Demographic Research is Everything—Almost.
Posted on 24 October 2011 - 07:55 AM by Navigation Advertising | (0) Comments
In our town of over 100k people and county of over 200k we are experiencing a dramatically changing demographic landscape. Therefore, our advertising, marketing and public relations strategies are completely dependent on the service, product, brand, audience and client goals more than ever.
In our town (Murfreesboro, TN) of over 100k people and county (Rutherford, TN) of over 200k we are experiencing a dramatically changing demographic landscape. Therefore, our advertising, marketing and public relations strategies are completely dependent on the service, product, brand, audience and client goals more than ever. Gone are the days when a company could take out a 1/4 page ad in the local newspaper, a couple of billboards and a few tv commercials and see a rise in sales. The competition from other advertisers over a more diverse and informed audience has caused each and every advertising campaign to be more complicated, researched and savvy. For instance…recently we launched several direct mail campaigns for Allied Waste Services for Old Hickory, Mt. Juliet, LaVergne and Smyrna. Each city has a different demographic makeup which required us to develop three separate messages for three differently timed mailings. Not only did we believe each message appealed specifically to it’s audience, but using this approach also allowed us to gauge the results from each campaign. Our client was especially pleased because their call center and sales force was able to track results geographically so they at they could be more efficient in providing their services.
There are a few basics we adhere to when doing demographic research. 1.) Determine if they audience is financially qualified to become a customer of the client’s service or product we are promoting. 2.) Determine if the desired audience will be attentive, i.e., is it summer vacation season or are these folks back in their regular schedule of work and school so that they will be more inclined to view and react to our clients campaign. 3.) What form(s) of advertising will be most effective for the desired audience? We never recommend throwing all of our “advertising eggs” in one basket, therefore all of our clients are counseled to make sure they have both the budget and the infrastructure to conduct a comprehensive and integrated advertising, marketing and public relations campaign.
We use three different services for our demographic research as well as conducting a thorough interview with our clients about past advertising successes and failures to determine the most objective and accurate campaign information so that we can zero in on the audience. It’s often said the most expensive advertising is advertising that isn’t done, but we also believe an unnecessary expense can be poor research and wasted efforts. From loyalty and rewards campaigns to existing customer bases and brand development campaigns to new audiences—we do the research needed to make our campaigns as effective as possible.