On 23 October 2019, Modern Marketing attended a Smart Targeting Seminar hosted by Spark Media at the Bryanston Country Club, where Dr Carl Driesener – Senior Marketing Scientist from The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute – showcased that research achieves better results with targeting.
Driesener elaborated on components that contribute to brand growth:
– Building mental availability: making the brand easy to think of.
– Building physical availability: making the brand easy to find and buy.
– Distinctive assets: having recognisable and consistent branding.
Five steps for smarter targeting
1. Think inclusion, rather than exclusion: keep as many in as possible (do not exclude anyone in your targeting).
2. Make your target market descriptions evidence-based: know all your customers (target buyers from any and everywhere that your brand can be found).
3. Avoid the heavy buyer trap: story chasing history (you cannot get people who are already buying to buy more, get the light buyers).
4. Buy media on numbers rather than indices: focus on reaching more of your broad target market (rather hit 2 buyers once than hitting 1 buyer twice).
5. Do not sacrifice reach for engagement: reach more, target less, as it is difficult to recover from not reaching people.
Misconceptions about targeting:
– There’s no need to target heavy brand buyers: don’t ignore them but don’t solely focus on them because it is hard to get ‘heavies’ to buy more than they already do.
– Don’t make the decision for your customers – advertise to everyone, even the ones that the brand isn’t ‘suitable’ for.
– Check stereotypes: do not base your marketing on a certain gender, race or sexual preference.
– Think about all customers, including category buyers (likely to buy) not just existing buyers.
– It is the many ‘light’ buyers that most need reminders.
