Beneficial Humor in Marketing

When beginning to use humor in marketing, it can be difficult to know just how or even what types of humor will work. Thankfully, most types of humor are applicable in marketing. Here is a short list of humor types you can utilize in your marketing plan. 

  1. Self-Deprecating Humor: this connects audiences through the humor of flaws or flawed experiences.  
  1. Situational/Observational Humor: using a point-of-view story or relatable experience builds the relatability of your brand through familiar, humorous situations.
  1. Puns: wordplay is always a universal humor that can quickly and easily provide your brand with a playful engagement. 
  1. Memes: humor through photos or videos, also known as memes, is how younger audiences connect through online humor. Memes are an all-encompassing medium that are wonderful ways to build a younger audience by building humorous connections.
  1. Character Comedy: if your brand has a mascot or even a recognizable figure, using them to create funny situations, characteristics, or quips can be a great way to build brand memorability. 
  1. Social Media Trends: popular, humorous “challenges” or trends on social media are great ways to utilize social media marketing through humor and expand your brand’s traction and engagement. 

Humor can be a simple way to engage your audience and keep them returning for more. It can also help you keep a light-hearted, relatable feel to your brand, making customers more comfortable. No matter what types of humor you use throughout your marketing strategy, it is sure to help boost your brand and meet crucial objectives. 

Humor’s Impact Within Marketing

Humor has a unique way of making us feel seen, relatable, and uplifted. A funny joke can often stay with us longer than an emotional quote simply because the joke lifted our spirits. Using humor to engage with your target audience not only helps them feel seen but also helps your brand to feel relatable. When customers see a business or brand outside of the context of sales, it often increases engagement and solidifies customer loyalty. Humor allows customers to see a brand as an accessible “being” rather than a cold sales business. It is this changing of perspective that allows brands to build long-term connections and engagement.

Humor may seem simplistic, but its impact on society and marketing can be one of the best ways to create strong foundations. No matter what humor you choose to utilize, your brand will be able to be seen as “human,” and this can boost its engagement, clientele, and trust. Using humor in marketing shows that your brand goes beyond just sales and profits. Humor provides your audience the comfort to advocate and engage with your brand. Just as humor increases our comfort with a stranger, it helps businesses to effortlessly and light-heartedly encourage engagement and customer loyalty. 

Humor in Your Marketing Strategy

Marketing objectives rightfully tend to make profit the end goal. However, building loyalty, boosting engagement, and ensuring continual sales often become simpler when brands appear relatable. Using humor in marketing provides your clientele with a change of perspective from a “profit-minded business” to a “comfortably relatable brand.” Marketing Choices understands that this shift in view and the ability to form strong connections makes humor incredibly impactful in marketing. 

Marketing Choices is a team of intelligent and creative professionals who strive to build brands through personalized marketing plans and campaigns. If you are seeking help boosting your brand’s marketing strategy, Marketing Choices offers free consultations and multitudes of marketing options. Contact us today to learn more about humor in marketing and how we can help you in your marketing journey.