Where Is Your Target Audience?
Posted by Jessie Johnson on Fri, Oct 15, 2010 @ 12:56 AM
We spend a lot of time talking about efficacy of the media channels used in our advertising and marketing campaigns.
Far more important than the medium, however, is the audience and the amount of time those people spend with the media channels you’re considering for a campaign. To make each impression (online or offline) count in your advertising campaign, start with a few questions to help identify your target audience’s media consumption habits:
- How broad is the reach of a given media channel?
- How much time does the target audience spend with each media channel considered in the mix?
- What percentage of the target audience listens to terrestrial radio? And which format(s)?
- How much of that audience reads the newspaper? Do they read the paper copy, or read it online?
According to a 2009 study, television still reaches the most people per day at 95%, followed by broadcast radio (77%), internet (64%), newspaper (35%), and magazines (27%). For traditional and online media, advertising spend is and continues to be disproportionate to the amount of time US adults spend with each medium, with newspapers (more spend) and internet (more time) showing the biggest gap.
An advertising campaign that uses multiple media channels to target local consumers will be most effective in reaching its intended audience. This allows media buyers to leverage the advantages of each media channel and their unique properties in the overall message delivery strategy.
Different media channels deliver different experiences to different audiences. The success of an advertising campaign ultimately depends on a combination of factors—messaging strategy, media scheduling, creative execution, and audience recall. Efficacy, then, may be measured by factors such as
- Brand awareness
- Memory/recall
- Sentiment/Attitude toward brand
- Intent to purchase
- Purchase
This might be the ability to use emotion or sensory experience to increase recall, or deliver just enough information in just the right place or number of characters to influence the consumer to make that purchase or visit that website.
Understanding how media resonate with the audience through different levels of sensory and emotional engagement helps media buyers leverage the strengths of each advertising channel included in the campaign.
Learn how you can leverage the medium to deliver the message, or download our latest white paper, 3 Tips for Aligning Local Advertising with the Consumer Decision-Making Process.