Why your audience matters and how to better reach the right people with the right message
Research has the most power when it’s discoverable — a fundamental part of why we’ve championed open access. But boosting audience engagement means a lot more than keeping articles in front of a paywall. In our recent webinar “Unlocking the power of data: strategies for audience engagement,” Atypon experts and our guests broke down why your audience matters and how to better reach the right people with the right message.
What is an audience strategy?
First, we want to address why you should think about your audience at all. If you’re selling ads, your audience means revenue, so growing it across the board should be a key strategic objective. But being able to target, segment, and personalize also matters — it’s expected in a world full of tailored messaging through digital media. For example, using first-party data can save you money on ad spend, list buying, and by improving ROI. Not to mention, with changes to the 3rd-party cookie, the data you collect becomes even more crucial.
Remember, too, that your audience is bigger than your customer base. Some society marketers fall into the trap of looking at their audience as members and customers, but your users should include website and journal visitors, social media followers, and podcast listeners. You want to think about reaching all these people, not only those who exist in your current pool. To get at a good audience strategy, you need to work through these aspects as a holistic approach.
Audience intelligence
Broken down simply, audience intelligence means understanding your audience, not just who they are but how they behave. Publishers sometimes only know 2% of their users even though aggregate data tends to be very good. You might see that people on your site are interested in certain topics and follow set behaviors, but have no idea who they are on an individual level. Technology can bridge this gap, including CONNECT Identity Provider, our integrated single sign-on option.
Having a clearer picture of your site visitors, email subscribers, and social followers also allows you to segment into distinct groups. By helping understand who people are and what they’re doing, you’re able to better personalize their experiences. Audience data can even inform business decisions, if you notice a large group interacting with a piece of content or a specific topic, for instance.
Audience acquisition and engagement
Regardless of your business goals, you want your audience to engage more deeply and more often. That means providing relevant content and effective marketing strategies across your channels. The exact approach will vary based on your objectives but should include audience personas and journeys to understand who’s in your user base. Even without knowing everyone’s name, you can still segment based on institution, region, and behavior, for example. Additionally, try going deeper by implementing any of the following:
- Build relationships through personalized experiences.
- Create interactive content to foster engagement.
- Cultivate a strong community around the brand.
Getting there requires both targeting your existing audience and expanding to find more potential customers. This could include developing entirely new channels, such as a YouTube strategy, or by doubling down on existing ones, by improving your email segmentation maybe. Our new Smart Layout Widget increases personalization across the board by showing users the most relevant content based on characteristics you determine.
Audience conversion
Before you can convert anyone, you must have a good sense of what actions you want audiences to take. Is it submitting to your journal? Becoming a member? Promoting your brand externally? Once you have your data and your audience, you should plan the next steps, which will vary by segment. Recall that making your marketing relevant increases engagement and conversion. It’s important to target appropriately, serve content based on behavior, and know what actions they’re likely to take next.
In order to achieve results, implement clear strategies around testing that will see better conversion rates. You might try out different messaging, segmentation, and calls to action to improve click rates. Finding the right strategy here will help you reach your business goals but also provide a better user experience.
How to improve your audience strategy and drive results
Start with your use cases and business cases first. Organizations have different priorities and financial considerations that will inform these strategies. Then build out your plan with all the relevant pieces by following these steps.
Think about tools, not tool
You’ll never find one single technology to fit all your needs. Instead, build a roadmap across MarTech and data/analytics and be clear about what results you want. Look at where you are and where you hope to go. Understanding how your stack works together and leads up to business cases will allow you to master your existing suite of tools and get a sense for what’s missing.
Consider more than tech
Change is not just about the technology, but the strategies and skills needed to use the tech – most acutely in marketing. Don’t adopt before you’re ready. That could lead to wasting time or budget on a tool that you don’t yet have the talent to manage.
Balance your roadmap with quick wins
While single-customer view is important, it’s a destination (and many use cases can be advanced without it). Think about what you can achieve now and where small gains might help you accomplish bigger goals down the line.
No matter where you are with your audience, there are always improvements to be made. By finding the right partners, you will be able to tackle more of your needs and improve audience strategy, building on prior innovations. Get in touch with our team to explore your audience engagement strategy and see how Atypon can help you reach your users better.