Who are you talking to? This is the first question a MarCom team should ask before starting a promotional or communicational campaign. Defining the exact audience is key to success.
There is no sense in communicating a technical differentiator to non-technical people, or using social media to speak to customers when they don’t use social media or they are not followers of our company.
Knowing the audience is an outcome of an effective Key Account Management. Identifying actual and potential key customers, identifying who is who in their decision process, knowing their communication preferences and the media they followed. These are key elements that should be considered in any campaign.
Let’s analyze one typical example. Social media became one of the preferred communication channels for big B2B companies. But is it effective when customers are not connected with you? Is it an effective channel if farmers are not using social media? Who are you talking to?
I like to audit the effectiveness of social media campaign by analyzing the reactions of the posts. And it is very common to find out that most of the comments and reactions come from the employees of the same company who have made these posts. If the post was searching for internal engagement, congratulations! You hit the target. If the post was searching for customer engagement, you can still be satisfied after deep diving into the contacts of the employees who have reacted. Customers may be engaging with your employees. But if this is not the case, you might have to rethink the social media strategy.
Knowing the audience is key to a successful campaign. If MarCom is not involved in commercial discussions where customers are analyzed, it is very difficult to hit the target.