Conal Byrne, CEO iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group.
Early this year, I went in-depth on how marketers can win American consumers by incorporating a few key insights from our New American Consumer study into their practices—like staying away from chasing hot trends and instead investing in the types of content consumers already love.
In round two of the study, New American Consumer 2.0 (NAC2.0) released this past September at iHeartMedia’s AudioCon in partnership With Malcolm Gladwell, we found that there is a continued disconnect between consumers and marketers, with nearly half of Americans (fully 44%) feeling “ignored” by advertisers, likely the result of understandable but very impactful human biases and misconceptions in the marketing industry overall.
We decided to dig deeper into these metrics and, for further insight, focused specifically on how the data plays out with small-business owners (SBOs). What motivates them? What matters to them? And how does that inform the best way for marketers to reach them?
Methodologies really matter for research studies like these, so we commissioned Critical Mass Media to conduct a small-business owner new American consumer study, which featured 500 small-business owners, a good national sample, looking at men/women aged 18 to 54 who run businesses with less than $20 million in annual revenue.
Surprisingly (or maybe not), we learned that most small-business owners often look more like consumers than they do typical marketers when it comes to their values, beliefs and spending habits, resulting in a similar disconnect in how marketers understand and talk to these small-business owners.
Let’s first agree that this is a meaningful issue: These SBOs drive a massive part of our country’s economic engine—yet, simply put, the marketers who are employed to either help them grow or to actually message them with marketing often don’t share these business owners’ culture, values or motivations.
Here are three takeaways that could help marketers better reach both consumers and small-business owners.
Team up with real influencers whom consumers trust.
It’s not shocking that, like consumers, small-business owners trust their friends and family most. But I’m guessing some marketers may be surprised to learn that a small-business owner’s favorite live radio host comes next on the list of whom they trust most. In contrast, less than a third of small-business owners said they trust social media influencers, a kind of marketing investment that continues to explode year over year.
In fact, there’s a large gap between SBOs’ positive perception of local broadcast media talent and their lukewarm feelings toward social media influencers: According to the research, 74% of small-business owners think it’s “cool” to advertise on the radio with their favorite on-air hosts, while 36% think it’s “cringe” to use TikTok influencers to promote their business.
There’s a quick lesson to learn here: Go for real influence. Small-business owners trust on-air hosts because they live and work in their communities. In fact, 80% of listeners feel audio hosts, across podcast and broadcast, are part of that circle of trust—the most elusive, most powerful thing in a marketer’s toolkit (and while there are misconceptions about radio’s continued reach these days, bear in mind that broadcast radio still accounts for the majority of audio listening: Per Edison, AM/FM radio is the number one most listened to ad-supported audio for every age group and in every location in the U.S.)
So, incorporating the influence and trust that broadcast radio and podcast hosts bring into an advertising campaign could be an easy win for marketers.
Elevate your targeting to show up where it matters.
The New American Consumer 2.0 study showed that while marketers continue to ramp hyper-personalization in their messaging and targeting, consumers are creeped out by it—with 68% of consumers hating (a word you rarely see in research responses) being trailed by targeted ads. SBOs felt the same: Two-thirds of SBOs agree they, too, are creeped out by hyper-targeting and how ads “follow” them around the internet.
The fix? A blend. Marketers should balance targeting with investment in the consumer’s passion points to avoid the creep factor and to better reach the audiences they need—with trust, context and real influence.
Know your consumers’ mindsets and show up where they are.
One of the more remarkable data points our research exposed was related to the deep-seated values that drive consumers every day: SBOs, like consumers, place twice the emphasis marketers do on religion and law and order (despite both groups notably agreeing on the primary values of family, health and safety).
What about regular habits and routines? In this vein, small-business owners ranked lottery tickets, hunting/fishing and attending church as leading “cool” factors, which clearly aligns with today’s consumers, according to NAC 2.0. (Interestingly, purchasing lottery tickets fell under “cringe-worthy” to marketers—exactly the types of personal perceptions that can inadvertently shape a marketing strategy.)
How about marketers’ definition of a “big purchase” as compared to the average consumer? According to NAC 2.0, the consideration of and path toward a purchase is much longer for consumers than marketers—and their thresholds are starkly different.
Consumers make purchase decisions after seeking approval, researching and saving, over weeks or even months, for purchases of $100. Marketers can make purchases—even those exceeding $1,000—without permission from others in a matter of hours or days. How can such a difference not adversely affect a marketer’s work unless it’s recognized and put in check?
A critical part of our role as marketers is to understand our own biases and push past them. That means understanding our consumers’ values and showing up where they spend their time, even if it may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable for us. That is how we start to bridge this gap—and do better work.
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This post was originally published on here
