Transformational, market-creating growth is hard enough to find. One thing is certain though - in these fast-moving times, it won’t be found in the same places it once was. Be warned - it’s going to get uncomfortable.
It’s been said so many times it’s a cliché - that our times are changing so fast it’s hard to keep up. Like all clichés though, it hides a deeper truth.
Growth in these times will not come from following a template, or from a fixed game-plan. If it was as straightforward as following Byron and Binet to the letter, we’d all be doing it.
To unlock growth amid uncertainty involves not just following the laws of marketing science, but deliberately breaking the rules that you or your business may consider sacrosanct.
Finding new customers involves reaching new audiences to fill the funnel, to find those spaces where your brand has not been before. To do that, your targeting – and so, your media - must change. When that happens, everything changes.
Media isn’t a transactional exchange. It can affect not just your business outcomes but the structure and working practices of your organisation.
A number of businesses we partner with have been on this journey with us, and it has changed how they work, how we work with them, and ultimately to some great business results.
What we’ve learned is that there are three areas to investigate, any one of which can change the way you work, and deliver transformational outcomes.
Find Unfamiliar Consumers
The easiest mistake a marketer can make is to assume that they know exactly who their audience is, and that they all act the same. The wealth of data available about your sales, or from your digital assets, or from media delivery, can all reveal some surprising and underserved pockets of audience.
Diligent analysis of data should not just record or report on progress, but also reveal audience groups – new geographies, new behaviours, new demographics – that should be incorporated into your overall reach profile.
Integrate With Unexpected Cultural Properties
Just because it’s been done before, it doesn’t mean it’s the only thing to do. Flagship sponsorships, major TV integrations, or large-scale digital experiences are important for scale, but they are likely to be talking to the same group of people. Niche or unfamiliar territories – when based on sound audience data – can offer you growth opportunities in less cluttered or competitive places.
Make Use Of Untapped Context
Your brand may have always lived in one particular context – for example around sports, or fashion, or music – but that doesn’t mean it has to stay put. The best marketing executions often comes from initial conversations that use the phrase ‘but that’s not what we do’. The history of your brand isn’t always the future of it – staying put can also mean standing still.
What This Means For Marketers, Publishers, and Agencies
The smart marketer will not just seek out opportunities themselves using their own data, but will partner with agencies and media owners who will propose them. Just as it is lazy work to simply rehash what has gone before, it is lazy work to only propose what the customer wants to see. Those organisations that look for, brief out, and welcome potentially uncomfortable solutions to familiar business problems will be the ones that discover growth where their competition does not.
These are challenging times, to be certain. However, it is a time to be brave, a time to mix curiosity with rigour, a time to put sound data behind your media, and to put your money where your growth is.
It’s time to get uncomfortable.
Co-written by Adele Burke, Client Partner and Andy Mulrenan, Client Partner, MediaCom.
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