Join us on 20 June 2024 at Memcom’s tropical summer party for an exclusive DTW session for Memcom members on ‘How to ensure your campaigns hit the spot: engaging with members and government in a post general election world’
Author: Hannah Cole
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Winning at hide and seek with your audience
Planning a campaign? How well do you really know your target audience?
One of the most important things we help our clients with on campaigns is understanding who their audiences are and where they can find them to connect and engage.
With new trends and channels popping up all the time, it can be challenging to keep track of where your audience hangs out. But investing time in research to understand their preferences and behaviours is key when making data-led decisions to inform a marketing strategy which delivers results.
There are lots of different ways to identify and understand your audience. For example, it might be based around geography, profession, a community of interest – it really depends on your objectives.
One of the most valuable methods can be to look at age.
With that in mind, let’s look at some of the latest demographic insights to help you win this game of hide and seek with your audience!
I’ve picked up the latest trends around three key age groups:
- Gen Z (aged circa 14 – 28)
- Millennials (aged circa 29 – 43)
- Gen X (aged circa 44 – 59)
- Baby boomers (aged circa 60 – 78)
Gen Z are over Google
Looking to get discovered by Gen Z? Consider focusing your strategy around social. According to Global Web Index (GWI), the number of Gen Z using social platforms for product research has surged by 35% since 2015. Instead of relying on traditional search engines, they’re turning to blogs, vlogs, pinboards, and video sites. To capture their attention, consider partnering with relevant influencers, investing in paid social advertising, or ramping up your organic content strategy on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Millennials lead the way for podcasts
You don’t have to spend hours in the recording studio to benefit from the power of the podcasts, especially when it comes to millennials. Compared to other generations, this group spends over an hour each day listening to podcasts – that’s twice as long as baby boomers and 25% more than Gen X. With 11% of millennials discovering new brands and products through podcast ads, you can reach them when they’re in a state of active listening. Do some research into podcasts that relate to your brand, don’t be afraid to get niche, and consider placing ads with them to generate high quality engagement.
Gen X want to feel seen
As a generation that can sometimes get lost between baby boomers and millennials, Gen X can often feel ignored by brands and organisations. This creates a great opportunity to grab their attention by featuring people from the Gen X generation within your campaign creatives. A recent survey by Wavemaker highlighted influencer marketing as a trend that makes this audience tick, with campaigns featuring Gen X creators resonating 73% more with Gen X audiences and driving a 43% increase in website visits. If influencer marketing isn’t in your marketing mix, you could take inspiration and use testimonials and photography of your Gen X members or customers when connecting with a Gen X audience to capture their attention and help them identify with your campaign.
Baby boomers are the new gamers
Think gaming is just for kids? Think again. Baby boomers are the new gamers in town, with a 22% increase in daily gaming activity over the past two years. They’re by no means the most avid gamers (that title goes to Gen Z), but this is a trend not to be ignored. To reach this older demographic, consider placing ads on puzzle-based or action-adventure games. You might be surprised by the level of engagement you can achieve.
So, as we can see, demographic segmentation is a great starting point to understand your audience. But to take things to the next level and really get to know them, try to go beyond age brackets; delve into their values, beliefs, interests, and behaviours to create a real connection. For instance, if you’re targeting health-conscious millennials, you might look specifically at health and fitness podcasts whilst also partnering with local health centres and gyms to meet them where they are.
Spending time building a clear picture of your audience can have a real payoff for your strategy. Staying informed about evolving trends and channels and combining demographic and more in-depth data can allow you to create a campaign which really resonates and delivers meaningful results.
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Membership Excellence 2022
Earlier this week DTW Director Hayley Stewart and I attended the Memberwise Membership Excellence 2022 conference as exhibitors. Our two top takeaways?
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Trust online: why verification matters
At the end of 2020 Twitter began overhauling its verification process with a view to launching the new and improved version early this year. It’s a move that’s long overdue and will improve trust between organisations and their audiences by defining what verification means, who is eligible and why some accounts might lose verification.
This year has taken us on quite a ride hasn’t it? Things kicked off with devastating bush fires in Australia whilst Prince Harry and Meghan Markle upped sticks to America and it wasn’t long before Covid-19 arrived, the stock markets crashed, Black Lives Matter protests flooded the streets and life as we knew it changed forever.
Covid-19 has changed the way businesses and organisations position and market themselves. DTW Strategist Hannah Cheetham takes time to draw breath and consider how organisations need to re-focus social media in a Covid-19 world.
The social media world was turned upside down by Covid-19. The landscape changed overnight and content that was appropriate suddenly became redundant and out of date.
When Covid-19 began to emerge as an issue in the UK during February and March, we reacted quickly for our clients to review plans and strategies. In many cases this meant quickly pivoting to remove or replace content and tailor messaging.
For clients like the Law Society, we re-planned the list of topics we were covering for our weekly Twitter chat, SolicitorChat, and developed new graphics focussed on Covid-19. For others, such as Road Safety GB North East, we updated our content schedule to focus messaging on the increased number of pedestrians and cyclists using the roads.
As we look ahead to the next 12-18 months it’s important to move beyond the react and pivot stage. Plans need to be made for the “new normal” where social and digital media will play an increasingly important role in communications.
If you’re wondering where to start with dealing with all of this, here are our top five tips for getting your digital and social strategy right in the new post-lockdown world:
1. Be clear on your goals
Before you start out, it’s critical you know what you’re setting out to achieve. Targets, goals and KPIs that you have set previously may no longer be relevant or may require revising. Depending on what your approach to digital and social has been over the last 10 weeks, take a look at the data and analytics you have available to help inform this process.
2. Know your audience
When was the last time you took the pulse of your audience’s online activity? Covid-19 has changed the way that people use and interact with their peers and brands online and what you knew in January could have changed massively now. Tools such as Sprout Social’s listening platform (paid) and Answer the Public (offers free and paid options) are great for getting snapshots of online behaviours which you can feed into your plans.
3. Be timely and be relevant
This was always important but is even more so now. Consider things like greater use of long form content such as featured articles and blogs which provide your audience with a more detailed insight into the topics you’re communicating than you might have done in the past. We’re all spending more time online now and as a result are more likely to engage with this detailed content.
4. Stop, evaluate and listen
Things are changing constantly, so consider breaking your campaign or activity into phased bursts with pauses built in to review what is working (and what isn’t). This allows you to tweak and amend your approach to take into account what’s generating the best results and any changes in the wider world which may have an impact on your work.
5. Don’t be afraid to be bold
We’ve already seen a number of big brands successfully change their approach to social and digital as a result of Covid-19. If the data and insights back up the idea of ripping up your carefully thought out plans from earlier in the year and setting out in a new direction, don’t be afraid to do this!
What’s certain, in addition to the above, is that things will continue to change and develop as we adapt to new ways of living and working – and I think that digital and social media will be right at the centre of this.
Thanks for reading.
Hannah