A Mix for Everyone to Enjoy
Who doesn’t love eating food and enjoying a good beverage (or for the adults, maybe two beverages)? When it comes to reaching out to that food and beverage enthusiast as well as other consumers, marketers must construct creative approaches. This often means using a diverse media mix that appeals to a wide range of people. By only targeting one or even a couple of media channels, brands eliminate different segments of their target audiences from the start.
Think about how different media channels attract different target audiences, and use that to shape your media mix. Social media, for example, will attract a younger audience, while more traditional media channels will attract a spectrum of gen-xers, Millennials, and a vast majority of baby boomers. Every person, no matter the demographic profile, at least somewhat enjoys food and beverages on a regular basis. So why not take advantage of the many different media channels to broaden your brand’s reach?
Finding the right media mix is one facet of creating a successful marketing campaign. making sure that all of the moving parts function as one unit is another. Why is this important? Well, imagine a car with an engine that doesn’t communicate with the pedals, the brakes or the steering wheel. the engine is completely functional and actually works great, and all of your controls within the car work equally as well, but because they aren’t communicating with each other, the driver of this car could be in for a very bad day.
Think about your campaign as this car. Your success or failure is going to be dictated by how well your media channels communicate with one another. Email should communicate with social. Social should communicate with the web. the web should communicate with mobile. Integrating each moving part in this way will ensure a consistent presence for your message across all fronts and will create a solid foundation for building successful strategies in the future.
The Right Consistency Makes the Strongest Mix
It is extremely important for your integrated campaign to reach all targeted media channels with a cohesive and consistent message. Cohesion and consistency should be fundamental parts of your campaign marketing strategy and should be funneled to all facets of the campaign—from creative to copy to strategy and tactics.
Working consistency into your media mix is no walk in the park. Even the most successful brands’ campaigns fall short when the campaign message or brand message is fragmented and inconsistent. in order to avoid creating a disconnect between your message and your target audience, inject some consistency into that strategy. You will thank me later!
When It’s Okay to Talk and Chew at the Same Time
Eating is a social activity. people love to talk while they eat, and more often than not, the subject of the discussion is often the food or beverage they have in hand. So naturally, social spaces such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and YouTube seem like they’d offer great opportunities for hosting these discussions.
I mean, why not let people get away from the dinner party to talk about their experiences with a broader audience? We’ve all talked about some yummy, interesting or weird food we’ve experienced. through social media, not only can you allow for more conversations about your brand, you also can build loyalty by giving your brand advocates a chance to relate their personal tales to their friends and families. It’s an incredibly efficient way of getting your name out there.
As an example, take a look at the Facebook fan pages for Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Oreo and Skittles. Not only do these brands communicate their messages clearly and effectively, they’re also consistently ranked in the Top 30 for having the most fans on the site.
What does this tell us? people like expressing themselves through the food that they love. So, maybe it’s time to give your favorite foodies the chance to do the same thing by taking advantage of social media.
When developing successful marketing strategies, considering your campaign’s integration, consistency and reach is key. But how can these elements be adjusted to achieve stronger results?
The answer? Tracking. Tracking your campaign results at different intervals provides you with significant feedback to let you enhance your current marketing efforts and optimize for the future.
Optimization and testing are what push good companies to be great companies. In fact, optimizing and tweaking ideas is essentially what has made the evolution of human civilization so spectacular. If Leonardo Da Vinci had settled on his initial drafts and ideas, he wouldn’t have become the genius that we know today. If Sir Isaac Newton wouldn’t have refined his initial findings in mathematics and physics, we may still be trying to get a handle on the fundamentals of gravity.
Optimizing your efforts enables your campaigns to reach as close to perfection as possible. That’s why testing and tracking should be essential tools in your marketing arsenal.
