What Do Your Customers Do?
For decades, marketers have focused on reaching their customers based on mounds of demographic data, which has been used to develop target profiles.
Brand X is aimed at 35-55 year old women with children who have a household income of 100-200K.
We’ve all seen these before.
Demographic targeting can be useful, particularly when trying to reach customers through mass media. The above demographic is more likely to watch certain TV shows, listen to certain radio programs, and read certain magazines.
Do they care?
The problem with demographic targeting is that it is aimed at the lowest common denominator. Brands are forced to assume that most people within a certain demographic share the same interests, values and behaviours. But we all know that this is far from the truth. Check out this post for a perfect example of a female golfer who gets neglected by golf companies because she isn’t in their target demographic.
If I were to market this blog, I wouldn’t care about the age or gender of the target. I would want to reach people that are interested in marketing and brand strategy and who regularly read blogs. While there are some demographics that are more likely to fit that bill, it would be difficult reaching my target in a cost efficient way based on demographics alone.
Finding interests
Most traditional media is a one way broadcast, and thus collects limited information on the audience which can be used for improve targeting. The question becomes, who do you find people with the same interests?
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. While there are lots of options available for interest based marketing, they do not have the reach of traditional media like TV or radio. This will keep these channels relevant for years to come, primarily as a means for big brands to raise broad awareness.
Interest based marketing, by its very nature, is going to be done on a much smaller scale. But to balance out this sacrifice, its impact on someone in your target will be much higher because it is more relevant to them than a TV commercial ever could be.
Think digital
Digital media collects more data on users than any other channel making it one of the best methods for interest based marketing. Whether using digital advertising like Google Adwords or social media marketing through Facebook or LinkedIn, marketers are presented with targeting options that could only have been dreamed about 10 years ago.
- Bands can target fans that like similar artists
- Blogs can target marketing professionals that are interested in social media
- Restaurants can target self-proclaimed ‘foodies’ that like certain types of cuisine
All of these targeting options occur regardless of age, gender or household income.
Think smaller
While everyone quickly jumps to digital solutions, there are also options within traditional media but this requires the marketer to put together more, smaller campaigns that are more targeted. Specialized magazines and events let marketers target consumers based on specific interests. But since they are much smaller than mass media, marketers have been hesitant to adopt them.
A previous series on this blog about interest based marketing has proven it to be a more powerful way to reach customers. Now it just requires marketers to step up their game so that they can overcome the challenges of these channels. A little more hustle is going to go a long way for marketers in the next 5 years.
Ben Wise
3 Comments
Dawn Marchand said
Great blog Ben and thanks for the 'shout out'. This is going to require a new way of thinking for most marketers. We are all comfortable with traditional media and traditional ways of marketing - demographics .... but we have to change and adapt. You've provided some simply but powerful first steps - think digital and think smaller. We can't wait for the golden rules of Social Media - they don't exist. But we do have to be open to and start dialogues with our prospects and customers - in a manner and with messages that are relevant to them - whatever life stage they may be in.
Ben Wise said
Hi Dawn - thanks for your comment.
I think the biggest barrier now is that marketers are risk averse. The horror stories of social media get shared so quickly (via social media, ironically) and that makes people hesitant to try new things. Until enough people take the leap, we aren't going to have any 'golden rules'
Megann Willson said
Agreed that we won't have golden rules in a hurry...but things are changing too fast for "golden rules" to really ever get established. 'New' becomes 'old' much faster.
Interest-based marketing has been a good idea for a long time. The only difference is that the media we now have (digital and social, and even just the more efficient ways we can produce traditional media) are making it possible to afford many small campaigns.
Now if companies will just invest in enough marketers to keep track of it all, we'll be set. Seriously, one hurdle that still remains is this: it was complicated for a brand team to keep track of all the things going on with a product or service when the target consumer looked "all the same". Now that there are many different SICs (special interest consumers) for a product...the marketing world is going to get whole lot more complicated.