Here at D/A, we talk a lot about audience-first influence cycles, which is changing marketers and communication planners’ way of thinking through the traditional marcomms planning funnel. Traditionally brands would build a brand story and positioning, develop a suite of products or services and then find and purchase an audience for them.
With audiences becoming more aware of their own consumption and of the access to information that powers their decision-making, brands can no longer expect to survive with the ‘built it and they will come mentality.
Placing audiences at the heart of brand building increases the relevance to them, and therefore can only result in engagement and growth.
The new process creates a ‘flywheel’ effect, whereby the more you integrate the audience, the bigger it becomes, the more customers you have, the more ROI you will generate, and the more relevant your brand will become.
STEP 1: Build an audience
STEP 2: Develop the brand
STEP 3: Adjust the product offering accordingly
STEP 4: Give back to the audience to continue building.
In this article, we look at how putting the audience first in planning can not only make what you are selling more relevant to your consumer – but also look far beyond the current or past behaviour to predict your customers’ next needs.
Limiting your (advertising) message to, a now-common phrase, over-targeting, causes a potential to miss a huge audience who may not have triggered commerce APIs, or re-targeting parameters or any tech enabled targeting techniques. Taking a step back to truly understand your audience, behaviours, trends, values, preferences and the context to the world or category they hold affinity to gives marketers a much more powerful way to connect.
What are the 4 most powerful consumer data factors we can look at to build a predictive model?
1. AUDIENCE SENTIMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MARKET & CATEGORY
Pinpoint economic and cultural indicators that drive market performance by way of consumer confidence through closely monitoring audiences movements and reactions within specific industries.
GCC consumer sentiment over time.
Understand the drivers for your brand – and your competitors – are known for, and craft your messaging to reflect this enabling brand equity measurement for specific values across different markets.
2. CONSUMER INTENT & TRIGGERS
Where and who do audiences turn to for influence? Understand the format, platform, and people that drive engagement and/or action from audiences that can drive impact.
Consumption preferences by market: GCC
Audience affinities of influence: brand and personal
3. PERSONALITY & BEHAVIOUR
Find audiences with similar personality traits and behaviours to build communities. What values, needs and influences bring consumer groups together? Sentiment and behavioural pattern identification give marketers the power of predictive modelling to ensure brands stay ahead of the consumption curves and remain relevant and purposeful.
The big 5 personality traits
4. DEMOGRAPHIC & LANGUAGE
Understand who and where your consumers are. Segment audiences at the most basic level to identify targeting, language trends and geographic changes by age, sex, living status, family status and professional status. Create compelling and flexible life-stage models to understand your audiences and go next with your brand.
Talk to the D/A team today and find out how you can get access to consumer intelligence to fuel your marketing efforts.
