Asking, “What’s your a/s/l?” might have worked in the chatrooms of the late 90’s, but not today!
Imagine you are the marketing manager for Sony Computer Entertainment, and you’re rolling out campaigns to publicize the release of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. As you adjust your distribution strategy for promotional content and ads, you use demographic information to narrow your sights. An inexperienced marketer might immediately assume that males between the ages of 18 and 34 make up the majority of the target audience. They’d set up their campaigns according to this demographic information, and they’d be shocked when content performance completely underwhelmed them. Why? Because only about 31% of mobile searchers for video games are men between the ages of 18 and 34 (Think With Google). The inexperienced marketer just missed 71% of their potential market by leading with demographics and failing to factor in the search device.
Here’s the deal: demographics are superficial. They lump people into arbitrary groups that fail to tell the whole story about who a prospect is and how your product or service can help them.
Demographics still have a place at the target marketing table, but marketers need to downplay this data. Marketing technology is evolving in crazy powerful ways. And if you’re still hung up on socioeconomic details like age and gender, you’re chasing a white whale. Programmatic targeting capabilities enable marketers to reach buyers in real-time based on deeper factors like interest, browsing history, and purchase history. These factors boil down to your most important marketing motivator — intent.
Intent is more important than identity.
Demographics don’t address what we really need to know — why someone is searching and for what they’re searching. In most cases, intent relates to a specific problem. Your job as a marketer is to find the right people with the right problems, and convince them that your product or service is the right solution. Here’s the kicker — you need to provide them the best solution at the exact moment they are searching for answers.
If you know your audience member’s intent, you can meet them in the moment.
How many times have you had an immediate need for information and turned to your smartphone for answers? For me — it’s at least a handful of times per day. We call this phenomenon a micro-moment; the most opportune time for a brand to “bump into” a consumer. If you don’t understand your prospect’s intent, you’ll never realize micro-moments or have the ability to leverage them.
Think With Google reported that
“Marketers who rely only on demographics to reach consumers risk missing more than 70% of potential mobile shoppers.”
Tips to Leverage Moments of Intent
- Do your market research! Dig beyond demographic information; scour your campaign histories and use your marketing software to its fullest potential. Use your newfound insight to inform future video marketing campaigns.
- Be available. That means existing where your audience is most likely to search — Google and YouTube. Here’s a blog on video SEO to help inform your strategy. Hint, hint, video receives special treatment over every other type of content.
- Use Google Trends, a handy little tool that allows you to search through Google’s data for trending search terms.
- Create video content that’s useful to your audience members. Once your audience members find you - be what they need in that moment. Creating useful content that appeals to your customer in each stage in the buyer’s journey will increase the likelihood that your product or service will be their solution.
Google research discovered that
“51% of smartphone users have purchased from a company/brand other than the one they intended to” based on the quality and relevance of the content provided to them.”
- As you embark on your mission to be useful, focus on the problem, not the product or service. What is the problem? Why is it a problem? How does your brand resolve the problem? Ideal video campaigns to achieve this mission include:
- How-to videos
- Product demonstration videos
- Customer testimonial videos
Ready for another serving of video marketing advice? Don’t miss this article: 7 Reasons Your Video Marketing Campaign Failed.
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