Media Director at 3fold Communications, an award-winning marketing and advertising agency that develops unignorable creative solutions.
getty
With healthcare systems being overwhelmed, educational institutions facing declining enrollment and county organizations struggling to engage with those that depend on the essential services they provide, the paid media landscape is evolving faster than ever.
Amid these constantly changing circumstances, you’ll need to adapt your paid media strategy. The secret to success? Simplify. Below are some tips and tools to elevate your paid media strategy and better connect with your target audiences in 2022.
1. Research and bring in the experts.
Thoughtful media planning and advertising take time — and they should. Like dating or making a new friend, first impressions go a long way in building trust and long-term relationships. Make your best impression by bringing in diversified experts and key opinion leaders to inform your paid media strategy. Identify biases, challenges and misconceptions about your perceived target audience. Three useful tools to help get you started are:
Google Trends: This is one of the simplest free tools and resources to see what’s trending online. (Hint: Chances are it’s Kim Kardashian, Kanye or Taylor Swift.) This Google freebie also allows you to see how often a search term or similar terms occur over a period of time or within identified geotargets. Understanding how your audience discovers and looks for you, if at all, is crucial.
MORE FOR YOU
A social media management platform: These tools let you see the social media conversations, content and hashtags that surround the topics you’re tracking, trying to participate in or actively creating. While there are many tools to choose from, in my experience, Sprout Social provides bang for your buck if you’re committed to understanding and engaging with your community on social media. Other popular options include Hootsuite and Falcon.io.
An influencer marketing tool: Choose a platform that connects you with micro- and macro-influencers and key opinion leaders in your space. Some platforms, like Captiv8, allow you to contract, coordinate and execute small- or large-scale influencer campaigns. But, these types of tools come at a price. As big brands and small organizations continue to compete for share-of-voice and attention, influencers are cutting through the noise as trusted messengers to your audience to communicate dire healthcare, educational and county messages. Finding the right voice to communicate your message is arguably the most important step once you’ve defined your message. Other popular options include Upfluence and IZEA.
2. Get to know your audience.
An effective paid media strategy looks at the everyday micromoments within the communities you serve. Hope, happiness, struggles and strengths are important to understand because they provide a full and emotive picture of your audiences’ experiences. This also helps inform how and when you can best reach and engage audiences in the moments that matter most to them. Get started with these three resources:
First-party data: Capturing consumer information such as names, emails and addresses as well as other personally identifiable information is an example of first-party data. Your paid media strategy can benefit from using this data to target consumers or distribute community messages more effectively. The world is slowly getting up to speed on the importance of consumer privacy, protection and compliance, so it’s important to ensure your target audiences trust the security of their information with you as you gather it and that they are given appropriate CCPA, GDPR, HIPAA or ADA-compliant experiences.
Focus groups: Some of the strongest paid media strategies are so successful because the organization took the time to listen and learn from their prospective audiences. Ask tough and thorough questions. Challenge your biases and talk through your fallacies. Seek to understand your consumer or community — don’t just pretend. Modern audiences value authenticity, so take the initiative to hear their needs. By starting with listening, you’re in the driver’s seat of creating memorable touchpoints for your end users.
Data USA: A great freebie by Deloitte, Data USA is a comprehensive website and visualization engine of public U.S. Government data. Using integrated data analytics and visualization, industries can identify trends in hard-to-reach communities, declining occupations or opportunities for business development. For data junkies who love good visualization, this one is for you.
3. Choose the right microphone for your message.
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that for healthcare, education and most businesses to survive in the future global economy, they need a digital media presence. An effective media plan will know the media landscape and its emerging policies, platforms and your audience’s content consumption habits. It’s critical you understand which media channels your target audience uses throughout their day, week or five years from now. They’re streaming TV, listening to podcasts and scrolling TikTok today. Tomorrow, they could be in the metaverse, building NFTs or starting the future of Web3. Begin identifying channels with these sources:
Insider Intelligence: Insider Intelligence (you’re probably familiar with its eMarketer arm) is a trusted platform that empowers decision-makers to better navigate and understand the digital, traditional and emerging media markets within their industry and among their communities. Your media strategy should be built around your audience’s media consumption habits. Where are their attention, engagement and time spent? This will help you establish the best content to connect with them. This tool has both free and paid options available for deeper insights.
Nielsen and Comscore: Both Nielsen and Comscore are industry-recognized audience segmentation and media planning solutions that can provide demographic, behavioral and lifestyle insights. The debate over which is more useful depends on the type of media you’re hoping to measure and the audience data you’re looking to identify. For example, while Nielsen’s TV ratings are based on a panel of sample homes, Comscore focuses on big data from cable boxes and smart TVs.
With new Covid-19 variants emerging, and continued uncertainty on what the “new normal” will be for businesses and communities in 2022, you want your paid media strategies to be prepared for the inevitable pause and pivot. Having the proper paid media tools, resources and partners in place will ensure your message is seen, heard and relevant within the communities and audiences you serve, no matter what new variant and its consequences come our way.
Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Go to Source
Author: Christie Pierce, Forbes Councils Member
