President, Straightline
mystraightline.com
Fragmentation in media is the buzz these days. Whether it is negative news as in the broadcast industry citing yet another viewership loss due to fragmentation, or positive news of yet another start-up company fragmenting channels further by introducing the next big advertising solution. Fragmentation will continue to challenge marketers over the next 20 years.
With so much demand for content in print and onscreen, the old value proposition of advertising following the readers can only lead to the dilution of both readership as well as advertising pricing.
What is happening simultaneously is that audiences are finding their own “tribes”. What is making things even more challenging is the fact that one person can belong to many tribes. For example, marketers can no longer say they are going after the “Mom demo” which was typically women who are 35-45 with 2.3 children. Are you talking about divorced mom’s, married mom’s, working mom’s, home schooling mom’s, mom’s who send their kids with the nanny, mom’s who have their own reality TV show, mom’s who cook, mom’s who sew their kid’s costumes or mom’s who golf? Which kinds of mom’s are you looking for exactly? The age of one spend to get the majority of a demographic are over.
Fragmentation in both marketing channels and audiences/readers of content will force marketers to think in terms of a very specific lifestyle of an audience and how to reach them. If you can determine the commonalities of the audience that is doing business with you, then you can determine better ways to attract more of that like-minded audience. In contrast, you may find that you aren’t doing enough to reach audiences you thought you were reaching all along. Marketing based upon the desired audience’s lifestyle will lead over the next 20 years.
The solution to finding the right Mom is to know your audience. Know the types of Mom "tribes" you are looking for and appropriate dollars accordingly. Know the lifestyle that your audience leads and triangulate that audience the best way you can through other channels to repeat your brand exposure.
This particular Mom (me) dines out a few nights a week. This Mom holds meetings and drinks Starbucks coffee at their store. This Mom takes her daughter to movies a few times a month. This Mom hires someone to clean her house (because she is just not good at it!). This Mom reads the newspaper daily, and DVRs her favorite shows on TV. This Mom is not a target for the Swiffer, Glade products or Sam’s Club.
What would be the right advertising outlet to reach someone like me? On Screen Movie commercials? Email newsletters from my favorite restaurants? Direct mail from cleaning companies? DVR downloadable commercials?
Even though fragmentation is forcing us into different tribes, the average American rarely diverts from their regular routine. For instance, did you know that the average American only watches 8 channels of television with any regularity? It makes me wonder with all of the thousands of advertising channels available to a marketer—are we stressing over nothing because we are creatures of habit?
Marketing budgets are not infinite
Think of all the ways you could reach a Mom, just in PRINT MEDIA!
Ads in newspapers, ads in newspaper special sections, ads in magazines, ads in magazine special sections, newsletters, brochures, booklets, content sponsor material, pop-ups, post-its, coupons, shoppers, samples, surveys, stickers, cover wraps, inserts, advertorials, post cards, letters, yellow pages, bill stuffers, custom pieces, receipts, shelf coupon dispensers, packages flyers and that BAG your newspaper comes in!
What is mind numbing is that this list is JUST PRINT! This doesn’t even consider the channels that fall under Public Relations Marketing, Direct Marketing, Audio/Video Marketing, Online Marketing, Place-Based Marketing, Experiential Marketing, Out of Home Marketing or marketing through Mobile Devices!
If you are the person responsible for driving dollars through marketing, how do you choose? Where is the MOM within all of these channels?
Help in defining your audience
Break down your demo into unique “tribes”. One tribe is “Working Mom”, one is “Stay at Home Mom”, etc. Then, analyze the lifestyle of each. If you are able to more narrowly define your audience, you can then determine which advertising spends make the most sense based on a prioritization of who you are trying to reach.
Here is a list of questions to help you define your audience by lifestyle:
- What is the core product you are attempting to sell?
- Who is the audience you are targeting for your product or service?
- What need are you filling?
- Is your marketing message going to resonate with the needs of this audience?
- Why do your current clients elect to do business with you? What is the common thread?
- Is this the core audience you want?
- Of the core audience you are looking to reach, what do those people do on a daily basis? What is their lifestyle? How are they similar?
- What ways are they using media channels throughout the day? Are they attending events? What are they reading? What are they watching? What are they doing on their telephone? What are they doing with their families?
- Is the consumption focused more on one channel than others?
- Are any other companies looking to reach this same, exact demographic that would be sensible to partner with?
Fragmentation in both marketing channels and differing tribes isn’t going anywhere folks. The most successful marketers will have pinpoint accuracy on how individual tribes are using their product or service, and will target them based on that lifestyle.
For help on defining your audience, visit www.mystraightline.com for additional tools.
