Do You Really Know Your Audience? - Heidi Cohen

How Well Do You Know Your Audience? The one point most of last week’s SparkTogether speakers consistently made was “Know your audience”. To appreciate the full impact your marketing will have and to mitigate potential issues, I recommend defining your audience to include: Your local community both online and in the physical world. Before you roll your eyes and tell me you have a well documented marketing persona, follow this advice from April Dunford, author of Obviously Awesome. “Don’t treat this as a fill-in-the-blanks Mad Libs exercise!”(Editor’s note: April referred to mission statements in her Spark Together talk but the same principle applies to describing your audience.) Get out of your office and talk to actual customers (and, where possible, speak with your competitors’ customers) to understand and appreciate what they want. Then position your offering to meet their needs. Marketing Audience Definition: What You Need To Know Did The Parties In The US Midterm Elections Know Their Audience? Historically, in the US, the President’s political party loses seats across the different levels of federal, state and local government in the midterm elections. Prior to last week’s vote, political pundits across the spectrum expected the election to be a massive “Red Wave” where Republicans would win a very large majority of the vote. Last week’s Midterm Elections underscored the problems that result when you assume you know your audience. Political campaigns are a lot like marketing. The biggest difference: Politics sells intangible ideas while marketing sells tangible products and services. How did the 2 major US political parties position themselves to voters? Republicans broadly focused on inflation and changing the Washington, DC status quo while some Republican candidates maintained extreme beliefs, By contrast, Democrats focused on saving democracy. To this they added: expanded women’s right to choose; increased gun safety; improved economy; investment in green technologies and transportation; and creating future-looking jobs. While the final results of the US 2022 Midterm Elections may not be known until some time in December, the Democrats maintained control of the Senate. Interview your best customers. Learn how to get more customers you want to keep. Understand how consumers in general have changed over the past 3 to 5 years. Audience Media Consumption Data: How To Improve Your Marketing

How Your Brand Can Get Hurt By Factors Beyond Your Control While branding takes time to develop and is difficult to measure precisely, it contributes significantly to your organization’s total financial value. The more valuable your brand, the more care required to ensure that its reputation and trust remain untarnished This translates to vigilantly protecting your brand across platforms, media, devices and contexts. Consider where your brand is mentioned and the context in which it appears. While at The Economist where everyone spoke about the brand with reverence, I pulled an online advertising campaign when our ad appeared next to adult content. With the increased volatility across social media platforms, most notably Twitter, I recommended increasing the monitoring of your organization’s privacy and security in last week’s AMG Newsletter. After Musk announced that any account could get a verified blue check for $8 per month, a fake account appearing to be Eli Lily tweeted that its insulin would be free. While Eli Lily tried disputing the false tweet, it remained up and visible for hours. As the tweets below show, the false tweet gained more traction than the brand’s own account. As a result, Eli Lily’s share prices dropped 4.37% or about $15+ billion in value. The Ultimate Branding Checklist: How To Create Your Branding Strategy

Are You Still On Twitter? As a long time user of Twitter, I’ve reduced my use of the social media platform since Elon Musk took over on October 28th. Why? Because Musk has laid off half of the staff, often via email and without following state employment laws.Oops! To quickly increase revenues, Musk implemented the Twitter Verification Subscription at $8 per month without following the usual product processes. The Blue Checkmark indicates that Twitter has checked that an account is actually owned by the person or organization it represents. As businesses and high profile individuals quickly learned, it’s not working properly – causing major headaches for Twitter and others. So the product is currently on pause. Also, major brands including Eli Lily have paused their paid advertising on the platform. So what can you do as a marketer? Start by downloading your Twitter archive so you have a copy of your Twitter history. Then either: Leave your Twitter profile as is with a pinned tweet to route followers to another platform or your owned media. This keeps others from squatting on your name. Currently, the major new alternative to Twitter is Mastodon, a more decentralized, Web 3.0 version of Twitter. You join a specific server run by an organization, individual, or group of individuals. How To Encourage Social Media Followers To Join Your Audience

Since Peter Parker, the real identity of Spiderman, grew up in the Forest Hills section of Queens, it makes sense that Marvel partnered with the New York Public Library (aka: NYPL) to celebrate comics. Offering the same benefits as an ordinary library card, Marvel and the NYPL created a special Spiderman branded library card. It’s free while supplies last. I got mine last week! To encourage reading comic books and graphic novels, the NYPL spotlighted them in a display near the front of the library. Take care when using any element of licensed products like Marvel and Star Wars since their legal departments actively protect their intellectual property! Partner with a related business to create a promotion that makes sense to your audience and benefits both parties. Create a list of options for your business and ask your team which ones make the most sense for your customers and your business. How To Create Winning Co-Marketing Partnerships: What You Need To Know To Improve Your Results

With the major changes across the media environment, it’s a good time to refresh your understanding of the differences in media options and how to best use them to distribute and keep your media visible over time. Start by understanding what media is with this 15 Point Media Definition Checklist: The Ultimate Media Definition: 15 Point Checklist Are you taking advantage of all of your owned media options? Owned Media Platform Guide: 40+ Options You May Be Missing The upheavals of the last two years have created opportunities for customer service teams to rethink service delivery and how best to support the people who do such important work. To understand what the future might look like, Slack talked with business and customer service leaders across industries and countries about what comes next. Get this Free eBook from Slack today!