Where does your audience get their information?
One reason to really, truly know your audience is that the answer to this question is “Everywhere!” In the old days, we had print and TV (and only three channels) and signage and it was an easy bet as to where to place your messaging. Today’s world contains everything from text messaging to billboards to social media. Chances are your audience is looking at about 7-8 different messaging channels a day. You’ve heard of many of the popular ones but others like a podcast ad or a GPS-enabled mobile banner may not be as obvious.
Knowing your audience means you can identify trends. The younger the audience, the more they tend to change channels regularly. The older audience typically finds something they like and sticks with it. Whatever the characteristics are that you’ve identified (and if you didn’t read my last blog post you can figure that out here ) they will lead you to the right channels. From there it’s a matter of determining the right MIX of those channels. It’s a bit like a recipe, as I’ve said before. You might need to tinker with the ingredients a bit, add a few things to spice it up now and again, and even provide entirely new flavor at times to make it work.
Don’t trust ad reps to give you this information either. It’s incredibly biased. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to find out the right mediums for your message:
- How old are your typical clients or customers? The younger they are, the more they tend to do things on their phone which means texting, Instagram and more mobile messaging channels.
- How expensive is your product? The more it costs, the more education people will want about it. Expensive services and products should consider investing in content marketing programs. (85% of marketers are spending more than HALF their budgets on content marketing now!)
- Do you have a lot of mom customers? They’re all about word of mouth, so PR and online buzz are really important here.
If you like, I can give you a FREE analysis of where your customers are likely finding their information. Email me at [email protected] for more information!
