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More than impressions: Create bigger media moments through deeper connections
A successful marketing plan has many elements, and careful audience segmentation planning is essential. However, conventional media plans aren't always successful in reaching audiences of color or underserved groups since they're often structured in ways that prioritize those with more resources, more education, and more inherent privilege. "A traditional approach to media can sometimes have roadblocks between our best efforts and the end audience — particularly if the audience you are trying to reach is made up of people of color," says Ashley Baken, Senior Media Manager at KW2.
The need for efficiency and profit-driven goals has shaped many turnkey media approaches. However, these media plans can miss the mark when a campaign's objectives demand a different ROI — one more focused on deeply connecting with specific audiences and creating behavior change that's not about a purchase path.
Instead, our innovative approach can achieve successful connections with key audiences. The goal of behavior change campaigns is to build trust. Trust with sectors of the audience that need information and resources. And trust between organizations and their marketing partners, finding ways to support connections with people in new and innovative ways.
A broad media buy will undoubtedly get more eyeballs on a message. But it's essential to think with a more nuanced segmentation approach if your organization is seeking a specific sub-audience with a particular message — such as when a public health organization is offering life stage-specific information. Casting a wide net via broad reach does not guarantee the deep connection needed to truly change behavior, which is where careful segmentation comes into play.
Segmentation isn't just about distilling broad reach or the most spend-smart outlets — it's also about finding the most trusted, authentic information sources for the audiences you want to reach. And that can mean partnering with smaller, harder-to-identify outlets that, in the end, resonate more authentically with the audiences you want to reach.
Baken breaks down the math: "We must get past the obsession with impressions. Yes, a particular website may have served you a million impressions vs. a hundred thousand on another site. But what if you're specifically looking for Black Americans in a particular geographic area? If that audience only makes up 10% of the larger website — but 100% of these individuals know, trust, and turn to the smaller website — you're connecting more deeply by showing up on the site they resonate with. You also remove that 90% waste of a larger impression buy."
-Ashley Baken | Senior Media Manager at KW2
The path to creating bigger opportunities with a smaller audience subset can include a few extra steps. Evaluating new, different media partners includes comparing their cost efficiencies and performance metrics — and often larger media vendors can promise better rates. Putting in the effort to understand how much of those more affordable impressions or clicks are actually from your audience is key. A large impression dump on websites that don't connect directly and meaningfully with your audience can waste your media dollars.
One way to move forward more confidently: Actively seek out media vendors and outlets that are minority-owned and/or operated. These partners can look at different behavioral and interest spaces and understand audience segments beyond traditional demographics. This can alleviate concerns about cost efficiency because you get substantial impact — and results — by connecting more directly to the audiences you seek.
It's an approach that KW2 has employed for many campaigns, with Baken and her team rolling up their sleeves and doing the groundwork to identify the publications, websites, and minority-owned vendors that connect directly and authentically with underrepresented audiences. For example, in the programmatic space, deals are pre-set with bundles of minority-owned/operated websites grouped differently per different audience groups. KW2 has built relationships with minority-owned or operated outlets entrenched in their communities and has systems and relationships to work efficiently with them.
Baken advises asking for details that don't always appear in proposals from new media partners: "Ask about their reader and user base, look at audience composition, and consider how all of this adds up to less waste in your budget. The important thing is finding placements where audiences trust the source and feel represented — and once you find these, the success rate over time makes up for the initial challenges.
-Ashley Baken | Senior Media Manager at KW2
Partnering with media outlets known, trusted, and deeply rooted in their communities can also offer cultural context insights that impact campaign success. For example, online media placements can include block lists that prevent ads from appearing next to content that may not be suitable for a campaign. However, these block lists might include words that have a second meaning within a particular community. Baken notes, "We learned that when a company would avoid violence or divisive news about crime, certain words would block ad content from being displayed — but when "slay" is on a block list, you're inherently discriminating against and losing a moment with communities that use it often and positively, like in Black and LGBTQIA+ vernacular." The partnerships KW2 has help us with our blind spots and, continually update our point of view and help us navigate trends in language.
Minority-owned media outlets suffer from the same challenges and disparities as minority-owned businesses in other industries, where new and small business owners of color can face less access to capital, smaller business networks, and difficulties gaining traction in the industry. "Since they may be starting with less," commented Baken, "the perception can be that less will be achieved with them."
However, the possible gains in terms of audience understanding and clarity in nuance are invaluable. Smaller media outlets might not have as many people operationally or may not have the resources for the 24/7 access that you get used to with larger media outlets. However, these are easily overcome with simple adjustments like building more time into your schedule or looking for a vendor group. With patience, planning, and investing in these websites and publications by placing ads, we are a part of helping them grow – and building bigger, better resources for ourselves along the way.
In addition to leveraging relationships with media organizations led by people of color to meet marketing goals, partnering with minority-owned companies can also advance an organization's DEI objectives. Clients often think first about reaching a goal of connecting with a certain percentage of underserved audiences or building their engagement with those audiences. However, those media dollars can support these websites and publications to fulfill higher-level organizational commitments.
And if a media outlet is minority-owned but can be aimed at even greater, broader audiences? "Then we're moving further ahead on all fronts."