News Consumption in the New Decade

You’ve got to aim to get your message everywhere for maximum impact, giving your target markets the chance to listen to it, watch it, and read it - whenever they want it.

Ubiquity is a watchword because of the fragmentation of people’s media consumption habits, as in we can no longer count on reaching the masses at least once through several media channels (an exception possibly being the Super Bowl). As Dan Pfeiffer, Obama’s Communications Director, said in an article in the New Yorker regarding the President and the media, “people approach their news consumption the way they approach their iPod: you download the songs you like and listen to them when you want to listen to them,” (and I’d add, where you want as well). By now, we all know the outlets, from Flickr and YouTube, to iTunes, cable and network TV, radio, print outlets and the Internet. And surely there will be more avenues before the decade is over. And each of these outlets requires that the messaging be delivered in its own tone (i.e. entertaining, service-oriented, dialogue, factual).

Obama’s Presidential campaign was masterful at this, but of course, few companies have a large communications staff that Obama had in his campaign reaching out to on a regular basis, so what is one to do with a lesser or limited budget?

Do what good marketers have always done - identify both demographics and psychographics to reach and increase relevance with your target markets. There’s surely to be some trial and error in the process, but that’s to be expected. The good news is that the cost for entry is minimal and progress can be tracked with real-time reporting to gain insight about who’s reading or clicking thru. Modifications can be made from one day to the next, even within 24 hours to maximize your ROI.

By: Karen Weiner Escalera