Some businesses want to access the huge general market of which we are all a part. But a lot of us operate with much smaller sections of the general population. We target niche markets. Today I’m going to write about how we can target specific niches within the general market. I’m also going to look at why video is so useful for targeting specific parts of the population.
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How Do We Find Our Niche?
As we get to the end of 2016 we can look back in a tumultuous year. One of the most interesting things I noticed this year was the influence of social media on very important democratic processes on both sides of the Atlantic. You may think I’m about to tell you that Facebook and Twitter were able to win over many voters to the winning side. Actually I’m not, because that is not the case. The decision-making algorithms used by social media sites are now so good that they are able to show us what we are interested in and leave out things that we are not interested in. The downside of this is that we can exist a kind of online echo chamber. We express our opinions in cyberspace and we hear back only those opinions that agree with ours.
That meant that very many voters never heard an opinion that dissented from their own. That meant that the influence of social media was limited. Social media acted to entrench and reinforce existing opinions. It did not open or contribute to the debate. This is bad for the state of our democracy and also for the quality of our national debates. However, it very powerfully displays the ability of social media to provide us with information that interests us. So that power when it comes down to it is all about targeting specific individuals with content the algorithms believe they want to see.
Using Social Media
As marketers we can use the targeting power of social media sites to get our videos in front of the right people. It is often, but only half jokingly said, that if you know someone well enough you can use Facebook targeting to make an advert that appears on only their newsfeed. The truth is that you could target everybody who is similar to the person you are looking for. By using age, income and location data you can get a pretty good fix on just about anyone. If you add to that known related interests you can really hone in on your target audience. Once again I find myself returning to the marketers’ mantra. Know Thy Customers. Knowing your customers lets you make the most of targeting algorithms.
Your business depends on your knowledge of your customers.If you don’t have it, you need to get it. If you do have it, use it. But in order to use it effectively you must have an advert that will appeal your your targeted customers. That means making an advert that will catch their attention and intrigue them enough to make them watch.
Making A Niche Video
Catering to a niche audience is a game we are all going to have to learn to play. The trouble is that targeting a niche can all too easily turn into pandering to stereotypes. It’s easy enough for us to imagine what a well-off twenty-something DINKY couple wants to see in an advert, but how do we know? If you are part of such a couple you have an insight, but how do you know that all of the similar couples want to see the same thing as you? You Don’t.
There is quite a bit of genuine scholarly research into data mining with regard top targeted marketing. The problem is that this research is of a specialist statistical nature and unless you have a degree in statistics it’s going to be tricky to follow. Another problem you will face is that companies that have analytical data on targeted marketing guard it like gold even though it’s more valuable than that.
There are two solutions to our problem.
First: Find an expert marketing company and pay them to use their data. Get them to work with creatives and construct your video marketing. This will be expensive.
Second: Find an experienced film maker who has worked extensively in video marketing. Use your knowledge of your customers to help them make a video that will target your audience. What you are effectively doing here, is using your and your filmmakers experience as a kind of a blind data pool. You can’t see all of the specific pieces of data that are guiding you but you can use the over-arching data trends. This is what experience is. That’s why it’s valuable. It’s also more prone to error that hard data sets. Why? Because we all have our own biases and we fit data to reinforce them and ignore data that contradicts them.
Conclusion: It comes down to cost. Either you need expensive but reliable data or you need an experienced video marketer. In a final word of caution I’d just like to point out that a good video marketer is one that is able to put aside their own biases. They will also have a good sense of how markets and individuals work and make judgments. Most importantly they will have a sense of style and creativity that will get your message across.
