Every scroll, view, click, swipe, tap is shaped by what people care about, their habits and motivations. The campaigns that cut through aren’t always the ones that shout the loudest, they’re the one’s built on in depth audience insight and understanding.
Let’s kick off with a simple question: when was the last time a campaign made you stop the scroll? Think about the last campaign or brand that stood out to you, made you engage, or even covert. What was it that caught your eye? It likely aligned with your interests, your lifestyle or solved an immediate need/want. Importantly, I guarantee the campaign you thought of won’t be the same as the next person you meet.
We’re exposed to thousands of adverts, social posts, creative stunts, OOH, press articles (and so on!) but only a small percentage truly resonate.
On the flip side; how many campaigns or brands are out there that would resonate, but you simply haven’t discovered them because brands aren’t targeting effectively?
In today’s digital first world, attention spans are short, and ‘catch-all’ approaches won’t work. To survive the scroll, campaigns must be targeted, specific and rooted on insight.
Credit: Pexels, Fauxels
We’re Facing a Problem of Assumption
Audience assumption is a huge issue for brands who are still relying on top level demographics, without deep audience understanding or evidence.
In the session, we put our problem of assumption to the test. Offering up some top level data for two different people:
- Both female
- Both born in the early 80’s
- Both very wealthy
- Both living in high profile, luxury homes
- Both with younger children
- Both fashion-centric
Person 1 was Kate Middleton.
Person 2 was Kim Kardashian.
On paper, they look alike, and you could assume they read the same media, engage with social in the same way and shop with similar brands. But in reality they’re very different people. Surface level demographics can often be misleading, and audience assumption could be leading your marketing efforts astray.
We need insight.
Defined as “the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something”, insight goes beyond surface level demographics.
It’s also more than just spreadsheets and numbers; it’s understanding behaviours, preferences and motivations both on and offline and can be broken down into four pillars.
Cultural Insight: Understand the cultural conversations relevant to each audience segments and mapping their current, and shifting, values.
Behavioural: When, where and how do audiences engage with brands and content across platforms. Which media do they consumer and how are they using social platforms?
Emotional: What drives their decision making on a deeper level? Are they motivated by aspiration, a fear of missing out, emotional storytelling or something else?
Contextual: Where do they want to hear from brands? Will they be engaged at different times of the year or even at different life stages?
Ask yourself, how well do you know your audience across these pillars? How many campaigns have you led with creative first, and the results didn’t follow?
Gathering Insight
Our proprietary insight report, Mockingbird, gathers insights from multiple sources to provide a true reflection of a brands audience, listening to, and learning from their preferences, purchase influences and even personal values and attitudes. As Mockingbirds are known to mimic their surroundings, we echo brands true audiences.
Think of it as the missing piece to your marketing toolkit. You’ve got brand guidelines, tone of voice, design… but do you have something that defines who you’re speaking to, backed by real data, easily available for your team to understand and refer back to.
When it comes to gathering audience insight, consider desk research to source and map cultural trends, conduct primary research through surveys, focus groups or third party insight tools, and gather behavioural insight through search data, purchase data and owned historical data.
It can be overwhelming distilling data from multiple sources, but the next step is to build clear audience segments (a brand hardly ever just has one audience!) and develop personas which are hugely beneficial at the creative ideation stage, considering:
- WHO? Which persona are you targeting
- WHAT? What do we need to know about them
- WHERE? Where are they engaging with brands, which media do they read and social channels
- WHEN? When is the best time to reach them
- HOW? How are we going to speak to them
Goodbye Catch All
With defined audiences, and built out personas, you can tailor marketing activities, and be highly specific with tone, channel and timing so campaigns not only resonate, but reach the right audience at the right time.
Have You Done Enough to Stop the Scroll?
Measurement is key. Compare campaign performance before and after insight gathering, and while there isn’t a one size fits all approach to reporting (considering the campaign type and goals), consider reporting on: brand awareness and presence, sentiment, share of search and share of voice, branded search, organic traffic and conversions.
Key Takeaways
- Audience assumption could be harming your ROI
- Insight is way more than just numbers – it’s cultural, behavioural, emotional and contextual
- Define which audience you’re targeting before ideating a campaign
- Refer back to your insight at each stage of creative ideation
If you want to find out more about your audience, reach out at digital@hatch.group
This year, the Hatch team came out in force to present two talks at Leeds Digital Festival, you’ve just seen a rundown of our insight and audience focused talk, hosted by Insight Lead, Aimee Byrne-Nash and Associate Creative Director, Alex Halls. Check out our summary of the second talk The Communications Crisis: PR in a Digital Age here.
