The Weeknd - Sponsored By... Sesame Street?!

I have a guilty pleasure.

It might come as a surprise to many of you reading this. You see, I am the mother of two girls, a loving wife, I don't swear, and maintain the PG-rating on my podcast and all things associated with my image.

But I still have this guilty pleasure.

Ready for it?

When I workout I love listening to The Weeknd.

His tunes - Starboy and Can't Feel My Face to be specific - get me amped up for pumping iron. The songs make me feel like I'm a beast: his songs help me to breakthrough the limits I normally place on myself while working out.

Recently, something completely unexpected happened. As I was looking in the mirror at my local gym, lifting weights and listening to The Weeknd's playlist on Pandora, I heard a sound that completely changed the mood of my usual workout.

"Sunny days, keeping the clouds away..." sings a familiar voice from a fuzzy red puppet.

The "beast-mode" playlist I had created on Pandora for pumping iron was oddly interrupted by an advertisement by Sesame Street.

Pandora and Sesame Street's advertisers accurately identified that I am a mother of two young girls, and that I would probably be interested in taking my kiddos to Sesame Street Live. It's the right message to the right person, without a doubt.

However, they completely missed the mark with this advertisement.

You see, marketing boils down to 3 critical components.

1. The right person...
2. The right message...
3. The right time...

If you're only focusing on 1 or 2 of these key components - your well-intentioned marketing message is completely wasted.

The Right Person

Do you know your target market?

No, really.

Do you know them intimately well?

What kind of cars do they drive? How many kids do they have? What is their annual income?

If you didn't already know this, you can access invaluable data about your target market using 2 powerful techniques on social media.

1. Facebook's audience insights - this tool allows you to get incredibly detailed information about your existing audience, email list, customer page, or page likes. You can even learn about their spending habits and household structure.
2. Social listening. This is one of my favorite methods of data collection - a more hands on approach to understanding your target market intimately well. It does take a manual approach, but also allows your marketing department to understand the exact language and cultural norms of your target market.

The Right Message

Once you have a clear understanding of your target market, you are better able to create the right message that will resonate with them.

There are a few key tips to creating the right messaging, and most companies don't get them right. Using these 3 tips will make sure that your message is spot-on for your market!

1. Be sure to highlight the benefits - not the features. Rather than listing all of the latest components of your product or service, discuss the ways it will improve the lives of your users.
2. Know your unique value proposition - and weave it into your messaging. What makes your offerings better than your competition? Why would your market want to choose you? It's possible you have the best results for your clients, or maybe your ingredients are better than the competition. Clearly explain why your market benefits from choosing to work with your company.
3. Please, please, please. Don't be boring. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of ads playing daily that fail to grab attention, which is just a waste of marketing dollars. Catch attention by making them laugh, making them cry, making them think. Just don't make them tune you out by being boring.

The Right Time

The final component of an effective marketing campaign is to ensure that you are reaching your target market at the right time.

While I would be interested in Sesame Street Live while late night browsing Facebook - my kids would love the event - I'm not even remotely interested in considering it while engaging in beast-mode, listening to The Weeknd.

Consider WHEN your market is most likely to be interested in hearing about your offerings. Is it when they're hunkered down at home for the evening? Or is it while they're traveling on vacation?

New Facebook advertising options allow us to get hyper-targeted in the ways that we reach our market - so we don't reach them at the wrong time.

In fact, did you know that you can use ads that focus on desktop platforms rather than while your market is roaming the supermarket on their mobile phone?

While Sesame Street Live missed the mark by reaching me during my iron-pumping evening session of The Weeknd, they did reach the right person with the right message. To be fair, they got me thinking.

And now that I'm at home browsing Facebook and the internet on my desktop - I think I'll get a few tickets for Sesame Street Live. It's the right time.

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Contact Rachel Pedersen regarding marketing strategies or to learn more about social media marketing and Facebook advertising