GG’s Andrew Jarrell offers guidance to brands and organizations looking to successfully engage with their audience and stand out in a crowded market.
We live in a time of overstimulation. People used to get their news from a few legacy national and local publications. Now they can turn to hundreds of niche online publications, their favorite influencers, or social media broadly. According to a 2021 Pew Research study, nearly 50% of U.S. adults said that they now receive their news “often” or “sometimes” from social media. The same goes for advertising. Companies once relied mostly on traditional methods: television and print. Today, customers expect their favorite brands to be on Tik Tok, hosting brand activations, and more. When you are expected to be everywhere at once, the question becomes, can I be anywhere at all? Companies are struggling to effectively and consistently reach their audience. But the organizations that are able to leverage this increase in customer touchpoints as an opportunity, not an obstacle, will be most successful.
Focus. Focus. Focus.
While the growth in the number of media outlets can be daunting, it also provides a pathway to be more targeted in your outreach. Trade publications now cater to demographics as specific as appraisers, suburban moms, software developers, and more. If you are clear on who you want to reach, you can take advantage of these hyper-focused outlets to engage your audience with a highly relevant and specific message. The same principle applies to social media. Companies can now participate in online communities that are intended for a subgroup of people. They can also target influencers who reach a niche audience. This ability to hyper target is an opportunity for new, more substantive engagement.
Start with Your Audience
Companies can also succeed in this landscape by building their brands with the audience in mind from the start. By establishing a specific mission, they can take advantage of online communities that cater to an audience who that mission will resonate with. This is especially important as the cost to reach and acquire consumers has risen dramatically. A study from SimplictyDX found that customer acquisition costs increased 222% between 2013 and 2022. Companies that are intentional in structuring their brand around a mission can naturally attract a built-in audience without having to spend significantly on advertising. Good American, the clothing brand founded by Khloe Kardashian, did this quite well by building their entire brand around body positivity and inclusivity. In doing so, they were able to attract a diverse community from the start, which likely would have been difficult and expensive to acquire otherwise.
In a fractured world where there are more touch points than ever, the organizations that can find a way to be more targeted, not less, will thrive.
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