Narrowcasting: Solid Gold

Which audience is more valuable to you?
A) The larger one that ignores or casually notices your content?
B) The smaller one that is happily engaging with and consuming your content?

If you selected A, you should report to a broadcast-advertising-and-SEO-propaganda-deprogramming center immediately.

Reaching the right audience

Of course you want to reach the largest audience possible. And of course there is a time and a place for broadcasting your message. But a vital counterpoint to broadcasting is narrowcasting — reaching your niche markets.

Narrowcasting is niche

Niche marketing has never been more important. The concept has been around forever. It’s what makes cable TV work. It’s what makes trade publications work.

The content in these channels is specific for their target audience. For example, there’s the Cartoon Network for kids and those who still try to be, Registered Rep for registered financial planners.

Broadcasting vs. narrowcasting

Broadcasting tries to send a message to everyone, their grandmother, and their newborn. Narrowcasting speaks directly to Nora, the 31-year-old, single, health-conscious, city-dwelling account executive who loves Facebook and her iPhone.

In the television world, channels like the Food Network and the NFL network are narrowcasting successfully. But there are only so many TV channels available.

Infinite possibilities

The possibilities online, however, are infinite. And online audiences segment themselves down to a micro-level far beyond what any other medium is capable of.  Name a topic, no matter how seemingly obtuse, and there is bound to be a blog dedicated to it.  A blog with a valuable audience.

Digital profiles are the key to narrowcasting

To maximize the effectiveness of narrowcasting, Tippingpoint Labs takes your traditional demographics and target audience and examines them down to a micro-level. The analysis results in data, and from the sorted data we create digital profiles (or online identities) such as Nora.

Digital profiles are buyer personas. They amalgamate and personalize a set of traits, online behaviors, and consumption habits into a fictitious yet real type of person. Watch the video above to learn more about our process.

These profiles define the narrowcasting audience and then we create content in their voice, emulating the types of content we already know these folks consume.

This focused content gets consumers’ attention and engages them. It also attracts those blogs and websites that already have this audience, encouraging them to incorporate our content, aggregating a clients’ marketing reach.

Turn it to gold

Through aggregated reach, consumers themselves can transmute great narrowcasted content into marketing gold, with a potential reach even broader than traditional broadcasting.

The trick isn’t alchemy. It’s narrowcasting.

Takeaway

Reach out to more valuable audiences by narrowcasting your valuable content.

My questions to you

Do you belong to a group that is targeted by narrowcasting? Do you appreciate content that is targeted and pertinent to you tastes? Are you interested in developing digital profiles?

About the author

Jim Cosco -

Jim Cosco founded Tippingpoint Labs in 2002 in an effort to pursue the creation and distribution of high-quality content for the purposes of marketing and advertising. Jim’s experience as an executive producer, producer, director, and writer for television programming ranging from local public affairs and national news to reality television, enables him to create compelling stories designed to trigger powerful, emotional responses from his audience. No matter the medium, Jim’s passion for story-telling remains the common thread in all of his projects and is always the founding principle in driving his team to deliver high-quality, relevant content at every turn.

Jim relies heavily on his journalistic routes to create transparent, honest, and open content that helps build trust and nurtures meaningful brand relationships over the long term.

Since the early nineties Jim has devised and executed projects for clients like MTV, Fox News Channel, ABC, Putnam Investments, and Tufts University.  He has directed television shows and independent features, written screenplays and television treatments, and created content for marketing campaigns and product launches.