How to tap high-intent audiences through advertising?

From platform-specific strategy to going beyond video formats, experts at SAMMIE BSMB 2020-21, dissect the relevance of tapping into high-intent audiences in the ever-changing industry.

In another insightful session at AliveNow presents SAMMIE BSMB 2020-21, experts deep-dive into the concept of high-intent audiences and methods of tapping on to them, for brands across categories.

Panel Members

• Moderator: Anjul Tyagi, Head of Customer Success, Quora India
• Speakers: Pankaj Singh Parihar, VP & Head Digital, Godrej Consumer Products Limited, Prasad Pimple, VP – E-Commerce and Digital Marketing, HDFC Life, Gaurav Shitak, VP- Head, Digital Marketing, Sharekhan by BNP, Paribas Kumar, Awanish, Media Head, OPPO, Rahul Jain, Digital Lead, IndWealth.in

Targeting High-Intent Audience

There are multiple platforms through which we can reach high-intent audiences, share the experts. Highlighting how to navigate through the full-funnel marketing in the context, Parihar shares, it is pivotal to be able to tap consumers who are already in the 2^nd or 3^rd Tier of the funnel.

Earlier the focus was majorly on the top of the funnel but with the evolution of high-intent audiences who are showing interest in specific brands and topics across categories, there is all the more reason for brands to focus on targeting this section, he puts forth.

“You need to come up with a perspective and follow thought-leadership in your category to tap on to the 2^nd or 3^rd tier of the funnel. Unless you are doing that, users from the segments might not be interested in your brand”, explains Parihar.

Overall, a combination of strategy and research, followed by perspective is needed to tap on to such audiences, concede the experts.

Brand Safety X Content

Brand safety concerns arise on digital channels where controversial content, sometimes, rules the roost. The experts share that even in such an environment, the brand needs to ensure that its message is viewed in a more relevant and favorable environment.

Pimple explains that as a brand if a controversy can give you publicity and reach, it can take away the trust that the brand might have built over the years. In line with this, there are three types of content around brand safety, he shares:

• When you create your own content – an important aspect is that one cannot please everybody. But what one can ensure is that your content should be in-sync with your target audience and their beliefs.
• UGC content around your brand - as a brand, you can’t do much in this area as here the user is creating the content. But you can prepare a better response through ORM and tools
• Placement of the content – the control of the brand has gone to the consumer-side. A hygiene point is that your brand should not be there where there is offensive content. But brands should be on platforms with high-intent audiences to ensure establishing a connect with individuals who have an intent to learn and know more.

“Such engagement is far better for the brand than controversies”, he highlights.

Adding further, Parihar says, “As a brand owner, you need to be authentic in your communications. If you believe that the communication that you have rolled out is relevant for your consumers and stands for your brand, then own it instead of backtracking it", he asserts.

Platform-specific Strategy & Content Marketing Across Categories

Continuing with the conversation, Tyagi puts the spotlight on the need for platform-specific strategies and the role of content marketing while making an effort to reach out to the significant audience for the brands. To this, Awanish puts forth, “When you re bombarding information, that creates brand fatigue, it becomes irrelevant to the consumers.”

As a brand, one has to be very responsible when they are designing a platform-specific strategy, keeping in mind, the following factors.

• Choose your platforms carefully for advertising
• Audience behavior and their consumption pattern is important
• Creative strategy needs to be in-sync with the consumer and platform

Content Marketing plays a vital role when capturing the high-intent audience on any of the platforms. Affirming on this, Jain highlights that marketers are moving from digital-video-led marketing to content marketing, these days.

In India, one needs more and more information to understand the financial products before investing and planning for financial life. Jain reasons that if a brand already puts the required information on the platter for the customer, then there are high chances of converting them as the final users.

“We should roll out our brand marketing in two phases. One phase will be dedicated to brand and influencer marketing and the other would be focussed on content marketing targeting the users of my category”. This should be followed by checking if the brand is getting an organic jump, followed by the quality of the users or leads, he adds.

In the Fintech category, trust is a major factor. Content marketing can be one of the best tactics for your strategy, says Jain.

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Subject-matter Expertise & Influencer Marketing

A relevant arm of content marketing is the influencer strategy. Shitak reckons that for any such strategies, it is first important that how you define an influencer.

He says, “You need to understand your ecosystem, what story you want to tell and then look for a right partner who can co-create with you instead of just looking into the influencer follower numbers, etc.”

Experts believe that everybody has a story to tell and various platforms can be leveraged for influencer marketing.

Parihar emphasizes, “We call it digital brand advocacy and not just influencer marketing.”

When there is a synergy between the purpose and the opinion-leader, there is intent. That’s when users interact with the brand, he adds.

“For our digital brand advocacy as a part of our strategy, we follow the 1:9:90 approach. It is having one key opinion leader, followed by a group of macro-influencers. This helps your strategy to be more purpose-driven and reach out to more audience”, he adds.

Benefits of Behavioral Targeting

Diving further on tactics to tap into the relevant audiences, Tyagi addresses the pertinent topic of behavioral targeting.

Awanish explains, “Essentially, behavior targeting helps you to tap into an ideal audience, which is deeply strategic and relevant. These are the people who are already primed to listen to you, as a brand.”

Primarily, the benefits of behavioral targeting include:

• It allows you to understand your consumers
• It allows you to understand the need of that consumer.
• This leads to channelizing your resources (marketing efforts) towards innovations

As a way forward, when these concepts get shaken up, brands go back to contextual marketing. Here, platforms like Quora will gain momentum from the phase, concede the experts

Performance marketing for BFSI & Fintech Brands

To tap onto the high-intent audiences, BFSI and Fintech brands often leverage digital platforms for performance marketing which also helps them for end-to-end tracking of the user-journey. Pimple shares that it is also essential for such brands to have top-of-the-funnel awareness along with a focus on the consideration and lower levels of funnel, too.

He highlights the three important aspects that BFSI Brands need to look into for full-funnel marketing:

• Tracking consumers from end-to-end across all platforms
• Integration with the brand's campaign management insights.
• Real-time automation that the platform allows, for nudges to the customers.

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