Relationship with your audience?
Marketing Managers, new digital age is here, and still we are all sometimes in between these worlds of digital and physical. Do we really buy products online, or we still want to feel, touch and smell before purchase? As a digital marketer, I have been researching this topic and if you think about strategies and building your brand, my article should provide answer to this question.
Buying in stores or online?
Sandy Skrovan, writes a great article “Why many shoppers go to stores before buying online”. She is asking the same question as I did. In this article she mentions that they did a couple of installments, and in the fourth they explored the connection between digital and physical browsing and buying habits. They asked 1,248 consumers how often they visit brick-and-mortar stores to see, touch and feel products before ordering them online.
Maybe you have idea what was the result? As Sandy says, the notion of ‘ see in store, buy online’ has been confirmed. What they found too is that the older the shopper, the more likely they are to visit stores first to see products. A much higher percentage of younger shoppers are more comfortable buying items online sight unseen.
Relationship with your audience
Regarding to this question, the article that caught my attention was written by Stirling Murray. In Brands, Exclusives, Insight he is asking “How do you keep pace with your target market in a world of absolute fluidity and continuous hyper-change?“
What Stiriling is asking is how to keep a track of online buying when it’s changing so fast. In this year’s annual Beauty Symposium the theme was FACE, PLACE and SPACE. Many experts explored these issues, shared a way of looking at how to give a brand sense of solidity when everything is moving and changing around us.
Explanation that he gave of PLACE factor is interesting to my topic. It is crucial that we know our target market. As Stiriling is saying in this article “It’s not about your brand, it’s about your audience.” He gives us a great example: “If you are in the male grooming market, you should be aware men no longer shop where you expected them to. They buy online, at their barbers, or in specialist retailers, very rarely making their own purchase in-store. It’s about your brand being in the right PLACE—if it’s not, all of your marketing and communication effort is wasted.”
3 ideas you should consider in social media advertising strategies
Based on my review of these two articles I mentioned, I have developed three ideas you should consider when planning social media advertising strategies and making relationship with your audience:
- Know your target market – It is important to know if your target market is for example – male grooming market, men in their 50s, or women in 30s.
- Listen to your audience – While listening, you will know what they want. Is it 3D technologies that will help them feel the product, or promotion of your product in store where they can actually see and touch it?
- Give them what they ask for – When you know your target market you should listen what they want. When you know what they want, you should give it to them. Was it 3D technology, educational video on how to buy online, insider information about product or something else? They will notice you care and there is relationship that you are looking for.
Even though we are in digital age, you should always consider who your audience is. If they like to feel, smell and touch product before buying, you should consider having some of it in a physical store or develop some 3D virtual reality, so it feels more real while watching it. Who is your target market is crucial. Explore how you can teach them to use digital or to trust quality of your products.