Finding The Right Audience With Social Analysis

The World Cup dominated the news this summer, even in publications that don’t typically cover sporting events. Despite the early U.S. elimination, American consumers and brands stayed involved in the action from their introduction to Cristiano Ronaldo to Luis Suarez’s bite to Germany’s impressive win. More importantly for marketers, the Cup provided evidence that real-time marketing has come a long way since Oreo’s legendary Super Bowl 2013 Blackout tweet.

Regardless of World Cup sponsorship status, brands leveraged the excitement in marketing activities, some more successfully than others. Examples include the anticipated Nike Risk Everything campaign, the commercial from Cup newbie Beats by Dre’s Game Before the Game campaign and the inevitable Coca-Cola v. Pepsi battle.

To reach this consumer group, JCPenney decided to leverage the World Cup excitement. More Hispanic women watch the World Cup than non-Hispanic men in the U.S. Knowing this, JCPenney developed a social media and mobile real-time marketing campaign. It used text message offers, World Cup apparel offered on a mobile app and a bracket featuring spirited fashion looks on its Latino Facebook page. In terms of social media, the marketing team created a hashtag campaign in which fans could retweet to win free “kicks.” Each of the retailer’s #JCPFanaticas free kick tweets garnered an average of 500 retweets and 70 favorites. This campaign also serves as the official kick-off to JCPenney’s marketing focus on the Hispanic customer.

This campaign had all the elements of a smart social media campaign. It included timely, relevant content combined with a clear promotion and call-to-action. And guess what? It worked! According to data from Networked Insights, a marketing analytics firm, brand awareness increased 49% among Latinas in the U.S. during the World Cup. In the same period, brand awareness only increased 29% for Coca-Cola — a World Cup sponsor with far more brand recognition to begin with.

More surprising, the JCPenney campaign actually resonated more strongly with women at large than with the target audience. While the change in campaign awareness for JCPenney grew by 49% among U.S. Hispanic women, it grew by more than double at 116% for all female consumers in the U.S. This is not to say that the campaign was unsuccessful, but it demonstrates how hard it can be to create a campaign that resonates exclusively with a particular audience.

Marketers know all too well that identifying the perfect mix of messaging, channels and creative to reach niche audiences is a tough feat. Opting for broader audiences is easier but leaves great room for error. The more niche marketers get, the more difficult the task becomes — but this also yields a greater reward.

Advances in social media analytics makes finding and speaking with niche audiences easier. Although many brands use social listening platforms to uncover brand mentions and shares, these tools leave much to be desired. Social analytics takes this one step further by helping marketers find new audiences, discover consumer interests and measure campaign success by analyzing conversations on the social web.

Find New Audiences

Finding the right audience for a brand is no longer the impossible task it once was. For example, many brands would be surprised to learn that adults adopted products designed for children. Brands can now predict and leverage a shift, whether dramatic or slight. Consumers tell you how they use or feel about products and brands all over the Internet. When marketers view those conversations in aggregate, they gain a good idea of their real customer, which informs their brand messaging.

For example, we could assume that cities with a strong local soccer team would have been most interested in this summer’s World Cup, but the truth may surprise us. A Networked Insights analysis revealed that Washington, D.C. topped the list in World Cup anticipation across the U.S. Their residents also over-indexed for obvious sites like ESPN and less obvious ones like Just Jared. In both cases, social insights can help brands locate audiences, both online and in the real world.

Discover Consumer Interests

Once brands know who their audiences are, they need to find common interests. Knowing what else the target audience likes improves communication between brands and consumers. This information helps marketers develop content strategy, messaging and targeting to execute more effective campaigns. The best way to do this is to look outside of the brand’s product category to discover their brand’s top affinities. The association between a brand and something unrelated to it that consumers like creates a positive brand affiliation.

Revisiting the World Cup audience reveals that their interests are diverse and extend beyond soccer. World Cup fans are more interested in U.S. football, documentaries, international travel and luxury cars than the general consumer. Some of these may seem obvious affiliations, but others are surprising. Regardless, marketers who incorporate these other interests into their marketing activities will perform well.

Measure Campaign Success

Marketers constantly measure their success by ROI — except for social media. There, they rely on likes, comments and shares rather than the efforts’ impact on sales or the purchase potential of a given like or comment.

That doesn’t have to be the case. By fully understanding customers’ interests and demographics, brands can determine purchase intent and therefore give meaning to social conversations. Conversations in context paint an overall picture of brand health and inform existing KPIs.

For example, we tracked purchase intent amongst World Cup fans during the tournament. Across brands, purchase intent decreased 14% when compared to pre-tournament levels. Budweiser, on the other hand, experienced a jump in brand awareness conversations by more than 112% during the same period.

Without context, Budweiser might not have understood the impact of its “Man of the Match” campaign or official sponsorship. Though sales may not spike right away, brands can see consumer awareness and intent by analyzing social conversations.

Purchase intent is perhaps the most powerful metric that social analysis can provide brands. It helps determine the success of a campaign and predict future sales. While JCPenney moved the needle with both Latinas and a general female audience in terms of brand awareness, it is unclear yet if #JCPFanaticas did much to affect sales.

Rick Miller is Vice President of Data and Insights at Networked Insights, an analytics company that uses online conversations to help marketers make better decisions.