10 Ways Audience Data Can Help You Reach Consumers During COVID-19

The entire advertising industry is going through an extremely difficult time right now as all advertisers are having to make immediate changes to their current marketing strategies based on rapidly changing information. It is likely that consumers will be spending increased time online over the coming weeks and probably months so with that in mind, here are 10 audience targeting strategies to consider during this period.

1. Use broad audience interest categories to maintain high brand awareness - with no offline, outdoor, experiential brand experiences etc, you need digital channels to keep your brand top of mind. Avoid the urge to ‘go dark’.
2. Use ‘purchased’ and/or ‘owners’ segments to aid your retention efforts - reminding customers of why they purchased from you in the first place and why they should continue to do so now.
3. Explore new demographics such as older age groups who will be forced to go online for many of their needs more than ever before. Test for new audiences.
4. Accept that there might be longer purchase cycles for intent audiences for larger items - use this time to feed them with downloadable educational content to help with swift decision making when the time comes.
   
5. Be ready to act on shorter purchase cycles for essential goods and services - use intent segments to locate and broaden reach to new customers
   
6. Consider custom audiences that can be made exclusive to your brand, if you need to to diversify your strategy to reach a new audience.
7. Brands with a purpose - promote your purpose to audiences that align with similar interests such as fundraising and causes
8. Use the temporary closure of some shops and services to find new potential customers. For example, users who were heavy restaurant goers before, can be targeted with home cooking classes and food products which are easy to prepare.
9. Brands can use B2B specific audiences in order to reach users that are working from home
10. Finally, don’t put campaign planning on hold for the long-term - get campaigns ready to go for when the time is right.

Contact our Audience Specialists for more help on innovative audience targeting in this rapidly changing market. We are here to support you.