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Drowning out the noise with niche marketing

Tessa Reed
By Tessa Reed, Journalist
Johannesburg, 16 Aug 2012

With the spread of digital channels, people are no longer consuming mainstream media alone. Instead, they are starting to consume media that is relevant to their interests. For this reason, marketers need to target niche groups, instead of broadcasting their messages to the masses, or targeting LSMs.

This is according to Scott Gray, head of strategy and planning at Quirk, a digital marketing agency.

Speaking at the ITWeb Social Media Summit on Wednesday, Gray stressed the importance for marketers to recognise the digital networks people are creating, and communicate with interest or niche groups on their chosen platforms. “People and networks are becoming more powerful conduits through which brand messages can travel,” said Gray.

To illustrate how niche groups can be accessed, Gray used the example of dedicated online forums and communities, such as Sealine, a community of anglers and boaters in SA. He pointed out that communities like Sealine give marketers access to people with specific interests. He also suggested that these communities are sometimes more social than networks like Facebook.

According to Gray, if brands want to communicate successfully in the digital age, they also need to tailor their messages to niche groups. The first step, he says, is identifying groups that are relevant to a company's brand. After that, companies should access these groups on channels they already use, such as Sealine.

Traditionally, marketers would broadcast their messages on platforms that only allowed for one-directional dialogue, but this has changed with the advent of digital media, says Gray.

He explained that, with digital media channels, the dialogue has become omni-directional - it is between brands and consumers, as well as people talking to other people.

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