One of the areas we really like to focus on with clients is their target audience – who are they really trying to get in front of, or heard by?

Surprisingly many haven’t given this the focus it really needs when rolling out campaigns. And of those that do know, many still aren’t able to compartmentalise them in to socio-economic and interest groups. If you can however, then well done, but that is still only a small step in actually UNDERSTANDING your consumers. We think it’s time for digital marketers to really step up their game in this area and find out what makes their audiences tick. For example, how they consume content and what they do when they aren’t actively researching or shopping for your brand or competitor - any idea?

Here’s a few top tips from us:

1. Consider your objectives carefully - Not – what do you want to do or how you want it to look, but what do you actually want to achieve. If the objective is for the audience to share it, what’s going to motivate them to do that? It needs to be something they care about – something that drives that passion within. How do you find out what that is though?

2. Build questions that tell you more about your audience directly into your new product development (NPD) process. Launch campaigns shouldn’t be a ‘Stage Two’ process; marketing, brand and NPD should be intrinsically linked, with campaign planning a key part of the development phase. This way the research and insight gained within your development phase will fuel the content generation from the outset by building a picture of your consumer.

3. Research, research, research - Yes, experience and instinct in the field is important, but landscapes change, especially in the digital world, almost weekly. Keep up to speed with evidence supporting your strategy and tactics

4. Work closely with the blogging community – their influence can be far reaching and if worked with successfully, can be a credible industry endorsement – this is especially true of the digital world. Furthermore bloggers have the insight to help shape your campaign - don’t be afraid to get them involved in the strategy. Many are happy to be approached as a sounding board since they know from first-hand experience what your consumers are talking about and what THEY want to see - not what YOU want them to see.

5. Use tools like Gorkana to help validate your gut instinct; sometimes it can spark off new angles or ideas which can add an extra dimension to a creative campaign. Other insight tools such as Likely and Sysmos also allow us to find out what consumers are passionate about – not what they are interested in relating to your product, but what are they genuinely passionate about.

6. Be consistent with your brand identity across different touch points, but also understand the way a target audience can change depending on where you interact with them. For example, a user on Google is in a “buy-ready” mood, but the same user may see an advert on Facebook or an article in a paper, but may not be ready to engage with you. This in turn can have a negative impact on brand loyalty and de-value the consumers view of you.

So how can you apply these tips to your campaigns? Let me give you a practical example. For G-Technology, we were tasked with improving engagement for the brand with a declining customer base. After carrying out the aforementioned steps, we went about creating a brand ambassador programme that was solely around creating genuine curated content. We looked into what media and content their target audience (professional photographers and videographers) were consuming and understood that no matter what stage of their career, they were always looking for hints and tips.

We went on to create an online G-Academy, enabling us to provide behind the scenes video content from celebrity photographers and filmmakers. We provided full free digital fact sheets with lighting diagrams, which sat alongside the relevant drives that G-Tech provided. This content was seeded through videos across social channels and to influencers and bloggers. This content received 21,000 views in less than six weeks – the client was delighted. And that is the power of relevant content when it hits a passion point.

At the end of the day, think of it like being at a party. The people who you enjoy talking to are those who take an interest in you, they ask questions and they listen to the answers — they don’t talk about themselves the whole time. We have all been to a party where you get stuck with someone who always talks about what they’ve done. These are the people who you, from that point on, avoid like the plague. That’s exactly what will happen to your audience if you do the same. Take note….

 

By Jamie Hockin, Business Development Director at Collider. 

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