How broadcasters and media sales houses can improve monetization strategies by improving audience understanding

Audiences are the most important aspect of an effective marketing strategy, and media sales houses and broadcasters can unlock competitive advantages by enhancing audience understanding. These five tips will get you started.

More choices are a good thing for audiences. But, for broadcasters, publishers, and media sales houses, the explosion of entertainment options creates a fiercely competitive and fragmented environment in which they need to consolidate audiences and lobby for more ad revenue.

Marketers realize that reaching the right audience is the ultimate goal in today’s omnichannel world, regardless of what that audience is watching, reading, or listening to. Like marketers, media sales houses must shift from a channel or platform focus to an audience-centric approach. This requires adopting advanced, data-driven strategies to maximize audience delivery and consolidation and new technologies and tools to sell those audiences to advertisers.

Let’s consider five ways media sales houses can unlock next-level audiences to improve monetization strategies.

1. Smash your first-party data advantage
Google’s decision to phase out third-party cookies (albeit not quite as quickly as originally thought) evoked panic in the advertising world. But, really, it is just one of many reasons why marketers need privacy-friendly targeting and measurement alternatives. From tightening privacy laws, to Apple’s decision to do away with IDFA (Identity for Advertisers), the message is clear: first-party data, collected with consent about an organization’s customers, matters now more than ever. Broadcasters and media sales houses must make the most of user-level behavior data and lean into tools for analyzing this data to unlock valuable insights for advertisers.

2. Augment data with research
The better you define your audience, the more effectively you can reach niche consumers across your media network – without cookies – using contextual targeting or first-party data. As audience behaviors are ever-changing, many media organizations are investing in their own surveys and segmentation techniques to better understand their target groups. By doing this, they can provide more effective recommendations to advertisers that significantly improve campaign performance.

3. Investigate advanced segmentation techniques
Research is even more powerful when you combine it with additional data. For example, you can model audience data on lifestyles, beliefs, and interests with media consumption to improve targeting and decision-making. But, many organizations fail to combine data in meaningful ways because they do not have the expertise to support all of the market research and data sources they have access to. Media sales houses should consider a data agnostic solution provider to explore the integration of various data sets, including behavioral data, syndicated surveys, proprietary research, and various measurement platforms.

4. Amplify all your data sources
Across verticals and the advertising landscape, organizations are “leaving insights on the table.” Why? They may not know strategies for gleaning more from data or lack the tools and in-house skills to access and analyze information. Media sales houses have an opportunity to differentiate their offerings by using data integration strategies and modeling techniques to consolidate audiences across multiple platforms. Telmar’s data solutions use several statistical techniques that are proven to unlock new insights and increase revenue opportunities.

5. Perfect your storytelling techniques
Content providers are racing to create compelling stories that audiences cannot get enough of. Consider the needs and mindset of your audience (in this case, the prospective advertiser), and weave observations and insights into compelling stories, coupled with actionable campaigns. Data visualization is a powerful technique for improving sales collateral, so consider tools for strengthening and streamlining data visualization. Most media sales houses and broadcasters can cut the time they spend on data visualization by 50% using dashboards equipped with templates and automated visualization tools.

By using data modeling, statistical segmentation techniques, and tools for data visualization, you can better identify and understand your audience and, in turn, create more strategic opportunities for advertisers.

Want to learn how to differentiate your media company’s offerings with a data-driven approach? Download our eGuide, “How broadcasters and media sales houses can achieve more success” today
And to find out how Telmar has helped other broadcasters achieve success, download this short use case today.