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Do you really know your target audience?

pkktam · January 19, 2023 ·

Not knowing enough about your customers is the most common problem we see when working with clients to refine their digital marketing strategy.

A deep understanding of your customers is critical in the highly segmented and personalized nature of digital media.

Knowing their ages and gender is one thing, but do you understand their needs, values, lifestyles, behavior, et cetera?

What is a persona?

A target persona is a fictitious description of a customer profile informed by data. It describes their demographics, purchasing motivation, purchase behaviors, media behavior, lifestyle interest, and values.  

It is a “best-educated guess” informed by keyword analysis, social listening, customer survey, audience analytics from your paid and owned media, and good old anecdotal life experience. 

It is the difference between knowing your customer as “high income, 35 plus male” and “high income, 35 plus male who works in the creative industry with liberal values, who is an avid online shopper, who is really into hip-hop, and treasures mobility in his professional life”.

It is like comparing Lady Gaga and Adele: both are female singers in their 30s, but you can surely appreciate their personas are very different, right?

In digital marketing, you need to understand your customer at a deeper level beyond basic demographics in order to create targeted content that they find useful, packaged with a personality that they can resonate with, thus driving marketing results.

Persona-based messaging increases relevance

In today’s information-overloaded digital world, we need to cut through the noise by being the most relevant, not just the loudest. We must be relevant to our audience’s needs and lifestyle at the right time and place.  

Suppose you sell a baby pram, and your target customers are young parents. Instead of thinking of “young parents” as a homogeneous group, it can be broken down into different personas, like sporty parents, parents who travel, first-time parents, etc, each with a different appreciation of your product. The opportunity here is to message your brand and product benefits in a way that is tailored to the specific needs and language of each persona, making each of them feel like you are speaking specifically to them, not just any parents, thus increasing relevance.

Persona informs paid media targeting

To effectively acquire more engagement with your brand with paid media, you must have your interest-targeting right, which means finding an interest-targeting profile that is not so niche the audience reach is too small and not too broad that the interest profile is too generic.

You do this by telling an ad platform as much as you can about your target persona. The more descriptive you are, the more input the algorithm has to work with to find your ideal audience. This is where a well-thought-out persona is critical.

Persona shapes your content strategy

If you are at a loss to come up with content to fill your content calendar, look at your persona’s purchase motivation for inspiration. What problems are they trying to solve with a purchase? How are they evaluating options? What questions are they asking? Compelling content that your personas will find valuable stems from answering these questions.

Getting everyone on the same page

If you gather all the stakeholders of your business and ask them who the target personas are for your brand, you will most likely be surprised by the different answers you get. By aligning everyone’s understanding of your target customers with a well-defined set of personas, the customer-facing aspect of your brand will come across consistently in a way that is relevant to and resonates with your customers.

A clear understanding of your target personas is critical in creating a digitally savvy brand that customers identify with, and avoids wasting time and resources in digital marketing that does not bring results.

For more digital marketing strategy, click here for 4 Digital Marketing Strategy Foundations You Cannot Miss.

4 Digital Marketing Strategy Foundations You Cannot Miss

pkktam · November 10, 2022 ·

From our years of experience (20+ years, OMG!) advising companies big and small on their digital marketing strategy, there are common “holes” we see that render their strategy incomplete and ineffective.

So ask yourself these questions to self-diagnose your digital marketing strategy. If your answer is “no” to any of them, your digital marketing strategy might need some revising.

1. Do you know your target personas? (Yes/No)

“A buyer persona is an imaginary character based on research and data that represents your ideal buyer or target audience” [1]. It describes your target customers covering their functional, emotional, and behavioral needs in the buyer’s journey. It is far more descriptive than a demographic description of a target “segment”, and it informs your content, ad-targeting, and how you should spend your media dollar. Doing digital marketing without understanding your target customers at the Persona level is like star gazing without an understanding of the constellation: you’ll waste a lot of effort looking around but not finding what you want and start complaining that the telescope doesn’t work. 

2. Do you understand your Buyer’s Journey? (Yes/No)

The marketing funnel, decision funnel, conversion funnel, buyer’s journey, whatever you want to call it, is the journey that a customer will go through as they embark on finding a solution to a problem they have, such as finding a pair of waterproof hiking shoes, or the best video conferencing solution for the boardroom. From not knowing your brand is the solution they are looking for to finally buying your service/product, buyers seek content and information that gets more specific as they learn more about the available options. Understanding this journey is tremendously helpful in generating content ideas for your brand for different stages of the funnel.

3. Do you know what your most relevant keywords are? (Yes/No)

By keywords, we mean the words that people use to describe you. Storytell your brand with terms that your target customers use allows your brand to be more easily discovered and understood. Qipao or cheongsam? Course or class? Online banking or eBanking? Keyword analysis will give you the answer. It also gives you a wealth of customer insights along the buyer’s journey. From the related keywords, you’ll discover trending topics (e.g., STEM learning toys for 5 years old), product preferences (e.g., dark red lipstick), purchase behavior (e.g., where to buy), and competitive landscape (e.g., iPhone 14 vs. Samsung Galaxy S22). The more you use the frequently used keywords in your category, the higher the chance customers will discover you via paid search, SEO, and even social media.

4. Are you articulating your offering in terms of “customer benefits”?  (Yes/No)

Product feature describes your product, often in language that means nothing to your customers, such as “Super Retina XDR Display”. In contrast, customer benefit describes how your customer can benefit from your product feature, such as “Mind-blowing detail”. Speaking in customer benefit makes for effective communications as your audiences have less to think about why they need your product/service.

In a nutshell, if you understand your target personas, their needs along the buyer’s journey, and their choice of words and language, you can effectively tell them how they can benefit from your offerings. Simply put, that’s marketing communications.

Like in life, a good friend understands you, your needs and speaks your language. Be a good friend to your customers.

Reference:

1. Certified Digital Marketing Professional, Module 2: Content Marketing. https://www.bonfiremedia.hk/syllabus

4 Questions to Ask Before Working with a Digital Marketing Consultant

pkktam · October 3, 2016 ·

Having been established since 2009, 3 Screens has seen many clients from different backgrounds. With over seven years of dealing with brands of various industries and sizes, our team has started noticing a pattern in the clients we most enjoy working with.

It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from or what you did (excuse the Backstreet Boys reference), we’ve found that the best clients are the ones who can confidently say “YES!” to the following questions.

[Read more…] about 4 Questions to Ask Before Working with a Digital Marketing Consultant

Do you really know your target audience?

pkktam · April 19, 2016 ·

In today’s digital age, knowing only the demographic of your target audience is borderline irresponsible.

A s part of our engagement process with any new clients, we do what we call a Digital Audit, an exercise in which we take a closer look at the client’s target audience, competitions, brand positioning, business objectives, in order to come up with a holistic digital marketing strategy that aligns all the stars. Standard protocol.

One thing we notice time and again is that most clients don’t really know who they are selling to.

By knowing I don’t mean basic demographics like age, gender and income. I mean reeeeally knowing them: their hobbies, their values & believes, their concerns, and what makes them happy.

Why do we care? Because in today’s digital age, knowing only the demographic of your target audience is borderline irresponsible!

[Read more…] about Do you really know your target audience?

We’ve reached 100,000 Facebook fans for Silverlit and here is how we did it.

pkktam · March 3, 2016 ·

Facebook has been a bit naughty this past year, what’s with the profile page facelifts, near non-existent organic reach, “network connection class” and countless news feed algorithm changes. All of these updates can result in a messy soup of confusion and leave you wondering how you are going to grow your page.

Despite these changes we are proud to announce that we are about to break 100,000 Facebook fans with our client Silverlit Toys, here is our Digital Advisor to explain.

[Read more…] about We’ve reached 100,000 Facebook fans for Silverlit and here is how we did it.

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