PDF The problem with broadcasting a single message to a mass audience is that it misses out on the diversity of your audience. I’m not talking about their demographic variations, but their engagement with your brand. Loyalists, casual users and newcomers all need different kinds of hooks to draw them in.
Why is this so important? Well, let’s think about the recent Tintin film. I’m a long-term Tintin fan, so I needed a fair bit of convincing that this adaptation would be faithful to the comics I love. Much of the marketing I came across seemed targeted more at a fresh audience. All the publicity material was geared to the American market, where Tintin and other Franco-Belgian comics familiar to the Indian audience are relatively unknown.
It took a friend who is also a diehard Tintin fan to finally drag me to the last theatre in town that was still the screening the film, a month back. Incidentally, the film varied from excellent to decent in direct proportion to the extent to which it adhered to Herge’s original vision (You knew I’d say that, didn’t you?). If I’d had access to material that made me feel like the film acknowledged the presence of a long-term audience that knew the source material inside out, I might have gone earlier! That’s where targeting by the level of engagement comes in.
Targeting by the level of engagement doesn’t just apply to high-involvement pop-cultural entities. Every brand’s audience can be broken down similarly. A lipstick brand has users who swear by that brand, users who include it in their regular consideration set and newcomers who haven’t formed an opinion either way.
The trick is to create outreach packages that will appeal to each audience’s level of engagement and awareness. The lipstick loyalist could be targeted with special packages that let them create their own shades, interactive overviews of the brand’s history and special pre-releases of discontinued shades. A middling user could be drawn further in with special offers and comparison tests. A newcomer could be converted into a fan with special welcome kits, charts to help match shades with skin tones and outfits and so on.
Of course, this strategy is particularly well-suited to the digital space, where you can segment audiences and deliver specialized messages more easily. This means you will have to start laying the groundwork by building a presence on networking platforms and maybe creating your own fan platform as well.
But you’re already doing that. Right?
To sum up, let’s take a look at the key principles of segmented targeting :
- Divide your audience into fan segments: casual, active and loyalist
- Give each segment packages that reward their existing level of involvement and encourage them to dive deeper
- Build on existing energy; leverage your past successes and give users a feel of continuity and being part of an ongoing saga
- Build a long-term audience; by consistently networking with your fans on third-party or proprietary platforms. You can also create an ongoing engagement that is not tied to launches, offers and campaigns
Need some help with relating this to your brand? Or maybe you already have some great ideas but need help with execution and rollout? i-Vista’s Digital Marketing and Technology teams stand by you to help consolidate and build a fan base.