The average U.S. household has 25 connected devices. One of the biggest challenges businesses will face in the year ahead is effectively reaching customers in an ever-expanding media landscape. Consumers have more choices than ever before on where and how to consume media, and advertising on one or two screens is no longer sufficient for expanding a small business’s reach. Instead, companies must adapt their media strategy to the modern multiscreen landscape to increase consumer connections.
This is especially important for local businesses that have seen a decrease in sales during the last 18 months. To boost revenue in 2022, these businesses must go wherever their customers are. In fact, Google data shows that omnichannel marketing strategies can drive 80% higher rates of store visits.
Here are three key steps to help small businesses plan ahead for a strong, multiscreen media strategy for 2022 and beyond.
Understand customer personas
Every company wants to connect with as many people as possible. It's beneficial for small businesses to have their ideal target audience in mind when developing marketing strategies. Small businesses should take the time to understand their customers’ habits, media consumption patterns, locations and lifestyles and develop a buyer persona around those metrics. The more specific one can get, the better; tailoring marketing strategies to suit the target customer can only improve results.
“Once you identify your buyer persona, relevant, authentic messaging is key to greater customer engagement. Make it easy for your audience to understand how your product meets their need, and compel them to connect with your brand,” advised Jordan Beilin, Director of Advanced Advertising at Spectrum Reach.
There are many different ways that small businesses can reach their ideal audience, including audience-based buying. This is when small businesses target their ideal audience by using behavioral, psychographic or lifestyle-based data. Small businesses can then leverage this data to target specific audiences that they believe would be interested in their products and services.
Make it easy for your audience to understand how your product meets their need, and compel them to connect with your brand.
Jordan Beilin, Director of Advanced Advertising, Spectrum Reach
Take an audience-first approach
Here are a few different ways to approach audience-based media buying:
- Purchasing habits. Businesses can target an audience based on recent purchases they’ve made, such as a new home or a certain type of vehicle.
- Personal and lifestyle characteristics. Small businesses can also target their audience based on personal characteristics, such as a job title or industry, age range or interests. TV viewing behaviors also lend themselves to segmentation and allow businesses to identify target audiences, such as viewers who watch the news, sitcoms or reality TV.
- Geography. Geographic-based targeting is simply marketing to an audience based on a consumer’s location. This is especially important for hyperlocal businesses that primarily serve a specific radius or area.
The majority of consumers have many characteristics that will overlap with a small business’s target audience. Multicultural populations are spread throughout the entire country; however, in most markets multicultural populations are concentrated within a few zip codes. This is why it is so essential for an organization to understand who they are marketing toward, as every dollar counts.
“Heat-mapping the geography of your sales is a great place to start. Visualizing the areas and zip codes you need to cover helps inform how much detail you will need to dial in to your behavioral and lifestyle audience targeting,” Beilin said.
Connect with an audience using multiscreen strategies
Advertisers need to be aware of how and where to reach their target audience so they won’t miss an opportunity to engage with them. Multiscreen advertising allows businesses to reach consumers across different media platforms and devices. Once identifying their ideal customer and the geography most important to their business, small business owners can use multiscreen advertising and geographic targeting tactics to reach that audience no matter how or where they consume content.
While linear television (over the air or throughout cable/satellite) is still the primary source of viewership, adding streaming advertising can help boost campaigns and expose them to a new audience. According to Spectrum Reach data,1 adding a linear television component to a streaming-only campaign can increase a business’s reach by up to 363%.
In summary, understanding customer personas, taking an audience-first approach and using a multiscreen strategy to connect with the target audience will result in a strong media plan for 2022.
Finding the right media partner to help execute multiscreen ad campaigns can make all the difference in marketing success. It’s important to find a partner that offers seamless, one-stop solutions for all the platforms and devices to reach, including linear and streaming television solutions. A good partner should also be able to provide privacy-compliant data and insights on the consumers being targeted, thus maximizing advertising dollars.
Spectrum Reach can be that partner for all small businesses that are ready to invest in multiscreen advertising. Spectrum Reach, with Blockgraph and TVSquared, has introduced a new deterministic, cross-platform attribution solution that connects TV and streaming TV ad exposures to digital outcomes. With Spectrum Reach, small businesses can connect effectively and efficiently with their audience.
“We are trusted experts who deliver connections through reach, data and local impact,” said Beilin. “We have unmatched reach and scale potential of nearly 100% in any market. Using our first- and third-party aggregated and de-identified data and insights, we can help inform campaigns so advertisers can spend smarter, by reducing duplications and creating efficiencies.”
Small business owners looking to increase audience reach and drive connections and engagement across different platforms can contact Spectrum Reach to learn how to embrace multiscreen advertising for their business.
1 Source: Spectrum Reach AM Campaign Data. Date - 4th Quarter ‘20. O&O & Partner Affiliates, Spectrum Reach Internal Q3 Campaign Data Analysis.
