Do you prefer brand awareness or performance? What is your preferred marketing channel? In this series, we get to know past Insider Summit attendees and ask about their
preferences.
Melissa Sierra, EVP,
Media Integration, USIM:
Unlimited Budget or Perfect Targeting: Perfect targeting. Most
marketers underestimate how much waste in reaching their ideal target is. They cut budgets, restrain from testing, etc. but if they went one layer deeper to look under the hood of their buys, they
would find much room for efficiency and opportunity to scale the existing budget.
Performance or
Brand: Brand. Some underestimate how hard it is to build a brand and constantly evolve it: should orchestrate moments, anticipate consumer needs, and make the experience
hyper-personalized while still holding onto legacy models. Not everyone is ready to pull the trigger and take action and we have seen brands struggle with the bottom-line forcing outcomes without
first determining the positioning, ICP, values and the why.
Always Test or Stick to What
Works: Testing is invaluable, and we would always recommend reserving at least 10% of the budget for it. Having a growth mindset ensures you are expansive with your strategy in a
measured way. A chance to see around blind spots. Knowing what works is great but missing the qualitative elements that impact the quantitative to stay within numbers just for numbers sake can be
detrimental to incrementality and evolution.
Reach Your Audience Via Podcasts or
Gaming: Podcasts provide a unique way to establish authority and trust in a specific endemic environment. You have audiences who are listening to learn more about a focused topic
from people they trust to guide, shape, and inform how they conduct their lives: from parenting, to shopping, to personal growth, etc. Podcasts represent a white space that is currently undervalued by
brands where there is relatively low competition.
Audience Driven or Full Funnel
Marketing: This is a tough one as an "or" statement. I would say in order to properly execute full funnel you need to do extensive work around your audience and be consumer
centric. Full-funnel marketing provides you with a distribution strategy to stack the chips in areas where your audience engages, researches, buys, and discovers your brand. This is successful to pull
off in an organic and genuine way if you don't know your audience intimately and simply execute full funnel to say you have an always on approach.
Attention or Reach: Most want reach, but I would argue attention is important. If you want consumers to move beyond the scroll and stop,
interact, and purchase your product you need attention. It's a numbers game so reach is critical, but if the audience had no intention of ever buying from you and/or visiting your location, that reach
maybe wasted given your specific KPIs. Attention also provides context to how consumers are interacting on platforms and thereby affording you an opportunity to give better insight around how to fine
tune your messaging. Reach is sometimes a safe space to adopt a spray and pray mentality.
Always-On Campaigns
or Tentpole Moments: Ideally an always on campaign is essential I have found. Leaning into tentpole moments will help you capitalize on popular cultural moments for visibility but
having at least 1-2 channels always on helps you observe seasonal patterns, account for business volatility and the right SOV to be in market for staying top of mind against your competitors. When a
campaign stops and starts, the platforms are going through a learning mode again and if the budget isn't sizable enough to impact enough people that's a critical pitfall and opportunity cost many
challenger brands can't afford.
If you’re interested in submitting content for future editions, please reach out to our Managing Editor, Barbie
Romero at Barbie@MediaPost.com.