Know Your Audience
A marketing tip from Big Red Oak
Marketing is a tricky taskmaster: It can feel like you’re constantly fighting for your footing as you juggle priorities, balance budgets, choose channels, analyze results. And it’s back to the drawing board if those results don’t measure up to your expectations.
Successful campaigns drive revenue by increasing brand awareness and attracting new business. But they can flounder for varying reasons. The messaging may lack strength. The design might be inconsistent. Perhaps more strategic planning is needed. The approach could be outdated or the content quality not compelling. But, in many cases, the message misses the mark because it doesn’t reach or engage the right audience.
Inspire Action by Building Trust
One of the goals of marketing and communications is to help build relationships with your audience and persuade them to listen to and act on your message. A strong relationship creates trust, and once you have trust and credibility, your audience becomes more receptive. This is pretty straightforward, but how one gets there is not.
Collecting data on demographics and behaviours is a starting point. Turning that data into insights is the next step. Understanding your audience's pain points gives you an opportunity to help them, and this is where you can create advocacy. These activities all build and bolster trust.
As a marketing and communications agency, we apply this thinking to ourselves and to our clients, too. We get to know their industry and their audiences to build a strategic plan that makes the connections and meets their needs. Our work with the nuclear industry is a good example.
A Case Study: Bruce Power
The release of Ontario’s Pathways to Decarbonization Report highlighted the need for nuclear power to play a large role in driving the clean energy push. With that in mind, Bruce Power presented Big Red Oak with the challenge of creating both a public- and industry/government-facing communications piece to help drive education and advocacy among the public and showcase to policymakers and industry leaders how Bruce Power was poised to help lead the charge in net zero. The project came to life as both a short broadcast production for the general public and a long-form video for presentation to the Toronto Regional Board of Trade.
The consumer-facing video aimed to appeal to the public by demonstrating the benefits of nuclear power and tying the supply of clean energy to a better future for our children. We piggybacked off this video to create a longer, more detailed video to clearly outline Bruce Power’s current initiatives and upcoming plans to provide more energy to the province. Government and policymakers are also parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles; and the videos connect them emotionally with the benefits of nuclear power, backing up those assertions with the actions Bruce Power has taken, is taking and will take … and highlighting why, as an energy provider, they are leaders in the fight against climate change.
A deep dive into who your audience is, what they care about, and how you can make a difference in their lives is the key to the emotional connectivity that lands the message.
Check out these videos and see for yourself!
Project 2030 Broadcast Commercial