Health-conscious adults
A recent Prospectiv 2007 Pharmaceutical Marketing Consumer Preference Index (CPI) poll reveals that for most consumers (75 percent), the cure for what ails them can be found online. In fact, the internet was overwhelmingly their most trusted and reliable resource for researching ailment and drug information, beating out broadcast media and magazines by a large margin.
Similarly, 2006 Prospectiv Health & Fitness CPI results showed that 73 percent of consumers want to see more general health-focused information online.
To reach consumers with expressed interest in their brand, marketers of health, beauty and wellness products and services should use a multi-channel online approach that includes:
- Targeted health-specific web properties. Websites such as Healthier.com and WebMD that promote healthy living by providing health news and tips, recipes and relevant beauty, fitness and pharmaceutical offers are an ideal way to reach this demographic.
- Interactive polls, quizzes and calculators are other great ways to reach this audience. For instance, quizzes and polls that test consumers' knowledge on which exercise burns more calories or what food is higher in fat are both fun and educational. In addition, health conscious individuals are often interested in online calculators, like ones that quickly give guidance on their optimal weight, or measure their Body Mass Index.
Teens
Forward-thinking marketers seeking to build long-term customer acquisition strategies need to start looking at the teen set. This group has grown up with computers and the internet in their homes and schools. As they grow, they become more and more tech-savvy, conducting most of their personal and academic functions online: watching online video, blogging, sharing photos and music, participating in web chats, message boards and online gaming. In fact, according to a recent "Internet and Multimedia 2007" report, by Edison Media and Arbitron, 39 percent of this group prefers the internet over TV.
- We all know that MySpace and Facebook dominate the teenage space; however, many niche sites have effectively used polls and trivia to engage teenage web surfers very effectively.
- Capitalize on teens' tech-savvy abilities and social networking interests. For instance, holding a contest where teens create and submit their own online video ads for your product can be a fun and engaging way for them to interact with your brand. And, using winners' ads as a marketing tool can have added benefits since teens are most influenced by their peers.
Whatever your method, and wherever you target, finding that right customer is 90 percent of the battle and will pay big dividends on both your up-front customer acquisition costs and your back-end conversion numbers.
Jere Doyle is president & CEO of Prospectiv, a provider of online customer acquisition solutions. Read full bio.